
(fcs_Jl2J3 
Book J 




a 

i 
a 






THE 



AMERICAS ENCYCLOPEDIA 



OF 



6°/' 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL, 



COMPRISING 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY: 

THE 

BIOGRAPHY OF EMINENT MEN 

OF EUROPE AND AMERICA, 






LIVES OF DISTINGUISHED TRAVELERS. 



Illustrated with over 100 Engravings. 



BY THOMAS H. PRESCOTT, A. M. 

Wi'fCiam O. Jz 



COLUMBUS: 

PUBLISHED AND SOLD EXCLUSIVELY BY S UB S OR I PT ION , 

BY J & H. MILLER. 
1857. 



31 v& 

.B5 



int. r.-.l According I I -■ ;, i tbc v ' ;ir I856,l>y the 

OHIO STATE JOURNAL COMPANY, 
In the Clerk's Office of Ihfl District Court «>f the I'nii for the Southern 

Dittriet of Ohio. 



I'kiMLn m OSQOOD AXB lVu.i> 

n..i si) n H. Bxhicsi 

COI.' '10. 



P Tt K F A C E. 



0ns of the most useful directions fur facilitating the study of 
history, is to begin with authors who present a compendium, or 
genera] view of the whole Bubjed of history, and, afterward 
apply i" the study of any particular history with w hi. h a more 
thorough acquaintance Lb desired. The Historical Department 
of this work has been compiled with a view to furnishing Buch a 
compendium. It covers the whole ground of Ancient History, 
including China, India. Egypt, Arabia, Syria, the Phoenicians, 
Jew-. Assyrians, Babylonians, Lydiai a, M dee and Persians, 
together with G ind Rome, down through the dark 

to the dawn of modern civilization. It also eml the his- 

tory of the leading nations of modern BSurope, and of the United 
States of America. 

Wisdom is the great end of history. It is designed to supply 
the w;int of experience; and though it does not enforce it.- in- 
structions with the same authority, yet it furnishes g iter 
variety of lessons than it is possible for experience to afford in 
the longest life. Its object is to enlarge our views of the human 
character, and to enable us to form a more correct judgment of 
human afl'airs. It must not) therefore, be a tale, calculated 
merely to please and addressed to the fancy. Gravity and dig- 
nity are essential characteristics of history. Robertson and 
Bancroft may be named as model historians in these particulars. 
No light ornaments should be employed — no flippancy of style, 
and no quaintness of wit; but the writer should sustain the 



PREFACE. 



character of a wise man, writing for the instruction of posterity; 
one who has studied to inform himself well, who has pondered 
his subject with care, and addresses himself to our judgment 
rather than to our imagination. At the same time, historical 
writing is by no means inconsistent with ornamented and spir- 
ited narration, as witness Macaulay's popular History of Eng- 
land. On the contrary, it admits of much high ornament and 
elegance ; but the ornaments must be consistent with dignity. 
Industry is, also, a very essential quality in an accurate his 
torian. 

As history is conversant with great and memorable actions, 
a historian should always keep posterity in view, and relate 
nothing but what may be of some account to future ages. 
Those who descend to trivial matters, beneath the dignity of his- 
tory, should be deemed journalists rather than historians. As it 
is the province of a historian to acquaint us with facts, he should 
give a narration or description not only of the facts, or actions 
themselves, but likewise of such things as are necessarily con- 
nected with them ; such as the characters of persons, the cir- 
cumstances of time and place, the views and designs of the 
principal actors, and the issue and event of the actions which he 
describes. The drawing of characters is one of the most splen- 
did, as it is one of the most difficult, ornaments of historical com- 
position ; for characters are generally considered as professed 
exhibitions of fine writing ; and a historian who seeks to shine 
in them, is often in danger of carrying refinement to excess, 
from a desire of appearing very profound and penetrating. 
Among the improvements that have of late years been intro- 
duced into historical composition, is the attention that is now 
given to laws, customs, commerce, religion, literature, and every 
thing else that tends to exhibit the genius and spirit of nations. 
Historians are now expected to exhibit manners, as well as facts 
and events. Voltaire was the first to introduce this improvement, 
and Allison, Macaulay, and others, have adopted it. 

The first and lowest use of history is, that it agreeably amuses 



PREFACE. 



the imagination, and interests the passions ; and in this view of 
it, it far surpasses all works of fiction, which require a variety 
of embellishments to excite and interest the passions, while the 
mere thought that we are listening to the voice of truth, serves 
to keep the attention awake through many dry and ill-digested 
narrations of facts. The next and higher use of history is, to 
improve the understanding and strengthen the judgment, and 
thus to fit us for entering upon the duties of life with advan- 
tage. It presents us with the same objects which occur to 
us in the business of life, and affords similar exercise to our 
thoughts ; so that it may be called anticipated experience. It 
is, therefore, of great importance, not only to the advance- 
ment of political knowledge, but to that of knowledge in gen- 
eral ; because the most exalted understanding is merely a power 
of drawing conclusions and forming maxims of conduct from 
known facts and experiments, of which necessary materials of 
knowledge the mind itself is wholly barren, and with which it 
must be furnished by experience. By improving the understand- 
ing history frees the mind from many foolish prejudices that tend 
to mislead it. Such are those prejudices of a national kind, that 
have induced an unreasonable partiality for our own country, 
merely as our own country, and as unreasonable a repugnance to 
foreign nations and foreign religions, which nothing but en- 
larged views resulting from history can cure. It likewise tends 
to remove those prejudices that may have been entertained in 
favor of ancient or modern times, by giving a just view of the 
advantages and disadvantages of mankind in all ages. To a 
citizen of the United States, one of the great advantages result- 
ing from the study of history is, that so far from producing 
an indifference to his own country, it disposes him to be satis- 
fied with his own situation, and renders him, from rational convic- 
tion, and not from blind prejudice, a more zealous friend to the 
interests of his country, and to its free institutions. It is from 
history, chiefly, that improvements are made in the science of 
government ; and this science is one of primary importance. 



Vi PREFACE. 

Another advantage is, that it tends to strengthen sentiments 
of virtue, by displaying the motives and actions of truly 
great men, and those of a contrary character, — thus inspiring a 
taste for real greatness and solid glory. 

The second department of our work has been devoted to 
Biography, — a species of history more entertaining, and in 
many respects equally useful, with general history. It represents 
great men more distinctly, unincumbered with a crowd of other 
actors, and, descending into the detail of their actions and char- 
acter, their virtues and failings, gives more insight into human 
nature, and leads to a more intimate acquaintance with particu- 
lar persons, than general history allows. A writer of biography 
may descend with propriety to minute circumstances and familiar 
incidents. He is expected to give the private as well as the 
public life of those whose actions he records ; and it is from pri- 
vate life, from familiar, domestic and seemingly trivial occur- 
rences, that we often derive the most accurate knowledge of the 
real character. To those who have exposed their lives, or em- 
ployed their time and labor, for the service of their fellow men, 
it seems but a just debt, that their memories should be perpetu- 
ated after them, and that posterity should be made acquainted 
with their benefactors. To a volume of biography may be 
applied the language of a pagan poet : — 

"Here patriots live, who for their country's good, 
In fighting fields were prodigal of blood ; 
Priests of unblemished lives here make abode, 
And poets worthy their inspiring god ; 
And searching wits of more mechanic parts, 
Who graced their age with new invented arts ; 
Those who to worth their bounty did extend, 
And those who knew that bounty to commend : 
The heads of these with holy fillets bound, 
And all their temples are with garlands crowned." 

In the lives of public persons, their public characters are prin- 
cipally, but not solely, to be regarded. The world is inquisitive 
to know the conduct of its great men as well in private as in 
public ; and both may be of service, considering the influence of 



PREFACE. TU 

their examples. In preparing this department of our work we 
have aimed to introduce variety, — selecting representative men 
from all the various pursuits of life. 

The third department of our work has been designated as the 
Department of Travel. It embraces the principal voyages of 
discovery and the lives of great navigators and travelers, since 
the days of Columbus and Vasco de Gama. In the history of 
scientific expeditions, the five following divisions may be made : 

1. The earliest age of the Phoenicians down to Herodotus, 500 
years before Christ. The Phoenicians undertook the first voy- 
ages of discovery for commercial purposes, or to found colonies. 

2. The travels of the Greeks and the military expeditions of 
the Romans, from 500 B. C. to 400 A. D. The Greeks made 
journeys to enlarge the territories of science. The armies of 
Rome, during this period, supplied an extensive knowledge of a 
part of Asia, Egypt, the northern part of Africa, and Europe to 
South Britain. 3. The expeditions of the Germans and Nor- 
mans until 900 A. D. The Normans discovered the Faroes, Ice- 
land and Greenland. 4. Besides the commercial and military voy- 
ages of the Arabs and Mongols, the travels of the Christian Mis- 
sionaries, and other Europeans, down to 1400, furnished much 
valuable information. 5. The fifth period, from the year 1400 
to the present time, is the period particularly embraced in this 
work. During this time, North and South America, a portion 
of Asia, and the interior of Africa, have been explored, and the 
adventurous voyagers in the Arctic and Antarctic seas, have 
pushed their researches to within twelve degrees of the poles. 
Sir J. Ross reached the south latitude of 78 deg. 4 min. in the 
year 1841. Such are the results of the labors of four centuries. 
The knowledge has been slowly gathered, but it will remain 
a lasting testimony to the triumphs of intellect. It is but re- 
cently that human enterprise has penetrated many of the secrets 
of the Antarctic regions, — that realm of mighty contrasts, — 
and it will doubtless pursue the investigation. ' Meantime the 
wintry solitudes of the far south will be undisturbed by the 



vili PREFACE. 

presence of man ; the penguin and the seal will still haunt the 
desolate shores ; the shriek of the petrel and the scream of the 
albatross will mingle with the dash and roar of continual storms, 
and the crash of wave-beaten ice ; the towering volcano will 
shoot aloft its columns of fire high into the gelid air ; the hills 
of snow and ice will grow and spread ; frost and flame will do 
their work ; till, in the wondrous cycle of terrestrial change, the 
polar lands shall again share in the abundance and beauty which 
now overspread the sun-gladdened zones.' 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 

ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Ethiopian History 18—20 

Mongolian History.— The Chinese 20—26 

Caucasian History. — Ancient India— Eastern Nations — The Egyptians— Arabians— Syria— The Phoeni- 
cians— Palestine — The Jews— The Assyrians and Babylonians— The Medes and Persians— States of Asia Minor 
— The Lydians— The Persian Empire 26—53 

Grecian History.— Early History and Mythology— Religious Rites— Authentic History— Sparta— Lycur- 
gus — Athens — Persian Invasion — Pericles — Alcibiades — Decline of Athenian Independence — Alexander the 
Great— Concluding Period 53 78 

Roman History. — The Latins— The Kings— The Commonwealth— Struggle between the Patricians and 
Plebeians — Invasion of the Gauls— The Samnite Wars — The Punic Wars — The Revolutions of the Gracchi- 
Social Wars — Marius and Sulla — Pompey, Cicero, Cataline, Caesar — Gallic Wars — Extinction of the Common- 
wealth — Civil Wars — Augustus — Dissemination of Christianity — Division of the Empire — Downfall of the 
Western Empire 78 — 112 

MIDDLE AGES. — The Eastern Empire — Constantine — Julian the Apostate — Theodosius the Great — Justinian ; 
his Code — Arabia— Mohammed — Empire of the Saracens — The Feudal System — Charlemagne — The New 
Western Empire — France — The German Empire — Italy — Spain — General state of Europe — The Crusades — 
Chivalry — Rise of new Powers — Wm. Tell — The Italian Republics — Commerce — The Turks — Fall of Constan- 
tinople — Rise of Civil Freedom 112 — 145 

MODERN HISTORY. 

Great Britain and Ireland.— Conquest by the Romans ; by the Saxons ; by the Normans— Early Norman 
Kings — William the Conqueror — nenry — Richard Cceur de Lion — John — Magna Charta — Origin of Parlia- 
ment — Edwards — Conquest of Scotland — Richard II — House of Lancaster — House of York — House of Tudor 
— Henry VIII — The Reformation — Edward VI — Queen Mary ; Elizabeth — Mary, Queen of Scots— The Stuarts 
— Gunpowder Plot — Revolution — Irish Rebellion — Oliver Cromwell — Trial and Execution of Charles I — The 
Commonwealth — Subjugation of Ireland and Scotland — The Protectorate — The Restoration — Charles II — 
Dutch War — Plague and Fire in London — The Rye House Plot — Death of Charles II — James IT — Expedition 
of Monmouth— Arbitrary Measures of the King — The Revolution — William and Mary — Establishment of the 
Bank of England — Queen Anne — Union of England and Scotland — Marlborough's Campaigns — House of 
Hanover — George I — Rebellion of 1715-16 — George II — Rebellion of 1745-46 — George III — American Stamp 
Act — American War of Independence — French Revolution — Rebellion in Ireland— Union with Great Britain 
— War with U. States — George IV — William IV — Queen Victoria — War with Russia — Alliance with France — 
Attack on Odessa — Operations in the Baltic — The Crimea — Battle of the Alma — Sebastopol described— Allies 
opening Trenches — Bombardment — Explosion of French Batteries and Russian Powder Magazine — The Allied 
Fleet — Cannonade — Battle of Balaklava — The Turks — The Highlanders — The Russian Cavalry — Capt. Nolan 
— Battle of Inkermann— Morning of the Battle — The Attack — The Zouaves— Chasseurs— Night after the Bat- 
tle — Council of War — Determination to Winter — Reinforcements demanded 145—256 

History op France.— Clovis, A. D. 486 ; division of his Empire— The Merovingian Kings— The Carlovin- 
gians — Pepin — Charles Martel — Charlemagne ; his Empire — Louis — Division of the Empire — Charles — Arnulf 
— Charles the Simple — Invasion of the Normans — Hugh Capet and his Successors — Philip VI of Valois— Wars 
with England, 1328— 1415— Charles VI— Maid of Orleans— Louis XI— Francis II— France during the War of 
Religion — Persecution of the Huguenots — Coligni — The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1572— Henry III — 
Henry IV — Edict of Nantes — The Age of Louis XIV — Richelieu and Mazarin — Persecution of the Calvinists — 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 1685 — The Last Days of Absolute Monarchy — Louis XV — Louis XVI — The 
French Revolution National Assembly- Mirabeau, Dante, Marat, Robespierre — The 10th of August — De- 
thronement of the King — National Convention— Trial and Execution of the King — Jacobins and Girondists — 



I CONTENTS. 

history of france — Continued. 

Exclusion of the Girondists from the Convention — Execution of the Queen, Madame Elizabeth, and the Dukt 
of Orleans— La Vendee— Fall of Danton and Camille Desmoulins— Overthrow of Robespierre and the Jaco- 
bins — Reconstruction of the Government— Napoleon Bonaparte — Italian Campaign — Expedition to Egypt and 
Syria— Return to France— The First Consulate— Consul for Life— Duke d' Enghein— Napoleon Emperor- 
Austrian Campaign — Russians — Battle of Austerlitz — Confederation of the Rhine — War with Prussia — Al 
liance of Prussia and Russia — Victory at Friedland— Peace of Tilsit— Occupation of Portugal— Spain— An- 
nexation of the Roman States and imprisonment of the Pope— New war with Austria — Peace of Vienna — 
Marriage with Maria Louisa — Russian Campaign — Conflagration of Moscow — Retreat of the French — Alliance 
of Russia, Prussia, etc.— Congress of Prague— Austria— Battle of Leipsic— Retreat of the French— Invasion 
of France by the Allies— Abdication of Napoleon— Louis XVIII— Escape of Napoleon from Elba— Defeat at 
Waterloo— Death at St. Helena— Louis XVLTI— Charles X— Abdication— Louis Philippe— Revolution— Louis 

Napoleon— War with Russia and alliance with England and Turkey 256—302 

History op Spain.— Gothic Monarchy— The Moors— Castile — Henry IV— Ferdinand and Isabella— Con- 
quest of Grenada— Christopher Columbus— Discovery of America— Charles V— Hernando Cortez— Conquest 
of Mexico— Francis Pizarro — Conquest of Peru — Ignatius Loyola — Philip II — War with England — Defeat of 
the Invincible Armada — Philip III — Banishment of the descendants of the Moors — Philip IV — Accession of 
the House of Bourbon— Charles III— The Seven Years' War— Charles IV— Ferdinand— Joseph Bonaparte- 
Alliance of the Spaniards and English— Return of Ferdinand— Isabella II 302 — 312 

Germany and Austria. — Division of the Empire of Charlemagne, and formation of the German Empire- 
Succession of Henry the Fowler to the throne of Conrad of Franconia — The Germans build cities— Accession 
of Hildebrand— Pope Gregory III— His Excommunication of Henry IV — Strife of Guelphs and Ghibelines— 
Pope Adrian IV— Tancred — Richard III of England — The House of Hapsburg succeeds that of Swabia — 
Death of Albert — Charles IV issues the Golden Bull — Council of Constance — Martyrdom of John Huss and 
Jerome of Prague — Invention of Printing — Luther ; the Reformation — Thirty Years' War— Peace of West- 
phalia — Insurrection of Hungarians aided by Turks — The War of Succession — Prince Eugene — Maria The- 
resa — Pragmatic Sanction — Revolt of the Netherlands — Confederation of the Rhine — Congress of Vienna — 
Hungarian Revolution of 1848 312—326 

History op Russia. — Russia rescued from the Tartars by John Basilowitz — Michael Theodorowitz, First of 
the House of Romanoff, Czar of Muscovy — Reorganization of Russia by Alexis — Reign of Peter the Great — 
Foundation and embellishment of St. Petersburg — Succession of the Czarina Catherine— Catherine II — An- 
nexation of the Crimea— Dismemberment of Poland — Kosciusko— Suwarrow — Resignation of Stanislaus — 
Paul — War against the French Republic — Assassination of Paul — Alexander — Coalition against Napoleon, by 
Austria and England— Peace of Tilsit— Napoleon declares war against Russia— Smolensko— Burning of Mos 
cow— Constantine— Nicholas— Extirpation of Poland— Siege of Sevastopol by France, England, and Turkey- 
Death of Nicholas — Succession of Alexander II 326 — 334 

HD3TORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

I. Colonial History.— Discoveries of Cabot— The Huguenots— Sir Walter Raleigh— Champlain— Henry 
Hudson— Virginia— Jamestown— John Smith — Pocahontas— Indian War— Gov. Berkeley — Nathaniel Bacon 
—New England Colonies— Puritans— Principles of their early Government— Quaker Persecution— Pequod 
Indian War— King Philip — Royal Governors — Salem Witchcraft— Connecticut— Rhode Island— Dutch Settle- 
ment of New Amsterdam — Indian War— Annexation of New Amsterdam to the English Colonies, and change of 
name to N. York— Lord Baltimore— Civil War— Carolina— Wm.Penn— Indian Treaty— Frame of Government— 
Oglethorpe — Wesley — Whitfield— Principles and characteristics of tho Colonists 334—363 

LT. Contest op France and England for America.— King William's War— The French War— The Ohio 
Company— George Washington— Braddock— Gen. Wolfe— Rising Colonial prosperity 363—368 

EEL The Revolution. — Stamp Act — N. Y. Congress— War of publications against Britain— Boston Mas- 
sacre — Tea Party— Lexington— Declaration of Independence — Franklin, Lafayette, Kosciusko— Trenton— 
Brandywine— Burgoyne's Defeat— Alliance of France and America— Baron Steuben— D'Estaing— Stony Point 
—Arnold— Col. Hayne— Capitulation of Cornwallis— Treaty at Paris— Washington— Paralyzed condition of 
the Government— Massachusetts Rebellion 178(5 — Formation of Government by the Constitutional Conven- 
tion 368-KU 

EV. Constitutional History.— Federalists and anti-Federalists— Defeat of Harmar and St. Clair— Prohi 
bition of the Slave Trade— Death of Washington— Purchase of Louisiana— War with Tripoli— Embargo Aot* 
— War with England— Campaign of 1812 — American Naval Victories— Perry's viotory on Lako Erio — Gen. 
Harrison— Treaty at Ghent— Battle of New Orleans— Seminole War— Lafayette— Tariff— TJ. S. Bank— NulU- 



CONTENTS. 



fication— Compromise of 1820— Commercial Bankruptcy— Annexation of Texas— Mexican War— Discovery of 
Gold in California— Gadsden Treaty 394 4^3 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 



Hernando Cortez .. 

William Penn 

Benjamin Franklin. 
Peter the Great . . . 
Count Kumfoed 



415 
441 
467 

476 
498 



Nicholas Copernicus #< 523 



Tycho Brahk 

Galileo 

Kepler 

Sir Isaac Newton. 

Hoyoens 

Halley 

Feruusox 



526 

528 

531 

533 

536 

537 

539 

Sir William Herschbl , _ 544 

Simon Bolivar 54- 

Fraincia, the Dictator 554 

Alexander Wilson 5g2 

James Watt ggg 

John Howard 572 

Lord Byron 593 

Percy Bysshe Shelley 612 

Oliver Goldsmith 615 

Edward Gibbon , 619 

David Hume .. 623 

Alexander Pope 627 

John Adams 634 

Thomas Jefferson 644 

Samuel Adams 649 

James Oiis , _ # 651 

Fisher Ames 653 

Aaron Burr 655 

Alexander Hamilton 657 

Patrick Henry 660 

John Hancock 664 

Ethan Allen 665 

Benedict Arnold 667 

Horatio Gates , 680 

Thaddeus Kosciusko 681 

Nathaniel Green 685 

Frederick William Augustus Steuben 688 

Baron de Kalb 689 

Richard Montgomery , 690 

Gilbert Motier Lafayette 691 

fsRAEL Putnam , , 696 

Stephen Decatue 698 

Isaac Hull , , 700 

Oliver Hazard Perry , 702 

John Marshall 704 

John Paul Jones 706 

Andrew Jackson 710 

Win field Scott 713 

Zachary Taylor 714 



Xii CONTENTS. 

John E. Wool 724 

Daniel Webster 726 

Henry Clay 732 

Levi TYoodbury 735 

Robert Rantoul 737 

Franklin Pierce . . .. ™ 

Samuel Finley Breese Morse 741 

M. Daguerre 747 

Victor Hugo '* 

Omar Pasha 751 

Edward Everett 763 

Washington Irving 754 

William Cullen Bryant 756 

George Bancroft •• 756 

Wlllum Hickling Prescott 758 

Hiram Powers 769 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 

Historical Sketch of Naval Architecture 761 

Early Maritime Discoveries 774 

Christopher Columbus 775 

Ferdinand Magellan 800 

Sir Francis Drake 802 

Henry Hudson 804 

Le Maire and Schouten 805 

Captain James 806 

William Dampier 811 

Captain Woodes Rogers • 814 

John Clipperton 816 

Commodore Anson 817 

Captain Byron 823 

Captain Wallis 829 

De Bougainville 832 

Captain James Cook 837 

Captains Portlock and Dixon 864 

Monsieur De La Perouse 870 

George Vancouver 891 

Perry's Voyages 896 

Sir John Franklin 920 

Travels in Africa — Parke, Denham, Clapperton, Lander and others 927 

Samuel Hearne 953 

John Lewis Burkhardt 955 

James Bruce 968 

John Ledyard 966 

John Baptist Belzoni 967 

George Forster 974 

Edward Daniel Clarke 976 

Richard Pococke 979 

Overland Journey to India 981 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

Opium Smuggling 22 

Japanese Funeral Procession 23 

Aga 30 

Japanese Agriculture • 31 

Terrace of St. Peter's 126 

Gibraltar !27 

Marine Arsenal, Constantinople 232 

Place of Kossuth's Imprisonment 233 

Castle of Eisenstadt 322 

King of Denmark 323 

Captain Smith and Pocahontas 336 

Providence, R. I 338 

Newport, R. 1 339 

New Haven, Conn 342 

Philadelphia, Pa 343 

Halifax, N. S 348 

Lake George 349 

Castle William 354 

Castle Garden 355 

Wilmington, N. C. 358 

Prison, Phila 359 

Fort Putnam 364 

Pillar Rock 365 

Place des Armes, New Orleans 370 

Blackwell Penitentiary 371 

Columbus, 402 

Depot, Cleveland, 403 

Cincinnati, 406 

Sandusky City, O 407 

Battle Monument, Baltimore 410 

Bombardment of Vera Cruz 411 

State House. Wisconsin 414 

View on Grand River, Ohio 570 

Bridge, Conneaut River, 571 

Kosciusko's Monument 683 

Paul Jones 707 

Gen. Scott 712 

Fort Ancient 716 

Milford, near Cincinnati, 717 

Gen. Wool 725 



PAGE 

Daniel Webster 728 

Residence of Daniel Webster 729 

Henry Clay 733 

Hon. Levi Woodbury 734 

Birth Place of John Q. Adams 736 

Franklin Pierce 738 

William R. King 739 

Euclid Creek, 742 

Red Bank 743 

Prof Morse 744 

Daguerre 746 

Victor Hugo 748 

Omar Pasha 752 

Disappointed Gold Seekers . . 760 

Gold Seeker's Grave 760 

Naval Architecture, from the tenth to the sev- 
enteenth century (17 Engravings) 762-770 

City of Panama 812 

Panama Gate 813 

City of Havana 818 

Scene in Havana 819 

Adelaide 824 

Bathurst, N. S. W 825 

Valparaiso 834 

Iron Bridge, Jamaica 835 

Sidney, N. S. W 856 

Humboldt 857 

California 874 

Ranche 875 

Post Office 876 

River-bed Claim on the Turon 877 

Removing Goods 878 

Dry Diggings 879 

Portraits of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, 

(9 Engravings) 922-926 

Calcutta • - ■ 973 

Rail Road Bridge 964 

Elk Creek 965 

East Branch Rocky River 982 

West Branch Rocky River 983 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 








g 
- 



THE 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 



The general consent of mankind points to the region of Central Asia as 
having been the original seat from which the human race dispersed itself 
over the globe ; and accordingly, it is this region, and especially the west- 
ern portion of it, which we find to have been the theatre of the earliest 
recorded transactions. In short, it was in Central Asia that the first large 
mass of ripened humanity was accumulated — a great central nucleus of 
human life, so to speak, constantly enlarging, and from which emissaries 
incessantly streamed out over the globe in all directions. In process of time 
this great central mass having swollen out till it filled Asia and Africa, broke 
up into three fragments — thus giving parentage to the three leading vari- 
eties into which ethnographers divide the human species — the Caucasian, 
the Mongolian, and the Ethiopian or Negro — the Caucasians overspread- 
ing southern and western Asia ; the Mongolians overspreading northern 
and eastern Asia ; and the Ethiopians overspreading Africa. From these 
three sources streamed forth branches which, intermingling in various pro- 
portions, have constituted the various nations of the earth. 

Differing from each other in physiological characteristics, the three 
great varieties of the human species have also differed widely in their histor- 
ical career. The germs of a grand progressive development seem .to have 
been implanted specially in the Caucasian variety, the parent stock of all 
the great civilized nations of ancient and modern times. History, there- 
fore, concerns itself chiefly with this variety : in the evolution of whose 
destinies the true thread of human progress is to be found. Ere proceeding, 
however, to sketch the early development of this highly-endowed variety 
of our species in the nations of antiquity, a few observations may be offered 
regarding the other two the Ethiopian and Mongolian — which began the 

race of life along with the Caucasian, and whose destinies, doubtless, what- 
2 



18 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ever may have been their historical functions hitherto, are involved in seme 
profound and beautiful manner with the bearing of the race as a whole. 

ETHIOPIAN HISTORY. 

A German Historian thus sums up all that is known of Ethiopian history 
— that is, of the part which the great Negro race, inhabiting all Africa 
with the exception of the north-eastern coasts, performed in the general af- 
fairs of mankind in the early ages of the world : — ' On the history of this 
division of the species two remarks may be made : the one, that a now en- 
tirely extinct knowledge of the extension and power of this branch of the 
human family must have been forced upon even the Greeks by their early 
poets and historians ; the other, that the Ethiopian history is interwoven 
throughout with that of Egypt. As regards the first remark, it is clear 
that in the earliest ages this branch of the race must have played an im- 
portant part, since Meroe (in the present Nubia) is mentioned both by 
Herodotus (b. c. 408) and Strabo (a. d. 20) ; by the one as a still-exist- 
ing, by the other as a formerly-existing seat of royalty, and centre of the 
Ethiopian religion and civilization.* To this Strabo adds, that the race 
spread from the boundaries of Egypt over the mountains of Atlas, as far 
as the Gaditanian Straits. Ephorus, too (b. c. 405), seems to have had a 
very great impression of the Ethiopians, since he names in the east the 
Indians, in the south the Ethiopians, in the west the Celts, in the north 
the Scythians, as the most mighty and numerous peoples of the known 
earth. Already in Strabo's time, however, their ancient power had been 
gone for an indefinite period, and the Negro states found themselves, after 
Meroe had ceased to be a religious capital, almost in the same situation as 
that in which they still continue. The second remark on the Negro branch 
of the human race and its history, can only be fully elucidated when the 
interpretation of the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments shall have been 
farther advanced. The latest travels into Abyssinia show this much — that 
at one time the Egyptian religion and civilization extended over the prin- 
cipal seat of the northern Negroes. Single mummies and monumental 
figures corroborate what Herodotus expressly says, that a great portion of 

* Some years ago, a traveler, Mr. G. A. Hoskins, visited the site of this capital state of 
ancient Ethiopia, a.n island, if it may be so called, about 300 miles long, enclosed within two 
forking branches of the Nile. He found in it several distinct groups of magnificent pyra- 
midal structures. Of one ruin he says — 'Never were my feelings more ardently excited 
than in approaching, after so tedious a journey, to this magnificent necropolis. The ap- 
pearance of the pyramids in the distance announced their importance ; but I was gratified 
beyond my most sanguine expectations when I found myself in the midst of them. The 
pyramids of Gizeh are magnificent, wonderful from their stupendous magnitude; but for 
picturesque effect and elegance of architectural design, I infinitely prefer those of Meroe. I 
expected to find few such remains here, and certainly nothing so imposing, so interesting, as 
these sepulchres, doubtless of the kings and queens of Ethiopia. I stood for some time lo?i 
in admiration. This, then, was the necropolis, or city of the dead ! But where was the city 
itself, Meroe, its temples and palaces ? A large space, about 2000 feet in length, and the 
same distance from the river, strewed with burnt brick and with some fragments of walls, 
and stones, similar to those\ised in the erection of the pyramids, formed, doubtless, part of 
that celebrated site. The idea that this is the exact situation of the city is strengthened by 
the remark of Strabo, that the walls of the habitations were built of bricks. These indicate, 
without doubt, the site of that cradle of the arts which distinguish a civilized from a bar- 
barous society. Of the birthplace of the arts and sciences, the wild natives of the adjacent 
villages have made a miserable burying-place; of the city of the learned — "its cloud-cap* 
towers," its "gorgeous palaces," its "solemn temples" — there is "left not a rack behind." 
The sepulchres alone of her departed kings have fulfilled their destination of surviving the 
habitations which their philosophy taught them to consider but as inns, and are now last 
mouldering into dust. Scarcely a trace of a palace or a temple is to be seen.' 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 19 

the Egyptians of his time had black skins and woolly hair; hence we infer 
that the Negro race had combined itself intimately with the Caucasian 
part of the population. Not these notices only, but the express testimo- 
nies also of the Hebrew annals, show Egypt to have contained an abun- 
dance of Negroes, and mention a conquering king invading it at the head 
of a Negro host, and governing it for a considerable time. The nature of 
the accounts on which we must found does not permit us to give an accur- 
ate statement ; we remark, however, that the Indians, the Egyptians, and 
the Babylonians, are not the only peoples which aimed at becoming world- 
conquerors before the historic age, but that also to the Ethiopian stock 
warlike kings were not wanting in the early times. The Mongols alone 
seem to have enjoyed a happy repose within their own seats in the primi- 
tive historic times, and those antecedent to them ; they appear first very 
late as conquerors and destroyers in the history of the west. If, indeed, 
the hero-king of the Ethiopians, Tearcho, were one and the same with the 
Tirhakah of the book of Kings (2 Kings, xix. 9), then the wonder of 
those stories would disappear which were handed down by tradition to the 
Greeks ; but even Bochart has combatted this belief, and we cannot recon- 
cile it with the circumstances which are related of both. It remains for us 
on\y to observe, by way of summary, that in an age antecedent to the his- 
toric, the Ethiopian peoples may have been associated together in a more 
regular manner than in our own or Grecian and Roman times ; and that their 
distant expeditions may have been so formidable, both to the Europeans as 
far as the iEgean Sea in the east, and to the dwellers on the Gaditanian 
Straits (Gibraltar) on the west, that the dim knowledge of the fact was 
not lost even in late times. In more recent ages we observe here and there 
an Ethiopian influence, and especially in the Egyptian history ; but as 
concerns the general progress of the human species, the Negro race never 
acquired any vital importance. 

The foregoing observations may be summed up in this proposition : — 
That in the most remote antiquity, Africa was overspread by the Negro 
variety of the human species ; that in those parts of the continent to which 
the knowledge of the ancient geographers did not extend — namely, all 
south of Egypt and the Great Desert — the Negro race degenerated, or 
at least dispersed into tribes, kingdoms, etc., constituting a great savage 
system within its own torrid abode, similar to that which even now, in the 
adult age of the world, we are vainly attempting to penetrate ; but that 
on the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, the race either pre- 
served its original faculty and intelligence longer, or was so improved by 
contact and intermixture with its Caucasian neighbors, as to constitute, 
under the name of the Ethiopians, one of the great ante-historic dynasties 
of the world ; and that this dynasty ebbed and flowed against the Caucas- 
ian populations of western Asia and eastern Europe, thus giving rise to 
mixture of races along the African coasts of the north and east, until at 
length, leaving these mixed races to act their part awhile, the pure Ethio- 
pian himself retired from historic view into Central Africa, where he lay 
concealed, till again in modern times he was dragged forth to become the 
slave of the Caucasian. Thus Negro history hitherto has exhibited a ret- 
rogression from a point once occupied, rather than a progress in civiliza- 
tion. Even this fact, however, must somehow be subordinate to a great 
law of general progress ; and it is gratifying to know that, on the coast 



20 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, 

of Africa, a settlement has recently been formed called Liberia, peopled 
by liberated negro slaves from North America ; and who, bringing with 
them the Anglo-American civilization, give promise of founding a cultured 
and prosperous community. 

MONGOLIAN HISTORY — THE CHINESE. 

As from the great central mass of mankind, the first accumulation of 
life on our planet, there was parted off into Africa a fragment called the 
Negro variety, so into eastern Asia there was detached, by those causes 
which we seek in vain to discover, a second huge fragment, to which has 
been given the name of the Mongolian variety. Overspreading the great 
plains of Asia, from the Himalehs to the Sea of Okhotsk, this detachment 
of the human species may be supposed to have crossed into Japan; to 
have reached the other islands of the Pacific, and either through these, or 
by the access at Behring's Straits, to have poured themselves through 
the great American continent ; their peculiarities shading off in their long 
journey, till the Mongolian was converted into the American Indian. 
Blumenbach, however, erects the American Indian into a type by himself. 

Had historians been able to pursue the Negro race into their central 
African jungles and deserts, they would no doubt have found the general 
Ethiopic mass breaking up there under the operation of causes connected 
with climate, soil, food, etc., into vast sections or subdivisions, presenting 
marked differences from each other ; and precisely so was it with the Mon- 
golians. In Central Asia, we find them as Thibetians, Tungusians, Mon- 
gols proper ; on the eastern coasts, as Mantchous and Chinese ; in the 
adjacent islands, as Japanese, etc. ; and nearer the North Pole, as Laplan- 
ders, Esquimaux, etc. ; all presenting peculiarities of their own. Of 
these great Mongolian branches circumstances have given a higher degree 
of development to the Chinese and the Japanese than to the others, which 
are chiefly nomadic hordes, some under Chinese rule, others independent, 
roaming over the great pasture lands of Asia, and employed in rearing 
cattle. 

There is every reason to believe that the vast population inhabiting that 
portion of eastern Asia called China, can boast of a longer antiquity of 
civilization than almost any other nation of the world, a civilization, how- 
ever, diffeiing essentially in its character from those which have appeared 
and disappeared among the Caucasians. This, in fact, is to be observed 
as the grand difference between the history of the Mongolian and that of 
the Caucasian variety of the human species, that whereas the former pre- 
sents us with the best product of Mongolian humanity, in the form of one 
great permanent civilization — the Chinese — extending from century to 
century, one, the same, and solitary, through a period of 3000 or 4000 
years; the latter exhibits a succession of civilization — the Chaldean, the 
Persian, the Grecian, the Roman, the modern European (subdivided into 
French, English, German, Italian, etc.,) and the Anglo-American; these 
civilizations, from the remotest Oriental — that is, Chaldean — to the 
most recent Occidental — that is, the Anglo-American — being a series of 
waves falling into each other, and driven onward by the same general 
force. A brief sketch of Chinese history, with a glance at Japan, will 
therefore discharge all that we owe to the Mongolian race. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 21 

Authentic Chinese history does not extend father back than about 800 
or 1000 years b. c. ; but, as has been the case more or less with 
all nations, the Chinese imagination has provided itself with a mytho- 
logical history extending many ages back into the unknown past. Un- 
like the mythology of the Greeks, but like that of the Indians, the Chinese 
legends deal in large chronological intervals. First of all, in the beginning 
of time, was the great Puan-Koo, founder of the Chinese nation, and whose 
dress was green leaves. After him came Ty-en-Hoang, Ti-Hoang, Gin- 
Hoang and several other euphonious potentates, each of whom did something 
towards the building up of the Chinese nation, and each of whom reigned, 
as was the custom in those grand old times, thousands of years. At length, 
at a time corresponding to that assigned in Scripture to the life of Noah, 
came the divine-born Fohi, a man of transcendent faculties, who reigned 
115 years, teaching music and the system of symbols, instituting marriage, 
building walls round cities, creating mandarins, and, in short, establishing 
the Chinese nation on a basis that could never be shaken. After him came 
Shin-ning, Whang- ti, etc., until in due time came the good emperors Yao 
and Shun, in the reign of the latter of whom happened a great flood. By 
means of canals and drains the assiduous Yu saved the country, and became 
the successor of Shun. Yu was the first emperor of the Hia dynasty, which 
began about 2100 B. c. After this dynasty came that of Shang, the last 
of whose emperors, a great tyrant, was deposed (b. c. 1122) by Woo-wong, 
the founder of the Tchow dynasty. 

In this Tchow dynasty, which lasted upwards of 800 years, authentic Chi- 
nese history commences. It was during it, and most probably about the 
year B. o. 484, that the great Con-fu-tse, or Confucius, the founder of the 
Chinese religion, philosophy, and literature, flourished. In the year B. c. 
248, the Tchow dynasty was superseded by that of Tsin, the first of whose 
kings built the Great Wall of China, to defend the country against the Tartar 
Nomads. The Tsin dynasty was a short one : it was succeeded in b. c. 206 
by the Han dynasty, which lasted till a. d. 238. Then followed a rapid se- 
ries of dynastic revolutions, by which the nation was frequently broken 
into parts ; and during which the population was considerably changed in 
character by the irruptions of the nomad hoards of Asia who intermingled 
with it. Early in the seventh century, a dynasty called that of Tang acce- 
ded to power, which ended in 897. After half a century of anarchy, order 
was restored under the Song dynasty, at the commencement of which, or 
about the year 950, the art of printing was discovered, five centuries before 
it was known in Europe. ' The Song dynasty,' says Schlosser, ' maintain- 
ed an intimate connection with Japan, as contrary to all Chinese maxims ; 
the emperors of this dynasty imposed no limits to knowledge, the arts, life, 
luxury, and commerce with other nations. Their unhappy fate, therefore 
(on being extinguished with circumstances of special horror by the Mongol 
conqueror Kublai Khan, A. d. 1281), is held forth as a warning against 
departing a hairsbreadth from the old customs of the empire. From the 
time of the destruction of the Song dynasty by the Mongol monarchy, the 
intercourse between China and Japan was broken, until again the Ming, a 
native Chinese dynasty (a. d. 1366) restored it. The Mongol rulers 
made an expedition against Japan, but were unsuccessful. The unfortu- 
nate gift which the Japanese received from China was the doctrine of Foe. 
This doctrine, however, was not the first foreign doctrine or foreign worship 



24 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



that came into China. A religion, whose nature we cannot fix — probably 
Buddhism, ere it had assumed the form of Lamaism — was preached in it 
at an earlier date. About the time of the Tsin dynasty (b. c. 248 - 206), 
a warlike king had incorporated all China into one and subdued the princes 
of the various provinces. While he was at war with his subjects, many of 
the roving hordes to the north of China pressed into the land, and with 
them appeared missionaries of the religion above mentioned. When peace 
was restored, the kings of the fore-named dynasty, as also later those of 
Han and the two following dynasties, extended the kingdom prodigiously, 
and the western provinces became known to the Greeks and Romans 
as the land of the Seres. As on the one side Tartary was at that time 
Chinese, so on the other side the Chinese were connected with India ; 
whence came the Indian religion. It procured many adherents, but yield- 
ed at length to the primitive habits of the nations. In consequence of 
the introduction of the religion of Foe, the immense country fell asunder 
into two kingdoms. The south and the north had each its sovereign ; and 
the wars of the northern kingdom occasioned the wanderings of the Huns, 
by whose agency the Roman Empire was destroyed. These kingdoms of 
the north and south were often afterwards united and again dissevered ; 
great savage hordes roamed around them as at present ; but all that had 
settled, and that dwelt within the Great Wall, submitted to the ancient 
Chinese civilization. Ghenghis Khan, indeed, whose power was founded 
on the Turkish and Mongol races, annihilated both kingdoms, and the bar- 
baric element seemed to triumph ; but this was changed as soon as his 
kingdom was divided. Even Kublai, and yet more his immediate follow- 
ers, much as the Chinese calumniate the Mongol dynasty of Yeven, main- 
tained everything in its ancient condition, with the single exception that they 
did homage to Lamaism, the altered form of Buddhism. This religion yet 
prevails, accommodated skillfully, however, to the Chinese mode of exist- 
ence — a mode which all subsequent conquerors have respected, as the ex- 
ample of the present dynasty proves.' The dynasty alluded to is that of 
Tatsin Mantchou, a mixed Mongol and Tartar stock, which superseded the 
native Chinese dynasty of Ming in the year 1644. The present emperor 
of China is the sixth of the Tatsin dynasty. 

From the series of dry facts just given, we arrive at the fol- 
lowing definition of China and its civilization : As the Roman Em- 
pire was a great temporary aggregation of matured Caucasian human- 
ity, surrounded by and shading off into Caucasian barbarism, so China, a 
country more extensive than all Europe, and inhabited by a population of 
more than 300,000,000, is an aggregation of matured Mongolian humanity 
surrounded by Mongolian barbarism. The difference is this, that while the 
Roman Empire was only one of several successive aggregations of the Cau- 
casian race, each on an entirely different basis, the Chinese empire has 
been one permanent exhibition of the only form of civilization possible 
among the Mongolians. The Jew, the Greek, the Roman, the French- 
man, the German, the Englishman — these are all types of the matured Cau- 
casian character ; but a fully-developed Mongolian has but one type — the 
Chinese. Chinese history does not exhibit a progress of the Mongolian man 
through a series of stages ; it exhibits only a uniform duration of one great 
civilized Mongolian empire, sometimes expanding so as to extend itself into 
the surrounding Mongolian barbarism, sometimes contracted by the press- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 25 

ure of that barbarism, sometimes disturbed by infusions of the barbaric ele- 
ment, sometimes shattered within itself by the operation of individual Chi- 
nese ambition, but always retaining its essential character. True, in such 
a vast empire, difference of climate, etc., must give rise to specific differences, 
so that a Chinese of the north-east is not the same as a Chinese of the south- 
west ; true, also, the Japanese civilization seems to exist as an alternative 
between which and the Chinese, Providence might share the Mongolian 
part of our species, were it to remain unmixed : still the general remark 
remains undeniable, that from the extremest antiquity to the present day, 
Mongolian humanity has been able to cast itself but into one essential civ- 
ilized type. It is an object of peculiar interest, therefore, to us who be- 
long to the multiform and progressive Caucasian race, to obtain a distinct 
idea of the nature of that permanent form of civilization out of which our 
Mongolian brothers have never issued, and apparently never wish to issue. 
Each of our readers being a civilized Caucasian, may be supposed to ask, 
' What sort of a human being is a civilized Mongolian ? ' A study of the 
Chinese civilization would answer this question. Not so easy would it be 
for a Chinese to return the compliment, confused as he would be by the 
multiplicity of the types which the Caucasian man has assumed — from 
the ancient Arab to the modern Anglo-American. 

Hitherto little progress has been made in the investigation of the Chinese 
civilization. Several conclusions of a general character have, however, 
been established. ' We recognise,' says Schlosser, ' in the institutions of 
the Chinese, so much praised by the Jesuits, the character of the institu- 
tions of all early states ; with this difference, that the Chinese mode of life 
is not a product of hierarchical or theocratic maxims, but a work of the 
cold understanding. In China, all that subserves the wants of the senses 
was arranged and developed in the earliest ages ; all that concerns the 
soul or the imagination is yet raw and ill-adjusted ; and we behold in the 
high opinion which the Chinese entertain of themselves and their affairs, a 
terrible example of what must be the consequence when all behavior pro- 
ceeds according to prescribed etiquette, when all knowledge and learning 
is a matter of rote directed to external applications, and the men of learn- 
ing are so intimately connected with the government, and have their inter- 
est so much one with it, that a number of privileged doctors can regulate 
literature as a state magistrate does weights and measures.' Of the 
Chinese government the same authority remarks — ' the patriarchal sys- 
tem still lies at the foundation of it. Round the " Son of Heaven," as 
they name the highest ruler, the wise of the land assemble as round their 
counselor and organ. So in the provinces (of which there are eighteen or 
nineteen, each as large as a considerable kingdom), the men of greatest 
sagacity gather round the presidents ; each takes the fashion from his supe- 
rior, and the lowest give it to the people. Thus one man exercises the sov- 
ereignty ; a number of learned men gave the law, and invented in very 
early times a symbolical system of syllabic writing, suitable for their mono 
syllabic speech, in lieu of their primitive system of hieroglyphics. All 
business is transacted in writing, with minuteness and pedantry. Their 
written language is very difficult ; and as it is possible in Chinese writing 
for one to know all the characters of a certain period of time, or of a cer- 
tain department, and yet be totally unacquainted with those of another 
department, there is no end to their mechanical acquisition.' It has already 



2*3 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

been mentioned that Chinese thought has at various times received certain 
foreign tinctures, chiefly from India ; essentially, however, the Chinese 
mind has remained as it was fixed by Confucius. 'In China,' says Schlosser, 
' a so-named philosophy has accomplished that which in other countries 
has been accomplished by priests and religions. In the genuine Chinese 
books of religion, in all their learning and wisdom, God is not thought of; 
religion, according to the Chinese and their oracle and lawgiver Con-fu-tse 
has nothing to do with the imagination, but consists alone in the perfor- 
mance of outward moral duties, and in zeal to further the ends of state. 
Whatever lies beyond the plain rule of life is either a sort of obscure natural 
philosophy, or a mere culture for the people, and for any who may feel the 
want of such a culture. The various forms of worship which have made 
their way into China are obliged to restrict themselves, to bow to the law, 
and to make their practices conform ; they can arrogate no literature of 
their own ; and, good or bad, must learn to agree with the prevailing athe- 
istic Chinese manner of thought.' 

Such are the Chinese, and such have they been for 2000 or 3000 years 
— a vast people undoubtedly civilized to the highest pitch of which Mon- 
golian humanity is susceptible ; of mild disposition ; industrious to an extra- 
ordinary degree ; well-skilled in all the mechanical arts, and possessing a 
mechanical ingenuity peculiar to themselves ; boasting of a language quite 
singular in its character, and of a vast literature ; respectful of usage to 
such a degree as to do everything by pattern ; attentive to the duties and 
civilities of life, but totally devoid of fervor, originality, or spirituality ; and 
living under a form of government which has been very happily designated 
a pedantocracy — that is, a hierarchy of erudite persons selected from the 
population, and appointed by the emperor, according to the proof they give 
of their capacity, to the various places of public trust. How far these 
characteristics, or any of them, are inseparable from a Mongolian civiliza- 
tion, would appear more clearly if we knew more of the Japanese. At 
present, however, there seems little prospect of any reorganization of the 
Chinese mind, except by means of a Caucasian stimulus applied to it. 
And what Caucasian stimulus will be sufficient to break up that vast 
Mongolian mass, and lay it open to the general world-influences ? Will 
the stimulus come from Europe ; or from America after its western shores 
are peopled, and the Anglo-Americans begin to think of crossing the Pacific ? 

CAUCASIAN HISTORY. 

While the Negro race seems to have retrograded from its original posi- 
tion on the earth, while the Mongolian has afforded the spectacle of a single 
permanent and pedantic civilization retaining millions within its grasp for 
ages in the extreme east of Asia, the Caucasian, as if the seeds of the 
world's progress had been implanted in it, has worked out for itself a 
splendid career on an ever-shifting theatre. First attaining its maturity 
in Asia, the Caucasian civilization has shot itself westward, if we may so 
speak, in several successive throes ; long confined to Asia ; then entering 
northern Africa, where, commingling with the Ethiopian, it originated a 
new culture ; again, about the year b. c. 1000, adding Europe to the stage 
of history ; and lastly, 2500 years later, crossing the Atlantic, and meeting 
in America with a diffused and degenerate Mongolism. To understand 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 27 

this beautiful career thoroughly, it is necessary to observe the manner in 
which the Caucasians disseminated themselves from their central home — 
to count, as it were, and note separately, the various flights by which they 
emigrated from the central hive. So far as appears, then, from investiga- 
tions into language, etc., the Caucasian stock sent forth at different times 
in the remote past five great branches from its original seat, somewhere 
to the south of that long chain of mountains which commences at the 
Black Sea, and, bordering the southern coast of the Caspian, terminates in 
the Himalehs. In what precise way, or at what precise time, these 
branches separated themselves from the parent stock and from each other, 
must remain a mystery ; a sufficiently clear general notion of the fact is 
all that we can pretend to. 1st. The Armenian branch, remaining appar- 
ently nearest the original seat, filled the countries between the Caspian and 
Black Seas, extending also round the Caspian into the territories afterwards 
known as those of the Parthians. 2d, The Indo-Pcrsian branch, which 
extended itself in a southern and eastern direction from the Caspian Sea, 
through Persia and Cabool, into Hindoostan, also penetrating Bokhara. 
From this great branch philologists and ethnographers derive those two 
races, the distinction between which, although subordinate to the grand 
fivefold division of the Caucasian stock, is of immense consequence in 
modern history — the Celtic and the Germanic. Pouring through Asia 
Minor, it is supposed that the Indo-Persian family entered Europe through 
Thrace, and ultimately, through the operation of those innumerable causes 
which react upon the human constitution from the circumstances in which 
it is placed, assumed the character of Celts and Germans — the Celts 
being the earlier product, and eventually occupying the western portion 
of Europe — namely, northern Italy, France, Spain and Great Britain — 
still undergoing subdivision, however, during their dispersion, into Iberians, 
Gaels, Cymri, &c. ; the Germans being a later off-shoot, and settling 
rather in the centre and north of Europe in two great moieties — the Scan- 
dinavians and the Germans Proper. This seems the most plausible ped- 
igree of the Celtic and Germanic races, although some object to it. 
2>d, The Semitic or Aramaic branch, which, diffusing itself southward and 
westward from the original Caucasian seat, filled Syria, Mesopotamia, Ara- 
bia, etc., and founded the early kingdoms of Assyria, Babylonia, Phoenicia, 
Palestine, etc. It was this branch of the Caucasian variety which, enter- 
ing Africa by the Isthmus of Suez and the Straits of Babelmandel, consti- 
tuted itself an element at least in the ancient population of Egypt, Nubia, 
and Abyssinia ; and there are ethnographers who believe that the early 
civilization which lined the northern coasts of Africa arose from somo 
extremely early blending of the Ethiopic with the Semitic, the latter acting 
as a dominant caste. Diffusing itself westward along the African coast as 
far as Mauritania, the Semitic race seems eventually, though at a compar- 
atively late period, to have met the Celtic, which had crossed into Africa 
from Spain ; and thus, by the infusion of Arameans and Celts, that white 
or tawny population which we find in northern Africa in ancient times, 
distinct from the Ethiopians of the interior, seems to have been formed. 
4th, The Pelasgic branch, that noble family which, carrying the Greeks 
and Romans in its bosom, poured itself from western Asia into the south- 
east of Europe, mingling doubtless with Celts and Germans. 5th, The 
Scythian, or Slavonic branch, which diffused itself over Russia, Siberia, 



28 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and the central plains of Asia, shading off in these last into the Mongolian. 
Such is a convenient division of the Caucasian stock ; a more profound 
investigation, however, might reduce the five races to these two — the Sem- 
itic and the Indo-Germanic ; all civilized languages being capable, it is 
said, of being classified under these three families — the Chinese, which has 
monosyllabic roots ; the Indo-Germanic (Sanscrit, Hindoostanee, Greek, 
Latin, German, and all modern European languages), which has dissyllabic 
roots; and the Semitic (Hebrew, Arabic, &c), whose roots are trisyllabic. 
Retaining, however, the fivefold distribution which we have adopted, we 
shall find that the history of the world, from the earliest to the remotest 
times, has been nothing else than the common Caucasian vitality presenting 
itself in a succession of phases or civilizations, each differing from the last in 
the proportions in which it contains the various separate elements. 

It is advisable to sketch first the most eastern Caucasian civilization — 
that is, that of India ; and then to proceed to a consideration of the state of 
that medley of nations, some of them Semitic, some of them Indo-Persian, 
and some of them Armenian, out of which the great Persian empire 
arose, destined to continue the historic pedigree of the world into Europe, 
by transmitting its vitality to the Pelasgians. 

Ancient India. One of the great branches, we have said, of the Cau- 
casian family of mankind was the Indo-Persian, which, spreading out in 
the primeval times from the original seat of the Caucasian part of the hu- 
man species, extended itself from the Caspian to the Bay of Bengal, where, 
coming into contact with the southern Mongolians, it gave rise, according 
to the most probable accounts, to those new mixed Caucasian-Mongolian 
races, the Malays of the Eastern Peninsula; and, by a still farther degen- 
eracy, to the Papuas, or natives of the South Sea Islands. While thus sha- 
ding off into the Mongolism of the Pacific, the Indo-Persian mass of our 
species was at the same time attaining maturity within itself; and as the 
first ripened fragment of the Mongolians had been the Chinese nation, so 
one of the first ripened fragments of the Indo-Persian branch of the Cau- 
casians seems to have been the Indians. At what time the vast peninsula 
of Hindoostan could first boast a civilized population, it is impossible to 
say ; all testimony, however, agrees in assigning to Indian civilization a 
most remote antiquity. Another fact seems also to be tolerably well authen- 
ticated regarding ancient India ; namely, that the northern portions of it, 
and especially the north-western portions, which would be nearest the orig- 
inal Caucasian seat, were the first civilized ; and that the civilizing influ- 
ence spread thence southwards to Cape Comorin. 

Notwithstanding this general conviction, that India was one of the first 
portions of the earth's surface that contained a civilized population, few facts 
in the ancient history of India are certainly known. We are told, indeed 
(to omit the myths of the Indian Bacchus and Hercules), of two great 
kingdom — those of Ayodha (Oude) and Prathistbana (Vitera) — as hav- 
ing existed in northern India upwards of a thousand years before Christ ; 
of conquests in southern India, effected by the monarchs of these king- 
doms ; and of wars carried on between these monarchs and their western 
neighbors the Persians, after the latter had begun to be powerful. All 
these accounts, however, merely resolve themselves into the general infor 
mation, that India, many centuries before Christ, was an important member 
in the family of Asiatic nations ; supplying articles to their commerce, and 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 29 

involved in their agitations. Accordingly, if we wish to form an idea of 
the condition of India prior to that great epoch in its history — its invasion 
by Alexander the Great, b. c. 326 — we can only do so by reasoning back 
from that we know of its present condition, allowing for the modifying 
effects of the two thousand years which have intervened ; and especially for 
the effects produced by the Mohammedan invasion, a. d. 1000. This, how- 
ever, is the less difficult in the case of such a country as India, where the per- 
manence of native institutions is so remarkable , and though we cannot hope 
to acquire a distinct notion of the territorial divisions, etc., of India in very 
ancient times, yet, by a study of the Hindoos as they are at present, we may 
furnish ourselves with a tolerably accurate idea of the nature of that ancient 
civilization which overspread Hindoostan many centuries before the birth of 
Christ, and this all the more probably that the notices which remain of the 
state of India at the time of the invasion of Alexander, correspond in many 
points with what is to be seen in India at the present day. 

The population of Hindoostan, the area of which is estimated at about a 
million square miles, amounts to about 120,000,000 ; of whom about 100,- 
000,000 are Hindoos or aborigines, the remainder being foreigners, either 
Asiatic or European. The most remarkable feature in Hindoo society is 
its division into castes. The Hindoos are divided into four great castes — 
the Brahmins, whose proper business is religion and philosophy ; the Ksha- 
triyas, who attend to war and government ; the Vaisyas, whose duties are 
connected with commerce and agriculture ; and the Sudras, or artisans and 
laborers. Of these four castes the Brahmins are the highest ; but a broad 
line of distinction is drawn between the Sudras and the other three castes. 
The Brahmins may intermarry with the three inferior castes — the ksha- 
triyas with the vaisyas and the Sudras ; and the vaisyas with the Sudras ; 
but no Sudra can choose a wife from either of the three superior castes. As 
a general rule, every person is required to follow the profession of the caste 
to which he belongs : thus the Brahmin is to lead a life of contemplation and 
study, subsisting on the contributions of the rich ; the Kshatriya is to occupy 
himself in civil matters, or to pursue the profession of a soldier ; and the 
Vaisya is to be a merchant or a farmer. In fact, however, the barriers of 
caste have in innumerable instances been broken down. The ramifications, 
too, of the caste system are infinite. Besides the four pure, there are 
numerous mixed castes, all with their prescribed ranks and occupations. 

A class far below even the pure Sudras is the Pariahs or outcasts ; 
consisting of the refuse of all the other castes, and which, in process of 
time, has grown so large as to include, it is said, one-fifth of the population 
of Hindoostan. The Pariahs perform the meanest kinds of manual labor. 
This system of castes — of which the Brahmins themselves, whom some 
suppose to have been originally a conquering race, are the architects, if not 
the founders — is bound up with the religion of the Hindoos. Indeed of the 
Hindoos, more truly than of any other people, it may be said that a knowl- 
edge of their religious system is a knowledge of the people themselves. 

The Vedas, or ancient sacred books of the Hindoos, distinctly set forth 
the doctrine of the infinite and Eternal Supreme Being. According to the 
Vedas, there is ' one unknown, true Being, all present, all powerful, the cre- 
ator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe.' This Supreme Being ' is not 
comprehensible by vision, or by any other of the organs of sense, nor can he 
be conceived by means of devotion or virtuous practices.' He is not space, 




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32 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

nor air, nor light, nor atoms, nor soul, nor nature : he is above all these and 
the cause of them all. He ' has no feet, but extends everywhere ; has no 
hands, but holds everything ; has no eyes, yet sees all that is ; has no ears, 
yet hears all that passes. His existence had no cause. He is the smallest 
of the small and the greatest of the great; and yet is, in fact neither 
small nor great.' Such is the doctrine of the Vedas in its purest and most 
abstract form ; but the prevailing theology which runs through them is 
what is called Pantheism, or that system which speaks of God as the soul 
of the universe, or as the universe itself. Accordingly, the whole tone 
and language of the highest Hindoo philosophy is Pantheistic. As a rope, 
lying on the ground, and mistaken at first view for a snake, is the cause of 
the idea or conception of the snake which exists in the mind of the person 
looking at it, so, say the Vedas, is the Deity the cause of what we call th6 
universe. ' In him the whole world is absorbed ; from him it issues ; he is 
entwined and interwoven with all creation.' ' All that exists is God : 
whatever we smell, or taste, or see, or hear, or feel, is the Supreme Being.' 

This one incomprehensible Being, whom the Hindoos designate by the 
mystical names Om, Tut, and Jut, and sometimes also by the word Brahm, 
is declared by the Vedas to be the only proper object of worship. Only 
a very few persons of extraordinary gifts and virtues, however, are able, 
it is said, to adore the Supreme Being — the great Om — directly. The 
great majority of mankind are neither so wise nor so holy as to be able to 
approach the Divine Being himself, and worship him. It being alleged 
that persons thus unfortunately disqualified for adoring the invisible Deity 
should employ their minds upon some visible thing, rather than to suffer 
them to remain idle, the Vedas direct them to worship a number of inferior 
deities, representing particular acts or qualities of the Supreme Being ; as, 
for instances, Crishnu or Vishnu, the god of preservation ; Muhadev, the 
god of destruction ; or the sun, or the air, or the sea, or the human under- 
standing ; or, in fact any object or thing which they may choose to repre- 
sent as God. Seeing, say the Hindoos, that God pervades and animates 
the whole universe, everything, living or dead, may be considered a por- 
tion of God, and as such, it may be selected as an object of worship, pro- 
vided always it be worshiped only as constituting a portion of the Divine 
Substance. In this way, whatever the eye looks on, or the mind can con- 
ceive, whether it be the sun in the heavens or the great river Ganges, 
or the crocodile on its banks, or the cow, or the fire kindled to cook food, 
or the Vedas, or a Brahmin, or a tree, or a serpent — all may be legiti- 
mately worshiped as a fragment, so to speak, of the Divine Spirit. Thus 
there may be many millions of gods to which Hindoos think themselves 
entitled to pay divine honours. The number of Hindoo gods is calculated 
at 330,000,000, or about three times the number of their worshipers. 

Of these, the three principal deities of the Hindoos are Brahma the cre- 
ator,Vishnu the preserver, and Seeb or Siva the destroyer. These three 
of course, were originally intended to represent the three great attributes 
of the Om or Invisible Supreme Being — namely, his creating, his preserv- 
ing, and his destroying attributes. Indeed the name Om itself is a com- 
pound word, expressing the three ideas of creation, preservation, and des- 
truction, all combined. The three together are called Trimurti, and there 
are certain occasions when the three are worshiped conjointly. There are 
also sculptured representations of the Trimurti, in which the busts of Brah- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 33 

ma, Vishnu, and Siva are cut out of the same mass of stone. One of these 
images of the Trimurti is found in the celebrated cavern temple of Ele- 
phanta, in the neighborhood of Bombay, perhaps the most wonderful rem- 
nant of ancient Indian architecture. Vishnu and Siva are more worship- 
ped separately than Brahma — each having his body of devotees specially 
attached to him in particular. 

Hindooism, like other Pantheistic systems, teaches the doctrine of the 
transmigration of souls : all creation, animate and inanimate, being, accor- 
ding to the Hindoo system, nothing else but the deity Brahm himself par- 
celed out, as it were, into innumerable portions and forms (when these 
are reunited, the world will be at an end), just as a quantity of qtiicksil- 
ver may be broken up into innumerable little balls or globules, which all have 
a tendency to go together again. At long intervals of time, each exten- 
ding over some thousand millions of years, Brahm does bring the world to 
an end, by reabsorbing it into his spirit. When, therefore, a man dies, his 
soul, according to the Hindoos, must either be absorbed immediately into 
the soul of Brahm, or it must pass through a series of transmigrations, 
waiting for the final absorption, which happens at the end of every uni- 
verse, or at least until such time as it shall be prepared for being reunited 
with the Infinite Spirit. The former of the two is, according to the Hin- 
doos, the highest possible reward : to be absorbed into Brahm immediately 
upon death, and without having to undergo any farther purification, is the 
lot only of the greatest devotees. To attain this end, or at least to avoid 
degradation after death, the Hindoos, and especially the Brahmins, who are 
naturally the most intent upon their spiritual interests, practice a ritual of 
the most intricate and ascetic description, carrying religious ceremonies and 
antipathies with them into all the duties of life. So overburdened is the 
daily life of the Hindoos with superstitious observances with regard to 
food, sleep, etc., that, but for the speculative doctrines which the more ele- 
vated minds among the Brahmins may see recognised in their religion, the 
whole system of Hindooism might seem a wretched and grotesque poly- 
theism. 

A hundred millions of people professing this system, divided into castes 
as now, and carrying the Brahminical ritual into all the occupations of la- 
zy life under the hot sun, and amid the exuberant vegetation of Hindoos- 
tan — such was the people into which Alexander the Great carried his 
conquering arms ; such, doubtless, they had been for ages before that pe- 
riod ; and such did they remain, shut out from the view of the rest of the 
civilized world, and only communicating with it by means of spices, ivory, 
etc., which found their way through Arabia or the Red Sea to the Mediter- 
ranean, till Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and brought 
Europe and India into closer connection. Meanwhile a Mohammedan 
invasion had taken place (a.d. 1000) ; Mohammedans from Persia had 
mingled themselves with the Hindoos ; and it was with this mixed popu- 
lation that British enterprise eventually came into collision. 

Ere quitting the Indians, it is well to glance back at the Chinese, so as 
to see wherein these two primeval and contemporaneous consolidations of 
our species — the Mongolian consolidation of eastern Asia, and the Caucas- 
ian consolidation of the central peninsula of southern Asia — differ. ' Who- 
ever would perceive the full physical and moral difference,' says Klaproth, 

' between the Chinese and Indian nations, must contrast the peculiar cul- 
3# 



34 AMERICAN" ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ture of the Chinese with that of the Hindoo, fashioned almost like a Euro- 
pean, even to his complexion. He will study the boundless religious sys- 
tem of the Brahmins, and oppose it to the bald belief of the original Chi- 
nese, which can hardly be named religion. He will remark the rigorous 
division of the Hindoos into castes, sects, and denominations, for which the 
inhabitants of the central kingdom have even no expression. He will com- 
pare the dry prosaic spirit of the Chinese with the high poetic souls of the 
dwellers on the Ganges and the Dsumnah. He will hear the rich and 
blooming Sanscrit, and contrast it with the unharmonious speech of the 
Chinese. He will mark, finally, the literature of the latter, full of matters 
of fact and things worth knowing, as contrasted with the limitless philo- 
sophic-ascetic writing of the Indians, who have made even the highest 
poetry wearisome by perpetual length.' 

History of the Eastern Nations till their Incorporation in 
the Persian Empire. Leaving India — that great fragment of the orig- 
inal Caucasian civilization — and proceeding westward, we find two largo 
masses of the human species filling in the earliest times the countries lying 
between the Indus and the Mediterranean — namely, an Indo-Persian mass 
filling the whole tract of country between the Indus and the Tigris ; and 
a Semitic- Aramaic mass filling the greater part of lesser Asia and the 
whole peninsula of Arabia, and extending itself into the parts of Africa 
adjoining the Red Sea. That in the most remote ages these lands were 
the theatres of a civilized activity is certain, although no records have been 
transmitted from them to us, except a few fragments relative to the Semi- 
tic nations. The general facts, however, with regard to these ante-historic 
times, seem to be : 1st, That the former of the two masses mentioned — 
namely, the population between the Indus and the Caspian — was essen- 
tially a prolongation of the great Indian nucleus, possessing a culture 
similar to the Indian in its main aspects, although varied, as was inevitable, 
by the operation of those physical causes which distinguish the climate of 
Persia and Cabool from that of Hindoostan ; 2d, That the Semitic or Ara- 
maic mass divided itself at a very early period into a number of separate 
peoples or nations, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, the 
Jews, the Arabians, etc., and that each of these acquired a separate devel- 
opment, and worked out for itself a separate career ; 3c?, That upwards of 
a thousand years before Christ the spirit of conquest appeared among the 
Semitic nations, dashing them violently against each other; and that at 
length one Semitic fragment — that is, the Assyrians — attained the supre- 
macy over the rest, and founded a great dominion, called the Assyrian 
empire, which stretched from Egypt to the borders of India (b. c. 800) ; 
and 4th, That the pressure of this Semitic power against the Indo-Persic 
mass was followed by a reaction — one great section of the Indo-Persians 
rising into strength, supplanting the Assyrian empire, and founding one of 
their own, called the Persian empire (b. c. 536) , which was destined in 
its turn to be supplanted by the confederacy of Grecian states in b. c. 326. 

Beginning with Egypt, let us trace separately the career of each of the 
Eastern nations till that point of time at which we find them all embodied 
in the great Persian empire : — 

The Egyptians. Egypt, whose position on the map of Africa is well 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 35 

known, is about 500 miles long from its most northern to its most southern 
point. Through its whole length flows the Nile, a fine large stream rising 
in the inland kingdom of Abyssinia, and, from certain periodic floods to 
which it is subject, of great use in irrigating and fertilizing the country. 
A large portion of Egypt consists of an alluvial plain, similar to our mead- 
ow grounds, formed by the deposits of the river, and bounded by ranges 
of mountains on either side. The greatest breadth of the valley is 150 
miles, but generally it is much less, the mountain ranges on either side 
often being not more than a few miles from the river. 

A country so favorably situated, and possessing so many advantages, 
could not but be among the earliest peopled ; and accordingly, as far back 
as the human memory can reach, we find a dense population of a very 
peculiar character inhabiting the whole valley of the Nile. These ancient 
Egyptians seem, as we have already said, to have been a mixture of the 
Semitic with the Ethiopic element, speaking a peculiar language, still sur- 
viving in a modified form in the Coptic of modern Egypt. In the ancient 
authors, however, the Egyptians are always distinguished from the Ethio- 
pians, with whom they kept up so close an intercourse, that it has been 
made a question whether the Egyptian institutions came from the Ethiopian 
Meroe, or whether, as is more probable, civilization was transmitted to 
Ethiopia from Egypt. 

The whole country is naturally divided into three parts — Upper Egypt, 
bordering on what was anciently Ethiopia ; Middle Egypt ; and Lower 
Egypt, including the Delta of the Nile. In each there were numerous 
cities in which the population was amassed : originally Thebes, a city of 
Upper Egypt, of the size of which surprising accounts are transmitted to 
us, and whose ruins still astonish the traveler, was the capital of the coun- 
try ; but latterly, as commerce increased, Memphis in Middle Egypt 
became the seat of power. After Thebes and Memphis, Ombi, Edfou, 
Esneh, Elephantina, and Philoe seem to have been the most important of 
the Egyptian cities. 

Our accounts of the Egyptian civilization are derived chiefly from the 
Greek historian Herodotus (b. c. 408), who visited Egypt and digested 
the information which he received from the priests as to its ancient history ; 
and Manetho, a native Egyptian of later times, who wrote in Greek. 
From their accounts it is inferred that the country was anciently divided 
into thirty-six sections or provinces called nomes — ten in Upper, sixteen 
in Middle, and ten in Lower Egypt. ' Many of the separate nomes were 
of considerable substantive importance, and had a marked local character 
each to itself, religious as well as political ; though the whole of Egypt, 
from Elephantine to Pelusium and Kanopus, is said to have always consti- 
tuted one kingdom.' Of this kingdom, the population, according to a 
rough estimate, may have been about seven millions. The government was 
a monarchy based on an all-powerful priesthood, similar to the Brahminical 
system of India ; and, as in India, the most striking feature in the Egyp- 
tian' society was the division of the people into hereditary castes. ' The 
population of Egypt,' says Mr Grote in his History of Greece, ' was clas- 
sified into certain castes or hereditary professions, of which the number is 
represented differently by different authors. The priests stand clearly 
marked out as the order richest, most powerful, and most venerated, distri- 
buted all over the country, and possessing exclusively the means of reading 



OD AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and writing, besides a vast amount of narrative matter treasured up in the 
memory, the whole stock of medical and physical knowledge then attaina- 
ble, and those rudiments of geometry (or rather land-measuring) which 
were so often called into use in a country annually inundated. To each god 
and to each temple throughout Egypt, lands and other properties belonged, 
whereby the numerous band of priests attached to him were maintained. 
Their ascendancy, both direct and indirect, over the minds of the people 
was immense ; they prescribed that minute ritual under which the life of 
every Egyptian, not excepting the king himself, was passed, and which was 
for themselves more full of harassing particularities than for any one else. 
Every day in the year belonged to some particular god, and the priests 
alone knew to which. There were different gods in every nome, though 
Isis and Osiris were common to all ; and the priests of each god constituted 
a society apart, more or less important, according to the comparative celeb- 
rity of the temple. The property of each temple included troops of 
dependents and slaves, who were stamped with " holy marks," and who 
must have been numerous, in order to suffice for the service of the large 
buildings and their constant visitors. 

Next in importance to the sacerdotal caste were the military caste or 
order, whose native name indicated that they stood on the left hand of the 
king, while the priests occupied the right. They were classified in Kala- 
sires and Hermotybii, who occupied lands in eighteen particular nomes or 
provinces, principally in Lower Egypt. The Kalasiries had once amoun- 
ted to 160,000 men, the Hermotybii to 250,000, when at the maximum of 
their population ; but that highest point had long been past in the time of 
Herodotus. To each man of this soldier-caste was assigned a portion of 
land, equal to about 62 English acres, free from any tax. The lands of the 
priests and the soldiers were regarded as privileged property, and exempt 
from all burdens ; while the remaining soil was considered as the property 
of the king, who however, received from it a fixed proportion — one-fifth 
of the total produce — leaving the rest in the hands of the cultivators. 
The soldiers were interdicted from every description of art and trade.' 

The other castes are differently given in different authors ; the most 
probable account, however, is that which assigns them as three — the caste 
of the husbandmen, that of the artificers, and that of the herdsmen, which 
last caste included a variety of occupations held in contempt, the lowest 
and most degraded of all being that of swineherd. The separation be- 
tween the husbandmen and the herdsmen seems to have arisen from the 
circumstance that different parts of the country, not suitable for agricul- 
ture, were entirely laid out in pasture. The artificers, constituting the vast 
town population of Egypt, were subdivided into a great variety of occupa- 
tions, weavers, masons, sculptors, etc., who were compelled to these profes- 
sions by hereditary obligation. It was by the labor of this vast town pop- 
ulation, assisted by that of herds of slaves, that those huge works were 
accomplished, the remains of which attest the greatness of ancient Egypt. 
Part of the artisan population were exclusively occupied in skilled labor ; 
and in a country where there was such a taste for works of masonry, 
sculpture was necessarily one of the most largely-stocked of the skilled 
occupations. ' Perfect exactness of execution,' it is said, ' mastery of the 
hardest stone, and undeviating obedience to certain rules of proportion, are 
general characteristics of Egyptian sculpture. There are yet seen in 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 37 

their quarries obelisks not severed from the rock, but having three of their 
sides already adorned with hieroglyphics, so certain were they of cutting 
off the fourth side with precision.' These skilled artificers may be sup- 
posed to have acted as foremen and overseers of the great numbers of 
laborers who were employed in public works such as the Pyramids. In 
the construction of these works no degree of labor for any length of 
time seems to have intimidated the Egyptians. The huge blocks of stone, 
sometimes weighing 1000 tons each, were dragged for hundreds of miles 
on sledges, and their transport, perhaps, did not occupy less time than a 
year ; in one case which is known, 2000 men were employed three years 
in bringing a single stone from a quarry to the building in which it was to 
be placed. Usually, the sledges were drawn by men yoked in rows to 
separate ropes, all pulling at a ring fixed to the block. Where it was pos- 
sible, the blocks were brought from the quarries on flat-bottomed boats on 
the Nile. But the transport of these masses was much more easily accom 
plished than the placing of them in elevated situations in the buildings 
They were raised by the power of levers and inclined planes at immense 
trouble and cost. The waste of human life in these gigantic works must 
have been enormous. About 120,000 men are said to have perished in 
the digging of a canal, which was left unfinished, between the Red Sea 
and an arm of the Nile ; and according to Herodotus, the Egyptian priests 
of his day described the building of the Pyramids as a time of extreme 
exhaustion and hardship to the whole country. 

The religion of the Egyptians seems to have been, in its popular form at 
least, a mere gross Fetishism, whose principal characteristic was a worship 
of teeming animal life — the bull, the cat, the ibis, the crocodile, etc.; 
different animals in different nomes. Whatever profounder meaning lay 
hid under this gross ceremonial the priest-caste reserved to themselves, as 
one of the mysteries, the possession of which severed them from the rest 
of the population. Among these mysteries was the art of writing, which 
was practised both in the alphabetical and the hieroglyphic form ; the latter 
being used for special purposes. Some vague notion of the immortality 
of the soul, resembling the Hindoo tenet of transmigration, seems to have 
pervaded the Egyptian religion ; and this belief appears to have lain at 
the foundation of the Egyptian practice of embalming the dead. The 
business of embalming was a very dignified one, and was aided by a host 
of inferior functionaries, who made and painted coffins and other articles 
which were required. The bodies of the poorer classes were merely dried 
with salt or natron, and wrapt up in coarse cloths, and deposited in the 
catacombs. The bodies of the rich and great underwent the most compli- 
cated operations, wrapt in bandages dipped in balsam, and laboriously 
adorned with all kinds of ornaments. Thus prepared they were placed 
in highly-decorated cases or coffins, and then consigned to sarcophagi in 
the catacombs or pyramids. Bodies so prepared have been called mum- 
mies, either from the Arabian word momia, or the Coptic mum, signifying 
bitumen or gum-resin. 

Although the Egyptians carried on from early times a caravan-commerce 
with the adjacent countries of Phoenicia, Palestine, and Arabia, importing 
such articles as wine, oil, and spices for embalming, yet exclusiveness and 
self-sufficiency were characteristics of their civilization. There, on the 
oanks of the Nile, these millions lived, changeless in their methods through 



38 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

centuries, each individual mechanically pursuing the occupation to which 
he was born — millions cultivating the soil, and producing wheat, etc., for 
the subsistence of the whole ; others tending the cattle necessary for food 
or sacrifice ; millions, again, crowded into the numerous towns, occupied in 
the various handicrafts necessary to provide articles of clothing, luxury, 
etc. — a large proportion of this class being available for stupendous archi- 
tectural works ; and lastly, diffused through these country and town popu- 
lations, two other proprietor-castes — the one a militia, occupied in gym- 
nastic exercises alone ; the other a sacerdotal or intellectual order, within 
whose body was accumulated all the speculative or scientific wisdom of the 
country. Relations existed between Egypt and the adjacent countries ; 
and rumours of the nature of its peculiar civilization may have spread 
through the nations of the Mediterranean ; but for a long while it was shut, 
like the present China, against foreign intrusion ; and it was not till about 
the year 650 B. c. that it was thrown open to general inspection. In the 
sixth and fifth centuries B.C., the philosophers of other countries, and espe- 
cially of Greece, used to visit Egypt in order to acquire, by intercourse 
with the Egyptian intellectual caste, some of that precious knowledge of 
which they were believed to be the depositaries. 

Although the Egyptian civilization is known to have existed pretty much 
as we have described it from immemorial antiquity, yet, with the exception 
of what we learn from Scripture, we know little of Egyptian history, pro- 
perly so called, anterior to the time when the country was thrown open to 
the Greeks. Herodotus and Manetho, indeed, have given us retrospective 
lists of the Egyptian kings, extending back into the primitive gloom of the 
world ; but portions of these lists are evidently constructed backwards on 
mythical principles.' Thus Manetho, preserving doubtless the traditions 
of the sacerdotal Egyptian caste, to which he is supposed to have belonged, 
carries back the imagination as far as 80,000 years before the birth of 
Christ. From this date till B. C. 5702, great divine personages ruled in 
Egypt ; then (b. c. 5702) it came into the possession of human kings, the 
first of which was Menes. From the accession of Menes down to the in- 
corporation of Egypt w T ith the Persian empire (b. c. 525), Herodotus assigns 
330 kings, or, as they are called in Scripture, Pharaohs, whose names he 
informs us, were read to him out of a papyrus manuscript by the Egyp- 
tian priests, who pledged themselves to its accuracy ; ana" Manetho reckons 
up twenty-six dynasties, some of them native and others foreign, which 
divided the long period into portions of different lengths. 

Arabia. The great peninsula of Arabia was in the earliest times inhab- 
ited by a population of the Semitic stock, in all essential respects similar 
to that which inhabits it now, partly concentrated in cities, partly wander- 
ing in tribes through the extensive deserts which mark the surface of the 
country. The inhabitants of the towns subsist by agriculture and com- 
merce ; the wandering tribes by cattle rearing and pillage. In ancient 
times, as now, the Arabs were celebrated for their expert horsemanship, 
their hospitality, their eloquence, and their free indomitable spirit. In 
religion, however, the modern Arabs, who are Mohammedans, differ from 
the ancient Arabs, who were idolaters, chiefly worshippers of the celestial 
luminaries, nowhere so beautiful as in the sky of an Arabian desert. The 
Arabs themselves trace their history back, the older tribes to Kahtan (the 
Joktan of the 10th chapter of Genesis), the latter to Adnan, a descendant 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 39 

of Ishmael, the offspring of Abraham. It is unnecessary, however, to enter 
into this history, as Arabia was not incorporated with the Persian empire, 
and only assumed historical importance in later times, when it sent forth 
the religion of Mohammed over the East. 

Syria. The Semitic or Aramaic population overspreading Syria — which 
name is generally applied to the country lying between the Euphrates and 
Arabian desert on the east, and the Mediterranean on the west — had early 
divided itself into various independent states or kingdoms, which ultimately 
resolved themselves, it would appear, into three. These were Phoenicia, 
a narrow strip of coast-land, extending from Mount Carmel to the river 
Eleutheros ; Palestine, or the Holy Land, including the country south of 
Phoenicia, between the Arabian desert and the Mediterranean, as well as 
the inland district lying between Mount Carmel and Mount Herman; 
and Syria Proper, whose capital was Damascus, and which, when the 
power of the Damascan kings was at its highest, included all the country 
except Palestine and Phoenicia. Syrian history possesses no independent 
importance ; we pass, therefore, to the history of the Phoenician and Jewish 
nations. 

The Phoenicians. Phoenicia was an exceedingly small country, its 
length being only about 120 miles, and its breadth nowhere greater than 
20 miles. Indeed it may be described as a mere slip of coast-land, suffi- 
ciently large to accommodate a range of port towns, such as a merchant peo- 
ple required. The most northern of these Phoenician cities was Aradus, 
situated on a small island ; the most southern was the famous Tyre ; and 
between the two were situated many others, of which the chief were Sidon, 
Berytus, Tripolis, and Byblus. The greater part of the population was 
contained in these cities, the rural population being small in proportion. 

Originally, Phoenicia was divided into a number of little states or com- 
munities, each having a town for its metropolis, with a hereditary king of 
its own; and ere the country was restricted by the formation of the Jew- 
ish nation, the number of these Phoenician or Canaanitish principalities 
must have been considerable. The Phoenicians were a fragment of the 
Canaanites of Scripture; and doubtless in the annals of the separate 
Phoenician towns, such as Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus, were preserved rec- 
ord from the Phoenician point of view, of many of those ancient transac- 
tions which are related in the Scriptural account of the settlement of the 
Jews in Canaan. Without going back, however, into the remoter period 
of Phoenician history, one of the questions connected with which is, whether 
Tyre (founded, it was said, b.c. 2700) or Sidon was the more ancient town, 
let us give a summary view of the nature of the Phoenician civilization at 
the period of its highest celebrity — namely, from B. c. 1200 to B. c. 700, 
at which time we find Tyre exercising a presiding influence over the other 
Phoenician communities. 

The Phoenicians were the great trading nation of antiquity. Situated 
at so convenient a point on the Mediterranean, it devolved on them to trans- 
port to the sea-shore the commodities of the East, brought to them over- 
land by Arabian and Egyptian caravans, and from the sea-shore to distrib- 
ute them among the expecting nations of the west. Nor were they with- 
out valuable products of their own. The sand of their coasts was particu- 



40 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

larly suitable for the manufacture of glass ; their bays abounded in species 
of fish which produced a fine purple dye — the celebrated Tyrian purple 
of antiquity ; and in various parts of the country there were excellent 
mines of iron and copper. It was, in fact, essential for the general inter- 
ests of the race that the people inhabiting that portion of the Mediterranean 
coasts should devote themselves to commerce. In anticipation of this, as 
it might seem, the mountains of Libanus, which separated the narrow 
Phoenician territory from Syria, were stocked with the best timber, which, 
transported over the short distance which intervened between these moun- 
tains and the sea, abundantly supplied the demands of the Phoenician dock- 
yards. There was something in the Phoenician character, also, which sui- 
ted the requirements of their geographical position. Skillful, enterprising, 
griping in their desire for wealth, and in other respects resembling much 
their neighbors the Jews, to whom they were allied in race, and whose lan- 
guage was radically identical with their own — theirs was essentially the 
merchant type of character. 

Standing as the Phoenicians did as the people by whom the exchange 
between the East and the West was managed, a complete view of their life 
and manner of activity should embrace first, their relations with the East 
— that is, their overland trade with Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, Persia, and 
India ; secondly, their relations with the West — that is, their maritime 
trade with the various nations of the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts ; 
and thirdly, the peculiar character of mind which either accompanied or 
resulted from the consciousness of such a position in the great family of 
mankind. 

With regard to the overland trade of the Phoenicians with the Eastern 
countries, little requires to be said except that it was one attended with 
great risks — the journey of a caravan across the deserts, and through the 
roaming tribes which separated Phoenicia from interior Asia, being a more 
serious enterprise than a long sea voyage. It is probable that the Phoe- 
nicians managed this commerce not in their own persons, but as wealthy 
speculative merchants, dealing in a skillful manner with the native Egyptian, 
Assyrian, or Arabian caravan-proprietors, with whom they maintained an 
understood connection. At the same time it is likely that they stimulated 
and regulated the Eastern commerce, by means of Phoenician agents or 
emissaries despatched into the interior with general instructions, just as in 
later times European agents were often despatched into the interior of 
Africa to direct the movements of native merchants. It was in their 
maritime trade with the West, however, that the Phoenicians chiefly exhibi- 
ted the resources of their own character. Shipping the Oriental commo- 
dities, as well as their native products, at Tyre or Sidon, they carried 
them to all the coasts of the Mediterranean as far as Spain, selling them 
there at immense profit, and returning with freights of Western goods. 
With some of the nations of the Mediterranean their intercourse would be 
that of one civilized nation with another ; with others, and especially with 
those of the West, it must have been an intercourse similar to that of a 
British ship with those rude islanders who exchange their valuable pro- 
ducts for nails, bits of looking-glass, and other trifles. Whether their 
customers were civilized or savage, however, the Phoenicians reaped profits 
from them. Their aim was to monopolise the commerce of the Mediterra- 
nean. * If at any time,' it is said, * tneir ships bound on a voyage observed 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 41 

that a stranger kept them company, or followed them in their track, they 
were sure to get rid of him, or deceive him if they could ; and in this they 
went so far as to venture the loss of their ships, and even of their lives, 
so that they could but destroy or disappoint him ; so jealous were they 
of foreigners, and so bent on keeping all to themselves. And to add to 
the dangers of the sea, and discourage other nations from trading, they 
practiced piracy, or pretended to be at war with such as they met when 
they thought themselves strongest.' This policy succeeded so far, that 
hardly a merchant ship was to be seen in the Mediterranean not manned by 
Phoenicians. From this extension of the Phoenician commerce through- 
out the Mediterranean resulted, by necessity, an extensive system of coloni- 
zation. The distance, for instance, of Spain from Phoenicia, rendered all 
the greater by the ancient custom of always sailing close by the coast, 
made it necessary for the Phoenician traders to have intermediate ports, 
settlement, or factories, to which their vessels might resort, not to say that 
such settlements were required for the collection of the produce which was 
to be taken back to Phoenicia. Accordingly, in process of time, Phoenician 
colonies were established at all available points of the Mediterranean — on 
the coasts of Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, and in the Balearic 
Islands ; the rising maritime spirit of the Greeks excluding the Phoenicians 
from the iEgean and the coasts of Asia Minor. Among the most ancient 
of the colonies from Tyre were Carthage and Utica on the African coast, 
and Gades (Cadiz) in Spain ; all of which were founded before the first 
of the Greek Olympiads (b. c. 884). From these afterwards arose smaller 
settlements, which diffused the Phoenician agency still more extensively 
among the uncivilized nations of Africa and western Europe. Gades in 
Spain, situated, according to the ancient mode of navigation, at a distance 
of seventy-five days' sail from Tyre and Sidon — a distance larger than that 
which now divides Liverpool from Bombay — was a colony of special impor- 
tance ; first, as commanding the inland Spanish trade, particularly valuable 
at that time, inasmuch as the gold and silver mines of Spain caused it to be 
regarded as the Mexico or Peru of the ancient world ; and secondly, as 
forming a point from which the Phoenician commerce could be still farther 
extended along the extra-Mediterranean shores. From this point, we are 
told, the Phoenician ships extended their voyages southward for thirty days' 
sail along the coast of Africa, and northwards as far as Britain, where 
they took in tin from Cornwall, and even as far as the Baltic, where they 
collected amber. Upon what a scale of profit must these expeditions have 
been conducted, when, from Tyre to Cornwall, not a merchant ship besides 
those of the Phoenicians was to be seen ! And who can tell what influence 
these Phoenician visits may have had on the then rude nations bordering 
the Atlantic ? — or how far these ante-historic Phoenician impulses may 
have stimulated the subsequent career of these nations ? Like the visit 
of an English merchantman now to a South Sea Island, so must have been 
the visit of a Phoenician trading vessel 3000 years ago to the Britons of 
Cornwall. 

As might be expected, this great merchant people were among the most 
cultured of antiquity, and especially skilled in all the arts of luxurious living. 
The 27th chapter of the book of Ezekiel presents a most striking picture 
of the pride and magnificence of the Tyrians, and embodies many minute 
particulars relative to Phoenician customs and mode of life. Indeed it has 



42 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

been pronounced the most early and most authentic record extant relative 
to the commerce of the ancients. 

Among the contributions made by the Phoenicians to the west, were 
alphabetical writing, the Greek alphabet being a derivative from the 
Phoenician ; the scale of weight ; and that of coined money. Having 
made these and other contributions to the west, Phoenicia began about 
(700 b. c.) to decline in importance ; the Ionian Greeks, and latterly the 
Egyptians, becoming its commercial rivals on the Mediterranean : and 
the invasions of the Assyrians from the east depriving it of independence. 
Subdued by the Assyrians and Babylonians, Phoenicia was transferred 
by them to the Persians. Among the last of the Phoenician achievements 
was the circumnavigation of Africa B. c. 600 — a feat undertaken by 
Phoenician sailors at the command of the Egyptian king Nekos, one of the 
immediate successors of Psammetik : and, as is now believed, really per 
formed — the course pursued being from the Red Sea round Africa to 
Spain — the reverse, therefore, of that followed by Vasco de Gama 2000 
years later. About the time that Phoenicia began to wane, her colony, 
Carthage, assumed her place in the affairs of the world. Carthaginian civi- 
lization was essentially a mere repetition of the Phoenician, although under 
a different form of government ; Carthaginian history interweaves itself 
with that of the Romans. 

Palestine — the Jews. Palestine extends from north to south a length 
of about 200 miles, and 50 in breadth ; and is therefore, in point of size, of 
nearly the same extent as Scotland. The general character of the country 
is that of a hilly region, interspersed with moderately fertile vales ; and 
being thus irregular in surface, it possesses a number of brooks or streams, 
which for the most part are swollen considerably after rains, but are almost 
dry in the hot seasons of the year. The present condition of Palestine 
scarcely corresponds with its ancient fertility. This is chiefly attribu- 
table to the devastating effects of perpetual wars ; and some physical chan 
ges have also contributed to the destruction of agricultural industry. Yet, 
after all, so excellent would the soil appear to be, and so ample its resources, 
that Canaan may still be characterized as a land flowing with milk and 
honey. 

The history of the extraordinary nation which once inhabited this land, 
must be so much more familiar to our readers than that of any other 
ancient nation, that all that is necessary here is a brief sketch, such as 
will assist the imagination in tracing with due completeness the general 
career of the East till the establishment of the Persian empire. Accor- 
ding to the accounts given of the Jews in Scripture, and in their history 
by Josephus, they were descended from Abraham, who was born in the 
292d year (according to other authorities, in the 352d year) after the 
Deluge, 'left the land of Chaldea when he was seventy-five years old, and, 
at the command of God, went int^ Canaan, and therein he dwelt himself, 
and left it to his posterity. He was a person of great sagacity, both for 
understanding of all things and persuading his hearers, and not mistaken 
in his opinions ; for which reason he began to have higher notions of vir- 
tue than othera had, and he determined to renew and to change the opinion 
all men happened then to have concerning God ; for he was the first that 
ventured to publish this notion, that there was but one God, the Creator 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 43 

of the universe ; and that as to other gods, if they contributed anything 
to the happiness of men, that each of them afforded it only according to 
His appointment, and not by their own power. For which doctrines, when 
the Chaldeans and other people of Mesopotamia raised a tumult against 
him, he thought fit to leave that country, and at the command of God he 
came and lived in the land of Canaan. And when he was there settled, 
he built an altar, and performed a sacrifice to God.' After the death of 
Abraham's son Isaac, his younger son Jacob remained for a number of 
years in Canaan, surrounded by a family of twelve sons, one of whom, 
Joseph, as related in Scripture, became the cause of the removal of his 
father and brethren, and all belonging to them, into Egypt. The Hebrew 
emigrants were seventy in number, and formed at the first a respectable 
colony among the Egyptians. Jacob died after having been seventeen 
years in Egypt, and his body was carried by Joseph to Hebron, and buried 
in the sepulchre of his father and grandfather. Joseph also died in Egypt 
at the age of 110, and at length his brethren died likewise. Ea.'h of the 
twelve sons of Jacob became the progenitor of a family or tribe, and the 
twelve tribes, personified by the term Israel, continued to reside in Egypt, 
where they increased both in number and in wealth. Their rapid increase 
and prosperity soon excited the jealousy of the masters of the country ; 
and from being in high favor, the different tribes gradually fell under 
the lash of power, and came to be treated as public slaves. 

The entire body of Israelites, guided by Moses, fled from Egypt in 
the year 1490 before Christ, at a time when Thebes, Memphis, and 
the other magnificent cities of that country, were in all their glory. Pro- 
ceeding in a north-easterly direction from Rameses (near the site of mod- 
ern Cairo), they went through the level region of the land of Goshen 
(now a barren sandy plain) to the head of the Gulf of Suez, the western 
branch of the Red Sea. Here they crossed in a miraculous manner to 
the opposite shore, to a spot now called the Wells of Moses, where, accord- 
ing to the Scripture narrative, they sang their song of thanksgiving for 
their deliverance. The country in which they had now arrived was a por- 
tion of Arabia Petrrea, consisting of a dismal barren wilderness, now called 
the Desert of Sinai, from the principal mountain which rises within it. 
From the point at which the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea from 
Egypt, they were conducted by a most circuitous and tedious route towards 
the Promised Land of Canaan. 

The country on the shore of the Mediterranean which was allotted as a 
settlement to this people, was at that time occupied by many warlike 
tribes, who had grown strong in its fertile plains and valleys ; and the 
generation of the Hebrews who were conducted into it were compelled to 
fight for its possession. The struggle was not of long continuance. The 
whole land was conquered in the year B. c. 1450. 

According to the account given in the 26th chapter of the book of Num- 
bers, the Hebrew nation thus brought out of the land of Egypt and settled 
in Canaan amounted to 601,730 souls, unto whom the land was divided for 
an inheritance, according to the number of individuals in the respective 
tribes. 

Moses dying before the inheritance was entered upon, was succeeded by 
Joshua as a leader, and by him the Israelites were conducted across the 
Jordan. The political government of the various tribes, after their con 



44 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

quest and settlement of Canaan, appears to have been republican, with mil- 
itary leaders called Judges ; but these acted by the direction of the Priest- 
hood, who were immediately counseled by the Deity within the sanctuary. 
This period of separate government in tribes, called the Period of the 
Judges, lasted 300 years (b. c. 1427-1112), and was one of daring actions 
and great deliverances — the heroic age of the Jews. 

The epoch of kings succeeded that of judges. The reign of Saul, their 
first monarch, though the people were stronger by being united, was gloomy 
and troubled. David, who succeeded, was a soldier and a conqueror. He 
rendered the Hebrews formidable to the whole of their enemies, and gave 
them a regular and defensible position, expelling their old antagonists from 
every part of the country. He left an empire peaceful, respected, and 
strong ; and, what was of as much importance, he selected from among his 
sons a successor who was able to improve all these advantages, and to add 
to the progress which his countrymen had already made in prosperity. 
Under Solomon, the name of the Hebrew government being able to protect 
its subjects in other countries, the people and their king began to employ 
themselves in commerce. Their trade was at first engrafted on that of the 
Phoenicians of Tyre. A greater contrast cannot be imagined than between 
the troubles of the time of the Judges (only 100 years before), and the 
peace, security, and enjoyment of this reign. 'And the king made silver 
to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as sycamore trees 
that are in the vale for abundance ; and Judah and Israel were many ; as 
the sand which is by the sea-shore for multitude, eating, and drinking, and 
making merry.' (1 Kings, x. 27.) 

After the death of Solomon, the country fell into the same divisions which 
had weakened it in the time of the Judges. Each of the districts of North 
and South Israel was under a separate king, and the people were exposed 
both to the attacks of their enemies and to quarrels with each other. Their 
history is a succession of agitating conflicts for independence, and of unex- 
pected and remarkable deliverances, of a similar nature to those of the 
earlier period, and they continued for about the same length of time (380 
years) ; but they are marked by fewer of those traits of heroic devotion 
which distinguished the epoch of the Judges. The backslidings, errors, 
and misgovernment of their kings, is the chief and painful subject which 
is presented to us ; and though these are relieved at times by the appear- 
ance of such monarchs as Josiah, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah, yet the whole 
history of this period is overcast with the gloominess of progressive decline. 

By far the most delightful parts of it are those which relate to the lives 
of the prophets, who were raised up at intervals to warn the nation and its 
rulers of the fate which they incurred by forsaking the religion of their 
fathers. These inspired men sometimes sprang up from among the 
humblest classes of the community: one from the 'herdsmen of Tekoa,' 
another from 'ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen ;' several were of the 
priestly order, and one (Isaiah) is said to have been of royal lineage ; but 
the works of all are marked with the same sacredness, force, and authority. 
They reprehend their countrymen, in the most eloquent strains, at one timo 
for idolatry, and at another for hypocrisy ; and their indignation is express 
ed with the same freedom and dignity against the vices of the highest and 
the lowest. 

Of the two kingdoms into which Palestine divided itself after the death 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 45 

of Solomon (b. c. 975), the northern, called the Kingdom of Israel, was 
conquered by the Assyrians of Nineveh (b. c. 722),who carried off many 
thousand of the people into captivity. Little is known of their fate. By 
some they are supposed to have been carried to India, by others to Tartary : 
'what became of all the Israelites of the ten tribes,' is still a question with 
historians. The southern kingdom, called the kingdom of Judah, retained 
its independence till B. c. 588, when it was invaded and subdued by 
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who destroyed Jerusalem, and carried 
away a great number of the principal Jews into captivity at Babylon. On 
the subversion of the Babylonian dominion by Cyrus, seventy years after- 
wards, the captives, to the number of 42,360, were permitted to return to 
their own land, and rebuild Jerusalem. At this period, the whole of Pales- 
tine merged in the growing Persian empire. 

The Assyrians and Babylonians. That large extent of level coun- 
try situated between and on the banks of the two great rivers, the Euphra- 
tes and the Tigris, was in the earliest antiquity, the seat of a Semitic popu- 
lation living under an organized government. Of the cities, the most im- 
portant ultimately were Babylon, built, by Nimrod, (b. c. 2217) ; and 
Nineveh (called Ninos by the Greeks), built either by Asshur or Nimrod 
about the same time, but afterwards rebuilt and enlarged, according to 
ancient tradition, by a great king, Ninus, (b. c. 1230). With these two 
cities as capitals, the country divided itself into two corresponding parts 
or kingdoms — the kingdom of Assyria proper, including, besides part of 
Mesopotamia, the country to the right of the Tigris as far as Mount Zagros; 
and the kingdom of Babylonia, including the western part of Mesopotamia, 
together with the country to the left of the Euphrates as far as Syria 
proper. The two kingdoms, however, are often included under the joint 
name of Assyria ; a word which, as well as the shorter form Syria, was 
often employed by the ancient Greek writers to designate the whole region 
lying along the courses of the two great rivers from the Black Sea to the 
northern angle of the Persian Gulf. 

Although Babylon was according to Scripture, the earlier of the two 
powers, yet the Assyrians of Nineveh attained such strength under their 
hero Ninus, as to reduce the Babylonians to a species of dependence. 
Under Ninus, and his wife and successor the great conqueress Semiramis, 
says ancient mythical history, the city of the Tigris extended its dominions 
far and wide, from Egypt to the border of India. This empire, known in 
the common chronologies by the name of 'The Assyrian Empire,' lasted, 
according to the usual accounts, five or six centuries, during which it was 
governed, in the absolute Oriental manner, by the successors of Ninus and 
Semiramis. Of these several are mentioned in Scripture — Phul, the con- 
temporary of Menahem, king of Israel (b. c. 761), Tiglath Pileser (b. 
c. 730), both of whom were mixed up with the affairs of Israel and Judah ; 
Salmanassar, cotemporary with Hezekiah, king of Judah, andHoseah, king 
of Israel, by whom it was that Samaria was taken (b. c. 722), and the Is- 
raelites led into captivity (b. c. 722); and Sennacherib, or Sanherib (b. c. 
714), who attacked Egypt, and whose fruitless invasion of Judah forms the 
subject of the striking narrative in the 18th and 19th chapters of the second 
book of Kings , The last of the great line of the Assyrian kings of Nineveh 



46 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

was the luxurious Sardanapalus, in whose reign the empire was dissolved, 
through the instrumentality of its revolted subjects the Medes (b. c. 626). 
After Nineveh, the greatest city in the Assyrian dominion was Babylon. 
Even while under the dominion of the kings of Nineveh, Babylon appears 
to have possessed a special organization under its own chiefs, several of 
whose names — such as Beldesis (b. c. 888), and Nabonassar (b. c. 747) 

— have been preserved ; and, together with the whole province of which it 
was the capital, to have pursued a special career. The peculiar element 
in the Babylonian society which distinguished it from that of Assyria proper, 
was its Chaldsean priesthood. 'The Chaldaean order of priests,' says Mr. 
Grote. 'appear to have been peculiar to Babylon and other towns in its 
territory, especially between that city and the Persian Gulf; the vast, 
rich, and lofty temple of Belus in that city served them at once as a place 
of worship and an astronomical observatory ; and it was the paramount 
ascendancy of this order which seems to have caused the Babylonian people 
generally to be spoken of as Chaldoeans, though some writers have sup- 
posed, without any good proof, a conquest of Assyrian Babylon by barba- 
rians called Chaldaeans from the mountains near the Euxine. There were^ 
exaggerated statements respecting the antiquity of their astronomical obser- ' 
vations,* which cannot be traced, as of definite and recorded date, higher 
than the era of Nabonassar (b. c. 747), as well as respecting the extent 
of their acquired knowledge, so largely blended with astrological fancies 
and occult influences of the heavenly bodies on human affairs. But how- 
ever incomplete their knowledge may appear when judged by the standard 
of after- times, there can be no doubt that, compared with any of their cotem- 
poraries of the sixth century B. c. — either Egyptians, Greeks, or Asiatics 

— they stood preeminent, and had much to teach, not only to Thales and 
Pythagoras, but even to later inquirers, such as Eudoxus and Aristotle. 
The conception of the revolving celestial sphere, the gnomon, and the di- 
vision of the day into twelve parts, are affirmed by Herodotus to have 
been first taught to the Greeks by the Babylonians.' This learned Chal- 
dsean class seems to have pervaded the general mass of Babylonian society, 
as the corresponding priest-caste in Egypt pervaded Egyptian society, 
with this difference, that Babylonian society does not appear to have been 
parceled out like the Egyptian into a rigorous system of castes. 

On the dissolution of the Assyrian empire of Nineveh by the Medes (b. 
C. 626), the Chaldsean fragment of it rose to eminence on its ruins, chiefly 
by the efforts of Nabopolassar, a viceroy of the last Assyrian king. Estab 
lishing Babylonia as an independent power in the east, Nabopolassar came 
into collision with Nekos, king of Egypt, who was at that time extending 
his empire into Asia. It was in opposing Nekos (Pharaoh-Necho) on his 
march to Babylon, that Josiah, king of Judah, was slain. At length (b. 
c 608 ) Nebuchadnezzar, or Nebuchodonosor, the son of Nabopolassar, 
defeated Nekos, and annexed all his conquests in Asia to his father's king- 
dom. Two years afterwards the same prince took Jerusalem, and carried 
away a number of captives to Babylon, among whom were Daniel and his 
companions. Succeeding his father, B. c 605, Nebuchadnezzar reigned 
over Babylon forty-three years (b. c. 605-561) ; and during his reign ex- 

*When Alexander the Great was in Babylon, the Chaldreans told him their order had be- 
^un their astronomical observations 400,000 years before he was born. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 47 

tended the empire to the Mediterranean and the borders of Egypt, adding 
to it Palestine, Phoenicia, etc. With his countenance the Medes and Lyd- 
ians destroyed Nineveh (b. c. 601). The great abduction of Jewish cap- 
tives by his orders took place b. c. 588. He was succeeded (b. c. 561) 
by his son, Evil-Merodach, who was dethroned (b. c. 559) by his brother- 
in-law Neriglissar, whose son and successor, Laboroso-archod, was dethron- 
ed, after a brief reign, by Nabonnedus, the Belshazzar of Scripture (b. c , 
555) : in the eighteenth year of whose reign (b. c. 538) Babylon was taken 
by Cyrus, and passed into the hands of the Persians. 

It was during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar that the city of Babylon 
attained that glory which has rendered it a known word to all who are at 
all acquainted with history. Herodotus, who saw the city in its decline, 
gives a description of it which has seemed incredible to many, although 
now fully verified. ' The city, divided in the middle by the Euphrates, was 
surrounded with walls in thickness 75 feet, in height 300 feet and in com- 
pass 480 stadia, or about 60 of our miles.' Within this circuit there was 
included, besides the houses, a space of vacant ground, gardens, pasture, 
etc., sufficient to accommodate the country population in case of invasion: 
the height and strength of the walls rendered the city itself to all appear- 
ance impregnable. 'These walls formed an exact square, each side of which 
was 120 stadia, or 15 miles in length ; and were built of large bricks ce- 
mented together with bitumen, a glutinous slime which issues out of the 
earth in that country, and in a short time becomes harder than the very 
brick or stone which it cements. The city was encompassed without the 
walls of a vast ditch filled with water, and lined with bricks on both sides ; 
and as the earth that was dug out of it served to make the bricks, we may 
judge of the depth and largeness of the ditch from the height and thick- 
ness of the walls. In the whole compass of the walls there were a hun- 
dred gates — that is, twenty-five on each side, all made of solid brass. 
At intervals round the walls were 250 towers. From each of the twenty- 
five gates there was a straight street extending to the corresponding gate, 
in the opposite wall ; the whole number of streets was therefore fifty, cross- 
ing each other at right angles, and each fifteen miles long. The breadth 
of the streets was about 150 feet. By their intersection the city was di- 
vided into 676 squares, each about two miles and a quarter in compass, 
round which were the houses, three or four stories in height ; the vacant 
spaces within being laid out in gardens,' etc. Within the city the two 
greatest edifices were the royal palace with its hanging gardens, and the 
temple of Belus, composed of eight towers built one above another, to the 
enormous height, it is said, of a furlong. 

Without the city were numerous canals, embankments, etc., for the pur- 
pose of irrigating the country, which, as little or no rain fell, depended on 
the river for moisture. ' The execution of such colossal works as those of 
Babylon and Egypt,' it has been remarked, ' demonstrates habits of reg- 
ular industry, a concentrated population under one government, and above 
all, an implicit submission to the regal and kingly sway — contrasted forci 
bly with the small self-governing communities of Greece and western Eu 
rope, where the will of the individual citizen was so much more energetic.' 
In the latter countries only such public works were attempted as were with- 
in the limits of moderate taste. Nineveh is said to have been larger even 



48 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

than Babylon, and is described as an oblong, three days' journey round — 
that is, upwards of 60 miles. 

The Medes and Persians. Extending, as we have said, from the 
Mediterranean to the Indus, the Assyrian empire had included not only 
the chief Semitic nations of western Asia, but also that portion of the 
Indo-Germanic family which was contained between Mount Zagros and 
the river Indus. Essentially a prolongation of the great race which in- 
habited Hindoostan, the nature of their country — a vast table-land, here 
and there rising into hills, or presenting spots of great fertility — had 
made them quite different in character and habits from the settled and 
stereotyped Hindoos. All parts of this plateau of Iran, as it was called, 
including the present countries of Persia, Cabool, and Belochistan, were 
not alike ; in some portions, where the soil was fertile, there existed a 
dense agricultural population; in others, the inhabitants were nomadic 
horse-breeders, cattle-rearers, and shepherds. All the tribes, however, 
were bound together by the ties of a common Indo-Persic language, quite 
distinct from that spoken by their Semitic neighbors and masters, and by 
a common religion. This religion, called the Religion of Zend, a modifi- 
cation probably of some more ancient form, from which Hindooism may 
also have sprung, was taught by Zerdusht or Zoroaster, a great native 
reformer and spiritual teacher, who lived six or seven centuries before 
Christ. The principal doctrine of his religion was that of the existence 
of two great emanations from the Supreme and perfect Deity — the one a 
good spirit (Orrnuzd), who created man, and fitted him for happiness; 
the other an evil spirit, named Ahriman, who has marred the beauty of 
creation by introducing evil into it. Between these two spirits and their 
adherents there is an incessant struggle for the mastery ; but ultimately 
Orrnuzd will conquer, and Ahriman and evil will be banished from the 
bosom of creation into eternal darkness. The worship annexed to this 
doctrine was very simple, dispensing with temples or images, and consist- 
ing merely of certain solemn rites performed on mountain tops, etc. Fire, 
and light, and the sun, were worshiped either as symbols or as inferior 
deities. A caste of priests, called the Magi, answering in some respects 
to the Brahmins of India or the Chaldaeans of Babylon, superintended 
these ceremonies, and commented on the religion of Zoroaster. 

Various of the tribes of Iran, associating themselves together, constitu- 
ted little nations. Thus adjacent to Assyria, and separated from it by 
Mount Zagros, was an agglomeration of seven tribes or villages, under the 
special name of the Medes, the country which they inhabited being thence 
called Media. South from Media, and nearer the sea, was another district 
of Iran, called Persis or Persia, inhabited also by an association of tribes 
calling themselves the Persians. Other nations of Iran were the Parthians, 
the Bactrians, etc. — all originally subject to the Assyrian empire. 

Median history begins with a hero king called Deiokes (b. c. 710-657), 
who effected some important changes in the constitution of the nation, and 
founded the Median capital Ekbatana in one of the most pleasant sites in 
the world. His son, Phraortes (b. c. 657-635), pursued a career of con- 
quest, subjugated Persia and other districts of Iran, and perished in an in- 
vasion of Assyria. He was succeeded by his son Cyaxares, who continued 
his designs of conquest, and extended the Median dominion as far west- 
ward into Asia Minor as the river Halys. He was engaged in a repeti 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 49 

tion of his father's attempt against Nineveh, when he was called away to 
defend his kingdom against a great roving population, belonging, as is most 
likely, to the Scythian branch of the Caucasian race (although some reck- 
on them Mongols), who, bursting with their herds of horses and mares from 
their native seat in Central Asia, had driven the Cimmerians, a kindred 
race, before them into Asia Minor, and then had poured themselves over 
the plateau of Iran. Defeating Cyaxares, they kept him from his throne 
for a period of twenty-eight years, during which they ruled in savage fash- 
ion over Media, Persia, etc. At length, having assassinated their chiefs 
by a stratagem, Cyaxares regained his dominions, and drove the invadeis 
back into the north. He then renewed his attempt against Nineveh ; took 
it ; and reduced the Assyrian empire, with the exception of Babylonia, un- 
der his dominion. The Median empire, thus formed, he bequeathed (b. c. 
595) to his son Astyages. 

Astyages having given his daughter Mandane in marriage to a Persian 
chieftain named Cambyses, the issue of this marriage was the famous Cyrus, 
the founder of the Persian monarchy. The circumstances which led to 
the revolt of the Persians under Cyrus against the Medes, and the dethrone- 
ment by him of his grand-father Astyages (b. c. 560), had been woven 
into a romance resembling the story of Romulus, even so early as the age 
of Herodotus (b.c.408), so that that accurate historian could not ascer- 
tain the particulars. ' The native Persians,' says Mr. Grote, ' whom Cyrus 
conducted, were an aggregate of seven agricultural and four nomadic 
tribes, all of them rude, hardy, and brave, dwelling in a mountainous re- 
gion, clothed in skins, ignorant of wine or fruit, of any of the commonest 
luxuries of life, and despising the very idea of purchase or sale. Their 
tribes were very unequal in point of dignity ; first in estimation among 
them stood the Pasargadae ; and the first clan among the Pasargadse were 
the Achsemenidse, to whom Cyrus belonged. Whether his relationship to 
the Median king whom he dethroned was a fact or 'a politic fiction we can- 
not well determine, but Xenophon gives us to understand that the conquest 
of Media by the Persians was reported to him as having been an obstinate 
and protracted struggle.' 

Master of Media, the Persian chief in his turn became a great Oriental 
conqueror ; indeed all the Oriental conquests bear the same character. A 
nomadic race, led by a chief of great abilities, invades the more organized 
states, and conquers them ; the chief assumes the government, and founds 
a dynasty, which after a rule of several generations, becomes enervated, 
and gives way before some new nomadic incursion. The first power against 
which Cyrus turned his arms, after having subdued the Medes, was the 
famous Lydian kingdom, which then subsisted in Asia Minor under the 
great Croesus. And here, therefore, we must give some account of the 
ancient condition of Asia Minor and its principalities. 

States of Asia Minor — The Lydians. The river Halys divided 
Asia Minor into two parts. East of the Halys, or near its source, were 
various nations of the Semitic stock — Cappadocians, Cilicians, Pamphy- 
lians etc. — each organized apart, but all included under the Assyrian, and 
latterly, as we have seen, under the Median empire. West of the Halys, 
the inhabitants were apparently of the Indo-Germanic race, although sep- 
arated by many removes from the Indo-Germans of Persia. Overspread 
4* 



50 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ing this part of Asia Minor, as well as Thrace and other parts of south- 
eastern Europe, this great race had been broken up into fragments distin- 
guished by characteristic differences. To enumerate these various nations, 
assigning to each its exact geographical limits, is impossible ; the chief, 
however, were the Bithynians, a sort of Asiatic Thracians on the southern 
coast of the Euxine ; the Lydians and Carians in the south-west ; and, 
intermediate between the two, geographically as well as in respect of race 
and language, the Mysians and Phrygians. These were the native states ; 
but along the whole iEgean shore was diffused a large Greek population, 
emigrants, it is believed, from European Greece, chiefly gathered into 
cities. These Greeks of Asia Minor were of three races — the iEolic 
Greeks in the north, and the Ionian and Dorian Greeks in the south ; and 
perhaps the earliest manifestations of Greek genius, political or literary, 
were among these Greeks of Asia. The intercourse of these Greeks with 
the native Lydians, Phrygians, etc., gave rise to mixture of population as 
well as to interchange of habits ; the native music especially of the Lydi- 
ans and Phrygians became incorporated with that of the Greeks. 

When Lydia, with its capital Sardis, first began to be a powerful state, 
is not known ; it is remarkable, however, that the Lydians are not men- 
tioned in Homer. According to Herodotus, the Lydians traced their his- 
tory back through three dynasties. 1st, The Atyadae, from the earliest 
times to b. c. 1221 ; 2c?, The Heracleidse, from b. c. 122 to b. c. 716 ; and 
3c?, The Mermnaclse. Only the last dynasty is historic ; the manner in which 
it succeeded to that of the Heracleidae forms the subject of a curious Lyd- 
ian legend. 

The first king of the Mermoad dynasty was Gyges (b. c. 716-678), the 
second Ardys (b. c. 678-629), in whose reign the Cimmerians invaded 
Asia Minor, the third Sadyattes (b. c. 629-617), the fourth Alyattes (b. 
C. 617-560). Each of these Lydian kings was engaged in wars both with 
the Asiatic Greeks of the coast and the native states of the interior. The 
growth of the Lydian power was impeded by the Cimmerian invasion ; but 
those savage nomades were at length expelled by Alyattes ; and Croesus, 
the son of Alyattes by an Ionian wife, having succeeded his father b. c. 560, 
soon raised himself to the position of a great potentate, ruling over nearly 
the whole country westward of the Halys, comprehending iEolian, Ionian, 
and Dorian Greeks ; Phrygians ; Mysians, Paphlagonians, Bithynians, 
Carians, Pamphylians, etc. At Sardis, the capital of this extensive domin- 
ion, was accumulated an immense treasure, composed of the tribute which 
the Lydian monarch derived from the subject states ; hence the proverb, 'as 
rich as Croesus.' 

Separated from the Median kingdom only by the river Halys, the Lyd- 
ian dominion naturally became an object of desire to Cyrus after he had 
acquired the sovereignty of Media. Accordingly (b. c. 546), provoked 
by an invasion of Croesus, who had received from the Delphic oracle the 
equivocal assurance, that ' if he attacked the Persians he would subvert a 
mighty monarchy,' Cyrus crossed the Halys, advanced into Lydia, took 
Sardis, and made Croesus prisoner. It was intended by the conqueror 
that the Lydian king should be burnt alive — it is even said that the fire 
was kindled for the purpose ; Cyrus, however, spared his life, and Croesus 
became his friend and confidential adviser. On the subversion of the Lyd- 
ian monarchy, its subjects, the Greeks of Asia Minor, were obliged to 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 51 

submit to the conqueror, after having in vain solicited the aid of their 
brethren the European Greeks. The Lacedaemonians indeed sent an em- 
bassy into Asia Minor ; and one of their ambassadors had a conference with 
Cyrus at Sardis, where he warned him ' not to lay hands on any of the 
Greek towns, for the Lacedaemonians would not permit it.' ' Who are the 
Lacedaemonians ? ' said the astonished warrior. Having been informed 
that the Lacedaemonians were a Greek people, who had a capital called 
Sparta, where there was a regular market, ' I have never yet,' said he, ' been 
afraid of this kind of men, who have a set place in the middle of their 
city where they meet to cheat one another and tell lies. If I live, they 
shall have troubles of their own to talk about.' To save themselves from 
the Persians, the Ionian portion of the Asiatic Greeks proposed a uni /ersal 
emigration to the island of Sardinia — a striking design, which, however, 
was not carried into execution. All Asia Minor ultimately yielded to 
Cyrus. 

The Persian Empire. Having subdued Asia Minor, Cyrus next turn- 
ed his arms against the Assyrians of Babylon. His siege and capture of 
Babylon (b.c. 538), when he effected Ins entrance by diverting the course 
of the Euphrates, form one of the most romantic incidents in history ; an 
incident connected with Scriptural narrative through its result — the eman- 
cipation of the Jews from their captivity. Along with Babylon, its depen- 
dencies, Phoenicia and Palestine, came under the Persians. 

Cyrus, one of the most remarkable men of the ancient world, having 
perished in an invasion of Scythia (b.c. 529), was succeeded by his son 
Cambyses, who annexed Egypt to the Persian empire (b.c. 525), having 
defeated Psammanitus, the son of the Pharaoh Amasis. Foiled in his in- 
tention of penetrating Libya and Ethiopia, Cambyses was dethroned by a 
Magiau impostor, who called himself Smerdis, pretending that he was the 
younger brother of Cambyses, although this brother had been put to death 
by the order of Cambyses during a fit of madness. A conspiracy of seven 
great nobles having been formed against the false Smerdis, he was put to 
death. He was succeeded by one of the conspiring chiefs called Darius 
Hystaspes, who reigned — over the immense Persian empire, extending 
from the Nile to the Indus, and beyond it — from B.C. 531 to B.C. 485. 
' The reign of Darius,' says Mr. Grote, ' was one of organization, different 
from that of his predecessor — a difference which the Persians well under- 
stood and noted, calling Cyrus " the father," Cambyses " the master," and 
Darius " the retail trader or huckster." In the mouth of the Persians 
this last epithet must be construed as no insignificant compliment, since it 
intimates that he was the first to introduce some methodical order into the 
imperial administration and finances. Under the two former kings there 
was no definite amount of tribute levied upon the subject provinces. But 
Darius probably felt it expedient to relieve the provinces from the burden 
of undefined exactions. He distributed the whole empire into twenty de- 
partments (called Satrapies), imposing upon each a fixed annual tax. This, 
however, did not prevent each satrap. (the Persian governor appointed by 
the king) in his own province from indefinite requisitions. The satrap 
was a little king, who acted nearly as he pleased in the internal adminis- 
tration of his province, subject only to the necessity of sending up the 
imperial tribute to the king at Susa, the capital of the Persian empire ; 



52 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of keeping off foreign enemies ; and of furnishing an adequate military 
contingent for the foreign enterprises of the great king. To every satrap 
was attached a royal secretary or comptroller of the revenue, who probably 
managed the imperial finances in the province, and to whom the court of 
Susa might perhaps look as a watch upon the satrap himself. The satrap 
or the secretary apportioned the sum payable by the satrapy in the aggre- 
gate among the various component districts, towns, or provinces, leaving to 
the local authorities in each of these latter the task of assessing it upon 
individual inhabitants. From necessity, therefore, as we'll as from indo- 
lence of temper and political incompetence, the Persians were compelled 
to respect the authorities which they found standing both in town and coun- 
try, and to leave in their hands a large measure of genuine influence. Of- 
ten even the petty kings who had governed separate districts during their 
state of independence, prior to the Persian conquest, retained their title 
and dignity as tributaries to the court of Susa. The empire of the great 
king was thus an aggregate of heterogeneous elements, connected together 
by no tie except that of common fear and subjection — noway coherent nor 
self-supporting, nor pervaded by any common system or spirit of nation- 
ality.' 

Continuation through Greek and Roman History. How Darius, 
in consequence of the assistance rendered by the Athenians to the Ionian 
Greeks of Asia Minor, who had revolted against him (b.c. 502), sent a 
vast Persian army into European Greece ; how this army was defeated by 
the Athenian general, Miltiades, with only 11,000 men, in the glorious 
battle of Marathon (b.c. 490) ; how, ten years later, Xerxes, the son and 
successor of Darius, undertook an expedition against Greece with a host 
of several millions, and was defeated by Themistocles in a naval battle at 
Salamis (b.c. 480), which was followed by two contemporaneous defeats 
of his lieutenants at Platsea and Mycale (b. c. 479) ; how the Persians 
were thus finally driven back into Asia ; how for a century and a-half 
relations, sometimes hostile and sometimes friendly, were maintained be- 
tween the Greek states and the Persian monarchs, the degenerate succes- 
sors of Darius and Xerxes, under whom the empire had begun to crumble ; 
how at length, in the reign of Darius Codomannus (b. c. 324), Alexan- 
der the Great retaliated on the Persians the wrongs they had done the 
Greeks by invading and destroying their decrepit empire, and organizing 
all the countries between the Adriatic and the Indus under, not a Semit- 
ic, as in the case of the Assyrian empire, nor an Indo-Germanic, as in the 
case of the Persic empire, but a Greek or Pelasgic system ; how, on Alex- 
ander's death (b. c. 323), this vast agglomeration of the human species 
fell asunder into three Greek monarchies — the Macedonian monarchy, in- 
cluding the states of European Greece ; the Egyptian monarchy of the 
Ptolemies, including, besides Egypt, Phoenicia, Palestine, and Arabia ; and 
the Syrian monarchy of the Seleucidse, comprehending, although with a 
weak grasp, Asia Minor (or at least parts of it which had belonged to the 
Lydian and Assyrian empires), Syria, Assyria, and Babylonia — with the 
loss, however, of the countries between the Tigris and the Indus, where a 
germ of independence arose (b. c. 236) in a native nomad dynasty, which 
ultimately united all the tribes of Iran in one empire, called the Parthian 



V 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 53 

Empire ; and how these three fragments dragged on a separate existence, 
full of wars and revolts ; all this belongs to Grecian history. 

How, about two centuries and a half before Christ, another, but more 
mixed portion of this Pelasgic family, which had arisen in Italy, and in the 
course of several centuries rendered itself coextensive with that peninsula 
— began to assume consequence in the wider area of the Mediterranean 
world : how it first grappled with the power of the Carthaginians (b. c. 
264-201), who for several centuries had been pursuing the career of world- 
merchants, formerly pursued by their fathers the Phoenicians ; how it then 
assailed and subdued the crumbling Macedonian monarchy, incorporating 
all Greece with itself (b. c. 134) ; how retrograding, so to speak, into 
Asia, it gradually absorbed the Syrian and Egyptian monarchies, till it 
came into collision with the Parthian empire at the Euphrates (b. c. 134 
— b. c. 60) ; how, advancing into the new regions of northern and west- 
ern Europe, it compelled the yet uncultured races there — the Celts or 
Gauls, the Iberians, etc. — to enter the pale of civilization (b. c. 80-50) ; 
how thus, from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, was founded a new empire, 
called ' The Roman,' retaining, with vast additions, all that portion of hu- 
manity which the former empires had embraced, with the exception of what 
had lapsed back to the Parthians ; how this empire subsisted for several 
centuries, a great mass of matured humanity girt by comparative barbar- 
ism — that is, surrounded on the east by the Parthians, on the south by the 
Ethiopians, on the north by the Germans and Scythians, and on the west 
by the roar of the Atlantic ; and how at last (a. d. 400-475) this great 
mass, having lost its vitality, fell asunder before the irruption of the bar- 
baric element — that is, the Germans, the Scythians, and the Arabs — giv- 
ing rise to the infant condition of the modern world ; all this belongs to 
Roman history, which forms the subject of a separate treatise. 

With one general remark we shall conclude ; namely : that the progress 
of history — that is, of Caucasian development — has evidently been, upon 
the whole, from the east westward. First, as we have seen, the Assyrian 
or Semitic fermentation affected western Asia as far as the Mediterranean ; 
then the Persian movement extended the historic stage to the iEgean ; af- 
ter that the Macedonian conquest extended it to the Adriatic ; and finally, 
the Romans extended it to the Atlantic. For fifteen centuries humanity 
kept dashing itself against this barrier ; till, at length, like a great mis- 
sionary sent in search, the spirit of Columbus shot across the Atlantic. 
And now, in the form of a dominant Anglic race, though with large inter- 
mixture, Caucasian vitality is working in its newest method, with Ethiopian 
help, on the broad and fertile field of America. 



HISTORY OP GREECE — EARLY MYTHOLOGY. 

The history of the Grecian states commences about 1800 years before 
Christ, when the Egyptians on the opposite side of the Mediterranean 
were in a high state of civilization ; but the portion of history which pre- 
cedes 884 B. c. is understood to be fabulous, and entitled to little credit. 

According to the Greek poets, the original inhabitants of the country, 



54 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

denominated Pelasgians, were a race of savages, who lived in caves, and 
clothed themselves with the skins of the wild beasts. Uranus, an Egyptian 
prince, landed in the country, and became the father of a family of giants, 
named Titans, who rebelled against, and dethroned him. His son Saturn, 
who reigned in his stead, in order to prevent the like misfortune from befall- 
ing himself, ordered all his own children to be put to death as soon as 
they were born. But one named Jupiter was concealed by the mother, 
and reared in the island of Crete, from which in time he returned, and 
deposed his father. The Titans, jealous of this new prince, rebelled against 
him, but were vanished and expelled forever from the country. 

Jupiter divided his dominions with his brothers Neptune and Pluto. 

The countries which he reserved to himself he governed with great wis- 
dom, holding his court on Mount Olympus, a hill in Thessaly, 9000 feet in 
height, and the loftiest in Greece. Any truth which there might be in the 
story of the Titans and their princes was completely disguised by the poets, 
and by the popular imagination. Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, 
were looked back to, not as mortals, but as deities ; and the top of Mount 
Olympus was supposed to be the heavenly residence of gods, by whom the 
affairs of mortals were governed. And for ages after the dawn of phi- 
losophy, these deified sons of Saturn, and numberless others connected with 
them, were the objects of the national worship, not only among the Greeks, 
but also among the Romans. 

At an uncertain but very early date an Asiatic people named the Helle- 
nes immigrated into Greece, in some cases expelling the Pelasgi, and in 
others intermingling with them, so that in process of time all the inhabitants 
of Greece came to be called Hellenes. They were, however, divided into 
several tribes the principal of which were the Dorians, iEolians, and Ion- 
ians, each of whom spoke a dialect differing in some respect from those 
made use of by the others. These dialects were named the Doric, iEolic, 
and Ionic, in reference to the tribes which used them ; and a fourth, which 
was afterwards formed from the Ionic, was named the Attic, from its being 
spoken by the inhabitants of Attica. 

In the year 1856 b. c, Inachus a Phoenician adventurer, is said to have 
arrived in Greece at the head of a small band of his countrymen. Phoe- 
nicia, a petty state on the coast of the Mediterranean, in Asia Minor, 
was at this time one of a few countries, including Egypt and Assyria, in 
which some degree of civilization prevailed, while all the rest of the peo- 
ple of the earth remained in their original barbarism like the Pelasgians 
before the supposed arrival of Uranus. Navigation for the purposes of 
commerce, and the art of writing, are said to have originated with the 
Phoenicans. On their arrival in Greece, Inachus and his friends founded 
the city of Argos, at the head of what is now called the Gulf of Napoli, 
in the Peloponnesus. 

Three hundred years after this event (1556 b. c), a colony, led by an 
Egyptian named Cecrops, arrived in Attica, and founded the celebrated 
city of Athens, fortifying a high rock which rose precipitously above the 
site afterwards occupied by the town. 

Egypt is situated in the north-eastern part of Africa. It is bounded 
on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, and is watered by the great river 
Nile, the periodical overflowings of w 7 hich by supplying the moisture nec- 
essary for vegetation, render the soil very fertile. From this country, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 55 

which had at a very early period made considerable advances in some of 
the arts and sciences (see Ancient History), Cecrops imparted much 
valuable knowledge to the rude inhabitants of Attica, whom he had per- 
suaded or obliged to acknowledge him as their chief or king. He placed 
his rocky fastness under the protection of an Egyptian goddess, from whose 
Greek name, Athena (afterwards changed by the Latins into Minerva), 
the city which subsequently rose around the eminence was called Athens. 

About the year 1493 b. c, Cadmus, a Phoenician, founded the city of 
Thebes in Boeotia ; and among other useful things which he communicated 
to the Greeks, he is said to have taught them alphabetical writing, although 
it is certain that that art did not come into common use in Greece until seve- 
ral centuries after this period. 

The city of Corinth, situated on the narrow isthmus which connects the Pe- 
loponnesus with the mainland of Greece, was founded in the year 1520 B.C., 
and from its very advantageous position on the arm of the sea to which it 
anciently gave its name, but which is now known as the Gulf of Lepanto, 
it very soon became a place of considerable commercial importance. Spar- 
ta or Lacedsemon, the celebrated capital of Laconia in the Peloponnesus, 
is said to have been founded about 1520 b. c. by Lelex, an Egyptian. 

In the year 1185 B. c, an Egyptian named Danaus, accompanied by a 
party of his countrymen, arrived at Argos, the inhabitants of which must have 
been at that period in an exceedingly rude state, since it is said that he 
excited their gratitude so much by teaching them to dig wells, when the 
streams from which they were supplied with water were dried up with the 
heat, that they elected him as their king. 

Fully more than a century after this period (about 1350 b. c), Pelops, the 
son of a king of Phrygia, a country in Asia Minor, settled in that part of 
Greece which was afterwards called from him Peloponnesus, or the island 
of Pelops, where he married the daughter of one of the native princes, 
whom he afterwards succeeded on the throne. In the course of his long 
reign, he found means to strengthen and greatly extend his influence 
in Greece, by forming matrimonial alliances between various branches of 
his own house and the other royal families of the Peloponnesus. Agam- 
emnon, king of Mycenae, in Argolis, who was, according to the poet Homer, 
the commander-in-chief of the Greeks at the siege of Troy, and Menelaus, 
king of Sparta, on account of whose wrongs that war was undertaken, were 
descended from this Phrygian adventurer. 

Hercules, a Theban prince, was another of the descendants of Pelops. 

The numerous and extraordinary feats of strength and valor of Hercules 
excited the admiration of his cotemporaries, and being afterwards exagge- 
rated and embellished by the poets, caused him at length to be regarded 
as a person endowed with supernatural powers, and even to be worshiped 
as a god. 

Theseus succeeded his father on the Athenian throne (1234 b. a), and 
by his wise regulations greatly consolidated the strength and increased the 
prosperity of his kingdom. Cecrops, the founder of Athens, had divided 
Attica into twelve districts, each of which possessed its own magistracy 
and judicial tribunals. As the country advanced in wealth and population, 
these districts became less closely connected with each other, and at the 
period of the accession of Theseus, they could hardly be regarded in any 
other light than as so many little independent communities, whose perpet- 



56 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ual disputes kept the whole district in broils and confusion. But Theseus 
had influence enough with all parties to obtain their consent to the abolition 
of the separate jurisdictions, and to the fixing of all civil and judicial au- 
thority in the capital. He at the same time voluntarily resigned into their 
hands a portion of his own power. Having divided the people into three 
classes — the nobles, the artisans, and the cultivators of the soil — he in- 
trusted the first of these with the administration of public affairs, and the 
dispensation of justice, while he conferred upon every freeman or citizen, 
without distinction of class, a vote in the legislative assemblies. The com- 
mand of the army, and the presidency of the state, he retained in his own 
person. 

To strengthen the political union of the various districts of his kingdom 
by the tie of a common religion, he instituted a solemn festival, to be cele- 
brated annually at Athens by all the inhabitants of Attica, in honor of 
Minerva, the tutelary deity of the city. This festival he denominated Pan- 
athense, or the Feast of all the Athenians, the name by which the whole 
of the people of Attica were thenceforth called. 

The wise and liberal policy of Theseus caused Attica to advance consid- 
erably beyond the other states of Greece in prosperity and civilization ; 
and the ancient historian, Thucydides, informs us that the Athenians were 
the first of the Greeks who laid aside the military dress and arms, which 
till now had been constantly worn. The example of Athens was not lost 
on the other Grecian communities, all of which gradually adopted, to a 
greater or less extent, those political institutions which had conferred so 
many advantages upon Attica. 

Notwithstanding the judicious and exemplary conduct of Theseus in the 
early part of the reign, he appears to have afterwards allowed his restless 
and adventurous disposition to hurry him into many extravagances, and 
even crimes, by which he forfeited the respect of his people, and brought 
disgrace and suffering on his latter years. If we may believe the tradi- 
tionary accounts, he accompanied Hercules in some of his celebrated ex- 
peditions, and assisted by Pirithous, a king of Thessaly, engaged in many 
martial and predatory adventures, conformably rather with the very imper- 
fect morality and rude manners of the age, than with his own previous char- 
acter. There reigned in Lacedsemon at this period a king named Tynda- 
rus, who had a beautiful daughter called Helen, and according to the an- 
cient historians, Theseus and his friend Pirithous formed the design of 
stealing away this young lady, and a princess of Epirus named Proser- 
pine. They succeeded in carrying off Helen ; but in their attempt to ob- 
tain Proserpine, they fell into the hands of her father, by whom Pirithous 
was put to death, and Theseus thrown into prison. Meanwhile, Castor 
and Pollux, the twin-brothers of Helen, who were afterwards deified, and 
whose names have been bestowed upon one of the signs of the Zodiac 
(Gemini), rescued their sister from the men to whom Theseus bad given 
her in charge, and ravaged Attica in revenge for the injury they had re- 
ceived from its king. 

Theseus was afterwards released from imprisonment by the assistance of 
Hercules, and returned home ; but the Athenians had become so offended 
with his conduct, and were so angry at his having exposed them to ill treat- 
ment from the Lacedaemonians by his wicked attempt upon Helen, that 
they refused to receive him again as their sovereign. He therefore with 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 57 

drew into exile, and soon after died in the island of Scyros. The Athe- 
nian people, however, never forgot the benefits he had in his wiser days 
conferred upon the state ; and many centuries after his death, his bones, or 
some which were supposed to be his, were conveyed to Athens with great 
pomp, and a splendid temple was erected above them to his memory. 

The Lacedaemonian princess who was stolen away by Theseus after- 
wards became the occasion of a celebrated war. The fame of her great 
beauty having spread far and wide, many of the princes of Greece asked 
her from her father Tyndarus in marriage ; but he, being fearful of incur- 
ring the enmity of the rejected suitors, declined showing a preference for 
any of them. Assembling them all, he bound them by an oath to acquiesce 
in the selection which Helen herself should make, and to protect her against 
any attempts which might afterwards be made to carry her off from the 
husband of her choice. Helen gave the preference to Menelaus, a grand- 
son of Pelops, and this successful suitor, on the death of Tyndarus, was 
raised to the Spartan throne. 

At this period, in the north-western part of Asia Minor, on the shores 
of the Hellespont and the iEgean Seas, there existed a kingdom, the capi- 
tal of which was a large and well-fortified city named Troy, or Ilium. Pri- 
am the king of Troy, had a son whose name was Paris ; and this young 
chief, in the course of a visit to Greece, resided for a time in Sparta at the 
court of Menelaus, who gave the Asiatic stranger a very friendly recep- 
tion. Charmed with Helen's beauty, Paris employed the opportunity affor- 
ded by a temporary absence of her husband to gain her affections, and per- 
suade her to elope with him to Troy. It was not, according to the old 
poets, to his personal attractions, great as they were, that Paris owed his 
success on this occasion, but to the aid of the goddess of Love, whose favor 
he had won by assigning to her the palm of beauty, on an occasion when 
it was contested between her and two other female deities. 

When Menelaus returned home, he was naturally wroth at finding his 
hospitality so ill requited ; and after having in vain endeavored, both by re- 
monstrances and threats, to induce the Trojans to send him back his queen, 
he applied to the princes who had formerly been Helen's lovers, and called 
upon them to aid him according to their oaths, in recovering her from her 
seducer. They obeyed the summons ; and all Greece being indignant at the 
insult offered to Menelaus, a general muster of the forces of the various states 
took place at Aulis, a seaport town of Boeotia preparatory to their crossing 
the iEgean to the Trojan shore. This is supposed to have happened in the 
year 1194 b. c. 

Of the chiefs assembled on this occasion, the most celebrated were Agam- 
emnon, king of Mycene ; Menelaus, king of Sparta ; Ulysses, king of Ith- 
aca ; Nestor, king of Pylos ; Achilles, son of the king of Thessaly ; Ajax, 
of Salamis ; Diomedes, of iEtolia ; and Idomeneus, of Crete. 

Agamemnon, the brother of the injured Menelaus, was elected comman- 
der-in-chief of the confederated Greeks. According to some ancient au- 
thors, this general was barbarous enough to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, 
to induce the gods to send a favoring gale to the Grecian fleet when it was 
detained by contrary winds in the port of Aulis ; but as the earliest writers 
respecting the Trojan war make no mention of this unnatural act, it is to 
be hoped that it never was performed. 



58 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

The Grecian armament consisted of about 1200 vessels, with from 50 to 
120 men in each, and the army which warred against Troy is supposed to 
have amounted altogether to about 100,000 men. The Trojans, although 
reinforced by auxiliary bands from Assyria, Thrace, and Asia Minor, were 
unable to withstand the Greeks in the open country, and they therefore 
soon retired within the walls of their city. 

In those early times men were unskilled in the art of reducing fortified 
places, and the Greeks knew of no speedier way of taking Troy than block 
ading it till the inhabitants should be compelled by famine to surrender. 
But here a new difficulty arose. No arrangements had been made for 
supplying the invaders with provisions during a lengthened seige ; and af- 
ter they had plundered and laid waste the surrounding country, they began 
to be in as great danger of starvation as the besieged. The supplies which 
arrived from Greece were scanty and irregular, and it became necessary 
to detach a part of the beleaguering forces to cultivate the plains of the 
Chersonesus of Thrace, in order to raise crops for the support of themselves 
and their brethren in arms. 

The Grecian army being thus weakened, the Trojans wei-e encouraged 
to make frequent sallies, in which they were led generally by the valiant 
Hector, Priam's eldest and noblest son. Many skirmishes took place, and 
innumerable deeds of individual heroism were performed, all of which led 
to no important result, for the opposing armies were so equally matched, 
that neither could obtain any decisive advantage over the other. At length, 
after a siege of no less than ten years, in the course of which some of the 
most distinguished leaders on both sides were slain, Troy was taken, its 
inhabitants slaughtered, and its edifices burnt and razed to the ground. 

According to the poets, it was by a stratagem that this famous city was 
at last overcome. They tell us that the Greeks constructed a wooden 
horse of prodigious size, in the body of which they concealed a number of 
armed men, and then retired towards the sea-shore, to induce the enemy 
to believe that the besiegers had given up the enterprise, and were about 
to return home. Deceived by this manoeuvre, the Trojans brought the 
gigantic horse into the city, and the men who had been concealed within 
it, stealing out in the night-time, unbarred the gates, and admitted the 
Grecian army within the walls. The siege of Troy forms the subject of 
Homer's sublime poem, the ' Iliad,' in which the real events of the war 
are intermingled with many fictitious and supernatural incidents. 

The Greek princes discovered that their triumph over Troy was dearly 
paid for by their subsequent sufferings, and the disorganization of their 
kingdoms at home. Ulysses, if we may believe the poets, spent ten years 
in wandering over seas and lands before arriving in his island of Ithaca. 
Others of the leaders died or were shipwrecked on their way home, and 
several of those who succeeded in reaching their own dominions, found their 
thrones occupied by usurpers, and were compelled to return to their 
vessels, and seek in distant lands a place of rest and security for their 
declining years. But the fate of Agamemnon, the renowned general of 
the Greeks, was the most deplorable of all. On his return to Argos, he 
wa3 assassinated by his wife Clytemnestra, who had formed an attachment 
during his absence to another person. Agamemnon's son, Orestes, was 
driven into exile, but afterwards returned to Argos, and putting his mother 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 59 

and her accomplices to death, established himself upon the throne. 
About eighty years after the termination of the Trojan war, an extensive 
revolution took place in the affairs of Greece, in consequence of the 
subjugation of nearly the whole Peloponnesus by the descendants of 
Hercules. That hero, who was a member of the royal family of Mycenae 
or Argos, had been driven into exile by some more successful candidate for 
the throne of that state. After the hero's death, his children sought refuge 
in Doris, the king of which became subsequently so much attached to 
Hyllus, the eldest son of Hercules, that he constituted him the heir of his 
throne. Twice the Heraclidsean princes unsuccessfully attempted to 
establish themselves in the sovereignty of the Peloponnesus, which they 
claimed as their right; but on the third trial, they accomplished their object. 
In the year 1101 b. c, three brothers named Temenus, Cresphontes, and 
Aristodemus, said to have been the great-grandsons of Hyllus, invaded 
the Peloponnesus at the head of the Dorians, and conquered the greater 
part of it, with the exception of the province of Arcadia, the mountainous 
character of which enabled its inhabitants to defend it with success against 
the invaders. 

Temenus obtained the kingdom of Argos, Cresphontes established him- 
self in Messenia, and as Aristodemus had died during the war, his twin 
sons Eurysthenes and Procles shared between them the throne of Sparta. 
The thrones of Corinth and Elis were occupied by other branches of the 
Heraclidaean family. The Dorian troops were rewarded with the lands of 
the conquered inhabitants, who were driven out of the Peloponnesus, or 
reduced to slavery. Great numbers of the Peloponnesians, who were 
expatriated by the Dorian invaders, passed over into Asia Minor, where 
they founded several colonies in a district afterwards called JEolia, from 
the name of the people by whom these colonies were established. Others 
took refuge in Attica, where the Athenians received them in a friendly 
manner. This, it would appear, gave offence to the new rulers of the 
Peloponnesian states, and war was commenced between the Dorians and 
the Athenians. In the year 1070 b. c, Attica was invaded by a numerous 
army of the Peloponnesians, and Athens itself seemed menaced with 
destruction. This emergency produced a display of patriotic devotion on 
the part of Codrus, the Athenian king, which has rarely been paralleled 
in the annals of mankind, and deserves to be held in everlasting remem- 
brance : — 

At Delphi in Phocis there was a temple of Apollo, to the priests of which 
the Greeks were wont to apply for information regarding future events, in 
the same manner as the people of comparatively recent times were 
accustomed to consult astrologers, soothsayers, and other artful impostors 
on similar questions. Now Codrus had learned that the Peloponnesians 
had received at Delphi a prophetical response, to the effect that they should 
not be victorious in the war, if they did not kill the Athenian king. 
Determined to save his country at the expense of his own life, Codrus 
disguised himself in a peasant's dress, and entering the Peloponnesian 
camp, provoked a quarrel with a soldier, by whom he was killed. 

It was not long until the dead body was recognized to be that of the 
Athenian king, and the Peloponnesians, remembering the condition on 
which the oracle had promised them success, were afraid to continue the 
contest any longer, and hastily retreated into their own territories. The 



60 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Athenians were filled with admiration when they heard of the noble conduct 
of their monarch, and in the height of their gratitude, they declared that 
none but Jupiter was worthy of being their king after such a prince as 
Codrus. 

It is supposed that they were partly induced to make this declaration 
by finding the sons of Codrus evince an inclination to involve the country 
in a civil war regarding the succession to the throne. The Athenians 
therefore abolished royalty altogether, and appointed Medon, Codrus's 
eldest son, under the title of Archon, as chief magistrate of the republic 
for life ; the office to be hereditary in his family as long as its duties should 
be performed to the satisfaction of the people. And as Attica was over- 
crowded with the Peloponnesian refugees, these, together with a large 
body of Athenians, were sent into Asia Minor, under the charge of Andro- 
clus and Neleus, the younger sons of Codrus, to plant colonies to the south 
of those already formed in iEolia. The settlers founded twelve cities, 
some of which afterwards rose to great wealth and splendor. Ionia was 
the name bestowed upon the district, in reference to the Ionic stock from 
which the Athenians drew their descent. 

Several Dorian colonies in Caria, a province still farther south than 
Ionia, completed the range of Grecian settlements along the western coast 
of Asia Minor. Cyprus, Rhodes, the coast of Thrace, and the islands of 
the iEgean Sea, together with a considerable portion of Italy and Sicily, 
and even of France and Spain, were also colonized by bands of adventurers, 
who at various periods emigrated from Greece; so that, in process of time, 
the Grecian race, language, religion, institutions, and manners, instead of 
being confined to the comparatively small country constituting Greece 
proper, were diffused over a very extensive region, comprising the fairest 
portions of Europe and of western Asia. 

While this work of colonization was going forward, the parent states of 
Greece were torn with internal dissensions, and were perpetually harassing 
each other in wars, of which the objects and incidents are now equally 
uncertain. Almost all that is known of the history of the two centuries 
immediately following the death of Codrus is, that they were characterized 
by great turbulence and confusion, and that, during their lapse, many of 
the Grecian states and colonies followed the example of Athens by abolish- 
ing monarchy. Others did not, till a later period, become republican, and 
Sparta long retained the singular form of regal government established 
there at the accession of the twin brothers Eurysthenes and Procles, the 
descendants of whom continued for several centuries to reign jointly in 
Lacedsemon, though, practically speaking, no state of Greece was more 
thoroughly republican in many important respects. 

Greece had been all along divided into a number of independent states, 
and after the abolition of kingly government, several of these were split 
up into as many distinct republics as the state contained of towns. These 
divisions of the country, and the obstacles which the almost incessant wars 
interposed to a free communication between the inhabitants of the different 
districts, necessarily prevented the advancement of the Greeks in knowledge 
and civilization ; but fortunately, a king of Elis, named Iphitus, at length 
devised an institution by which the people of all the Grecian states were 
enabled, notwithstanding their quarrels and wars with one another, to 
meet periodically on friendly terms, and communicate to each other such 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 61 

information as might be useful for the improvement and welfare of the 
whole. 

This institution was the Olympic Festival. From a very remote period, 
the Greeks had been accustomed to engage in contests of strength and 
agility during their times of festivity, and also at the funerals of distinguished 
personages. Iphitus conceived the idea of establishing a periodical festival 
in his own dominions for the celebration of these ancient games, and of 
religious rites in honor of Jupiter and Hercules ; and having obtained the 
authority of the Delphian oracle for carrying his design into execution, he 
instituted the festival, and appointed that it should be repeated every 
fourth year at Olympia, a town of Elis. 

To this festival he invited all the people of Greece ; and that none might 
be prevented from attending it by the wars in which any of the states 
might be engaged, the Delphic oracle commanded that a general armistice 
should take place for some time before and after each celebration. The 
date of the establishment of the Olympic games (884 b. c. ) was afterwards 
assumed by the Greeks as the epoch from which they reckoned the progress 
of time ; the four years intervening between each recurrence of the festival 
being styled an Olympiad. 

Three other institutions of a similar nature were afterwards establish- 
ed : namely, the Isthmian Games, celebrated near Corinth ; the Pythian, 
at Delphi ; and the Nemean, in Argolis. These took place on the various 
years which intervened between the successive festivals at Olympia ; but 
although they acquired considerable celebrity, none of them rose to the 
importance and splendor of that of Iphitus. The games which were cele- 
brated at the festivals consisted of foot and chariot races, wrestling and 
boxing matches, and other contests requiring strength and agility, together 
with competitions in poetry and music. The victors were crowned with an 
olive wreath ; an honor which it was esteemed by the Greeks one of the 
highest objects of ambition to attain. 

SECOND OR AUTHENTIC PERIOD OF HISTORY. 

The second and authentic period of Greek history commences in tho 
year 884 B. c, at the institution of the Olympic Festival, when the peo- 
ple had begun to emerge from their primitive barbarism. This festival, as 
already stated, was instituted by direction of the Delphic oracle, by Iphitus, 
Prince of Elis, for the patriotic purpose of assembling together, in a peace- 
ful manner, persons from all parts of Greece. The festival was ordained 
to take place once every four years, in the month corresponding to our 
July, and to last five clays, during which there was to be complete truce, 
or cessation from war, throughout the Grecian states. Agreeably to the 
ancient practice at public solemnities, the festival was celebrated by games 
and various feats of personal skill, and the whole order of procedure was 
regulated with extraordinary care. ' All freemen of Grecian extraction 
were invited to contend, provided they had been born in lawful wedlock, 
and had lived untainted by any infamous moral stain. No women (the 
priestesses of Ceres excepted) were permitted to be present. Females 
who violated this law were thrown from a rock. The competitors prepared 
themselves during ten months previous at the gymnasium at Elis. During 
the last thirty days, the exercises were performed with as much regularity 



62 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

as at the games themselves. The festival began in the evening with sol- 
emn sacrifices, and the games were commenced the next day at daybreak. 

These consisted in races on horseback and on foot, in leaping, throwing 
the discus or quoit, wrestling, and boxing ; musical and poetical contests 
concluded the whole. The honor of having gained a victory in the Olym 
pic Games was very great ; it extended from the victor to his country, 
which was proud of owning him. However rude and boisterous were some 
of the sports of the Olympic Festival, it is acknowledged by the best au- 
thorities that they were attended with manifold advantages to society. It 
is sufficient barely to mention the suspension of hostilities, which took p]ace 
not only during the festival, but a considerable time both before and after 
it. Considered as a kind of religious ceremony, at which the whole Gre- 
cian citizens were invited, and even enjoined, to assist, it was well adapted 
to facilitate intercourse, to promote knowledge, to soften prejudice, and to 
hasten the progress of civilization and humanity. 

At the first institution of the Olympic Festival, and for one or two cen 
turies afterwards, the condition of Grecian society was primitive, and almost 
patriarchal, but marked by strong features of heroic dignity, and a certain 
depth and refinement of thought. The attire of the men was very simple, 
consisting only of a shirt or close jacket to the body, with a loose robe 
hanging down over the naked limbs, while performers in the public games 
were almost naked. The arts, including agriculture, were also little ad- 
vanced ; few persons seemed to have thought of toiling to accumulate 
wealth ; and each community presented, in time of peace, the picture of 
a large family. That portion of the people constituting the freemen lived 
much in public, or in the society of their equals, enjoyed common pleas- 
ures and amusements, and had daily opportunities of displaying their use- 
ful talents in the sight of their fellow-citizens. The frequent disputes 
between individuals occasioned litigations and trials, which furnished em- 
ployment for the eloquence and ability of men in the necessary defence of 
their friends. The numerous games and public solemnities opened a con- 
tinual source of entertainment, and habituated every man to active physical 
exercise, and the performance of his duties as a soldier. These were 
agreeable features in the condition of Grecian society ; but there were 
also some of an opposite character. The people were of an unsettled dis- 
position, never satisfied long with any kind of government which existed 
amongst them, and very much disposed to wage war against neighboring 
states on the most trifling pretenses. 

The population of the various states was divided into three classes — 
namely, the citizens, the enfranchised populace, and the slaves. All polit- 
ical power, even in the most democratical of the Grecian communities, was 
possessed by the first of these classes, while in the oligarchical states, only 
that small portion of the citizens which constituted the nobility or aristoc- 
racy possessed any influence in the management of public affairs. The 
mechanical and agricultural labors necessary for the support and comfort 
of the whole, were chiefly performed by the inferior class of free inhabi- 
tants, who did not enjoy the privilege of citizenship, and by the slaves, 
who formed a considerable portion of the population of every state. These 
slaves were sprung from the same general or parent stock, spoke the same 
language, and professed the same religion, as their masters. They were 
in most cases the descendants of persons who had been conquered in wax, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 63 

but were in some instances acquired by purchase. Society being thus 
based on vicious principles, it is not wonderful that the Grecian states were 
the scene of constant civil broils. 

Sparta — Lycurgus. At the beginning of this period of Grecian his- 
tory, our attention is powerfully attracted by a very remarkable series of 
proceedings which took place in LacediTemon, or Laconia, a country of south- 
ern Greece, of which the chief city was Sparta. This city being in a state 
of intestine disorder, it was agreed by many of the inhabitants to invite 
Lycurgus, the son of one of their late kings, to undertake the important 
task of preparing a new constitution for his country. Fortified with the 
sanction of the Delphic oracle, he commenced this difficult duty, not only 
settling the form of government, but reforming the social institutions and 
manners of the people. The government he established consisted of two 
joint kings, with a limited prerogative, and who acted as presidents of a 
senate of twenty-eight aged men. The functions of the senate were de- 
liberative as well as executive, but no law could be passed without receiv- 
ing the consent of the assembled citizens. The most remarkable of the 
arrangements of Lycurgus was his attempt to abolish difference of rank, 
and even difference of circumstances, among the people. He resolved on 
the bold measure of an equal division of lands, and actually parceled out 
the Laconian territory into 89,000 lots, one of which was given to each 
citizen of Sparta, or free inhabitant of Laconia. Each of these lots was 
of such a size as barely sufficed to supply the wants of a single family — 
for Lycurgus was determined that no person should be placed in such cir- 
cumstances as would permit of luxurious living. 

Lycurgus carried into effect a number of other visionary projects : he 
abolished the use of money, with the hope of preventing undue accumu- 
lation of wealth ; prohibited foreigners from entering the country, and the 
natives from going abroad, in order to preserve simplicity of manners 
among the people ; directed that all men, without distinction of rank or 
age, should eat daily together at public tables, which were furnished with 
the plainest food ; and finally, ordained that all the children who were born, 
and seemed likely to be strong, should be reared by public nurses, under 
a rigid system of privation and personal activity, while the weak infants 
should be thrown out to the fields to perish. The citizens, when they had 
attained the age of manhood, were engaged in martial exercises, all labor 
being left to the slaves, or helots, as they were termed ; and in short, the 
whole nation was but a camp of soldiers, and war was reckoned the only 
legitimate profession. These laws were in some measure suited to the rude 
condition of the Spartans, but, as being opposed to some of the best and 
strongest principles in human nature, they could not possibly endure, and 
there is reason to believe that some of them were not strictly enforced. 
It is not unusual to see historians use the term Spartan virtue with a cer- 
tain degree of admiration of its quality ; but the Spartans had, in reality, 
no moral dignity, certainly no benevolence, in their virtue, either public or 
private. They were a small confederacy of well-trained soldiers; and 
merely as such, deserve no mark of our respect or esteem. The manner 
in which they used their helots was at once barbarous and cruel. The 
murder of a serf by a free citizen was not punishable by law ; nay, it was 
even allowable for the young Spartans to lie in wait, as a kind of sport, 



64 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

for any good-looking or saucy-looking slave, and stab him to the heart on 
the highway. It is certain that at one time, when the helots had stood 
their masters in good stead in battle, they were desired, by way of reward, 
to choose out 2000 of their best men, that they might receive their free- 
dom, and be enrolled as Spartans, and that these 2000 men were all silent- 
ly murdered soon after. At another time, when danger was apprehended 
from the growing numbers and petty wealth of the boors, the senate enac- 
ted the farce of declaring war against them, and coolly murdered many 
thousands, in order to thin their numbers and break their spirit. Had 
there been any redeeming trait in the Spartan character to compensate for 
such barbarity, one would have wondered less at the respect which is some- 
times paid them ; but their military fame only adds another instance to the 
many already on record, that the most ignorant and savage tribes make 
the most dogged soldiers. 

Athens. We now turn to Athens, long the principal seat of Grecian 
learning. Athens is said to have been founded by Cecrops, 1550 b. c, and 
in the most ancient times was called Cecropia. It probably received the 
name of Athens from the goddess Minerva, who was called also Athena, by 
the Greeks, and to whom an elegant temple had been erected in the city. The 
old city spread from the mount of the Acropolis over a wide and pleasant vale 
or low peninsula, formed by the junction of the Cephesus and Ilissus. Its 
distance from the sea-coast was about five miles. In the course of time 
Athens became populous and surpassingly elegant in its architecture, while 
its citizens contrived to take a lead in the affairs of the communities around. 
At first they were governed by kings, but, as in the case of the Spartan 
citizens, they became dissatisfied with their existing constitution, and about 
the year 600 b. c. invited Solon, one of the wisest men in Greece, to reor- 
ganize their political constitution. Solon obeyed the summons, and consti- 
tuted the government on a broad republican basis, with a council of state, 
forming a judicial court, consisting of 400 members, and called the Areo- 
pagus. This court of Areopagus besides its other duties, exercised a cen- 
sorship over public morals, and was empowered to punish impiety, profligacy, 
and even idleness. To this court every citizen was bound to make an an- 
nual statement of his income, and the sources from which it was derived. 
The court was long regarded with very great respect, and the right was 
accorded to it of not only revising the sentences pronounced by the other 
criminal tribunals, but even of annulling the judicial decrees of the general 
assembly of the people. The regulations of Solon were not maintained 
for any great length of time, although the republican form of government, 
in one shape or other, continued as long as the country maintained its in- 
dependence. Clesthenes, the leader of a party, enlarged the democratic 
principle in the state ; he introduced the practice of ostracism, by which 
any person might be banished for ten years, without being accused of any 
crime, if the Athenians apprehended that he had acquired too much influ- 
ence, or harbored designs against the public liberty. Ostracism was so 
called, because the citizens, in voting for its infliction, wrote the name of 
the obnoxious individual upon a shell (ostreori). It is said that Clesthenes 
was the first victim of his own law, as has happened in several other remark- 
able cases, ancient and modern. 

For a period of about two centuries after the settlement of a republican 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 65 

constitution, there is little of importance to relate in Athenian history. 
Athens was gradually enlarged, the taste for refinement increased, and 
various men of sagacious understanding, entitled Philosophers, began to 
devote themselves to inquiries into the nature of the human mind and the 
character of the Deity. The principal Grecian philosopher who flourished 
in this era (550 B. c.) was Pythagoras, a man of pure and exalted ideas, 
and an able expounder of the science of mind. 

THIRD PERIOD OF HISTORY 

The year 490 b. c. closes the gradually-improving period in Grecian 
history, or second period, as it has been termed ; and now commenced an 
era marked by the important event of an invasion from a powerful Asiatic 
sovereign. 

Persian Invasion. Darius, king of Persia, having imagined the pos- 
sibility of conquering Greece, sent an immense army against it in the year 
just mentioned. Greatly alarmed at the approach of such an enemy, the 
Athenians applied to the Spartans for aid ; but that people had a supersti- 
tion which prohibited their taking the field before the moon was at the full, 
and as at the time of the application it still wanted five days of that peri- 
od, they therefore delayed the march of their troops. Being thus refused 
all assistance from their neighbors, the Athenians were left to depend en- 
tirely on their own courage and resources. A more remarkable instance 
of a small state endeavoring to oppose the wicked aggression of an over- 
grown power, has seldom occurred in ancient or modern times ; but the 
constant exercises and training of the Athenian population enabled them 
to present a bold and by no means contemptible front to the invader. 
War had been their principal employment, and in the field they displayed 
their noblest qualities. They were unacquainted with those highly-discip- 
lined evolutions which give harmony and concert to numerous bodies of 
men ; but what was wanting in skill they supplied by courage. The Athe- 
nian, and also other Greek soldiers, marched to the field in a deep phalanx, 
rushed impetuously to the attack, and bravely closed with their enemies. 
Each warrior was firmly opposed to his antagonist, and compelled by neces- 
sity to the same exertions of valor as if the fortune of the day depended 
on his single arm. The principal weapon was a spear, which, thrown by 
the nervous and well-directed vigor of a steady hand, often penetrated the 
firmest shields and bucklers. When they missed their aim, or when the 
stroke proved ineffectual through want of force, they drew their swords, 
and summoning their utmost resolution, darted impetuously on the foe. 
This mode of war was common to the soldiers and generals, the latter be- 
ing as much distinguished in battle by their strength and courage as their 
skill and conduct. The Greeks had bows, slings, and darts, intended for 
the practice of distant hostility ; but their chief dependence was on the 
spear and sword. Their defensive armor consisted of a bright helmet, 
adorned with plumes, and covering the head, a strong corslet defending the 
breast, greaves of brass decending the leg to the feet, and an ample shield, 
loosely attached to the left shoulder and arm, which turned in all direc- 
tions, and opposed its firm resistance to every hostile assault. With men 
thus organized and accoutred, a battle consisted of so many duels, and the 
5* 



66 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

combatants fought with all the keenness of personal resentment. Th6 
slaughter in such engagements was correspondingly great, the fight seldom 
terminating till one of the parties was nearly destroyed, or at least greatly 
reduced in numbers. 

It was a people so animated and prepared that the hosts of Persia 
were about to encounter. Compelled to meet the invaders unassisted, the 
Athenians were able to march an army of only 9000 men, exclusive of 
about as many light-armed slaves, into the field. With Miltiades as their 
leader and commander-in-chief, they met the Persians in battle on the 
plain of Marathon, thirty miles from Athens, and by great skill and cour- 
age, and the force of their close phalanx of spearmen, completely conquered 
them. Upwards of 6000 Persians were slain on the field, while the num- 
ber killed of the Athenians was but 192. This is reckoned by historians 
one of the most important victories in ancient times, for it saved the inde- 
pendence of the whole of Greece. To the disgrace of the fickle Athenians, 
they afterwards showed the greatest ingratitude to Miltiades, and put him 
in prison on a charge of favoring the Persians. He died there the year 
after his great victory. Soon after, the citizens of Athens, on a plea equal- 
ly unfounded, banished Aristides, an able leader of the aristocratic party 
in the state, and who, from his strict integrity and wisdom, was usually en- 
titled ' Aristides the Just.' On the banishment of this eminent individual, 
Themistocles, a person who was more democratic in his sentiments, became 
the leader of the councils of the Athenians. Meanwhile the Grecian liber- 
ties were again menaced by the Persians. Xerxes, son of Darius, marched 
an army across the Hellespont by a bridge of boats from the Asiatic shore, 
and led it towards the southern part of Greece. The utmost force that the 
confederate Greeks could oppose to the countless host of Persians, did not 
exceed 60,000 men. Of these, a band of Spartans, numbering 8,000 
soldiers, under Leonidas their king, was posted at the pass of Thermopy- 
lae, to intercept the enemy, and here they discomfited every successive col- 
umn of the Persians as it entered the defile. Ultimately, foreseeing cer- 
tain destruction, Leonidas commanded all to retire but 300, with whom he 
proposed to give the Persians some idea of what the Greeks could submit 
to for the sake of their country. He and his 300 were cut off to a man. 
Xerxes took possession of Attica and Athens, but in the naval battle with 
the Athenian fleet at Salamis, which occurred soon after [October 20, 480 
b. a], his army was utterly routed, and its scattered remains retreated 
into Asia. 

By this splendid victory the naval power of Persia was almost annihila- 
ted, and the spirit of its monarch so completely humbled, that he durst no 
longer undertake offensive operations against Greece. Here, therefore, the 
war ought to have terminated ; but so great and valuable had been the 
spoils obtained by the confederate forces, that they were unwilling to re- 
linquish such a profitable contest. The war, therefore, was continued for 
twenty years longer, less, apparently, for the chastisement of Persia, than 
for the plunder of her conquered provinces. 

But now that all danger was over, many of the smaller states, whose 
population was scanty, began to grow weary of the contest, and to furnish 
with reluctance their annual contingent of men to reinforce the allied fleet. 
It was, in consequence, arranged that those states whose citizens were un- 
willing t» perform personal service, should send merely their proportion of 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 67 

vessels, and pay into the common treasury an annual subsidy, for the main 
tenance of the sailors with whom the Athenians undertook to man the fleet. 
The unforeseen but natural consequence of this was the establishment of 
the complete supremacy of Athens. The annual subsidies gradually as- 
sumed the character of a regular tribute, and were compulsorily levied as 
such ; while the recusant communities, deprived of their fleets, which had 
been given up to the Athenians, were unable to offer effectual resistance 
to the oppressive exactions of the dominant state. The Athenians were 
thus raised to an unprecedented pitch of power and opulence, and enabled 
to adorn their city, to live in dignified idleness, and to enjoy a constant 
succession of the most costly public amusements, at the expense of the van- 
quished Persians, and of the scarcely more leniently-treated communities 
of the dependent confederacy. 

Pericles. We have arrived at the most flourishing period of Athenian 
history, during which Pericles rose to distinction, and greatly contributed 
to the beautifying of the capital. The talents of Pericles were of the 
very first order, and they had been carefully cultivated by the ablest tutor- 
age which Greece could afford. After serving for several years in the 
Athenian army, he ventured to take a part in the business of the popular 
assembly, and his powerful eloquence soon gained him an ascendancy in 
the national councils ; and his power, in fact, became as great as that of 
an absolute monarch (445 b. a). Some of the most interesting events of 
Grecian history now occurred. After a number of years of general peace, 
a dispute between the state of Corinth and its dependency the island of 
Corey ra (now Corfu), gave rise to a wa-r which again disturbed the repose 
of all the Grecian states. Corcyra was a colony of Corinth, but having, 
by its maritime skill and enterprise, raised itself to a higher pitch of opu- 
lence than its parent city, it not only refused to acknowledge Corinthian 
supremacy, but went to war with that state on a question respecting the 
government of Epidammus, a colony which the Corcyreans had planted on 
the coast of Illyria. Corinth applied for and obtained aid from several of 
the Peloponnesian states to reduce the Corcyreans to subjection ; while 
Corcyra, on the other hand, concluded a defensive alliance with Athens, 
which sent a fleet to assist the island in vindicating its independence. By 
way of punishing the Athenians for intermeddling in the quarrel, the Co- 
rinthians stirred up a revolt in Potidgea, a town of Chalcidice, near the 
confines of Macedonia, which had originally been a colony of Corinth, but 
was at this time a tributary of Athens. The Athenians immediately des- 
patched a fleet and army for the reduction of Potidgea, and the Peloponne- 
sians were equally prompt in sending succors to the city. The Corinthians, 
meanwhile, were actively engaged in endeavoring to enlist in their cause 
those states which had not yet taken a decided part in the dispute. To 
Lacedcemon, in particular, they sent ambassadors to complain of the con- 
duct of the Athenians, which they characterized as a violation of a univer- 
sally-recognised law of Grecian policy — that no state should interfere 
between another and its dependencies. The efforts of the Corinthians 
were successful, and almost all the Peloponnesian states, headed by Sparta, 
together with many of those beyond the isthmus, formed themselves into 
a confederacy for the purpose of going to war with Athens. Argos and 
Achaia at first remained neuter. Corcyra, Acarnania, some of the cities 



68 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of Thessaly, and those of Platsea and Naupactus, were all that took part 
with the Athenians. 

Pericles beheld without dismay the gathering of the storm, but his coun- 
trymen were not equally undaunted. They perceived that they were 
about to be called upon to exchange the idle and luxurious life they were 
at present leading for one of hardship and danger, and they began to mur- 
mur against their political leader for involving them in so alarming a quar- 
rel. They had not at first the courage to impeach Pericles himself, but 
vented their displeasure against his friends and favorites. Phidias, a very 
eminent sculptor, whom the great statesman had appointed superintendent 
of public buildings, was condemned to imprisonment on a frivolous charge ; 
and the philosopher Anaxagoras, the preceptor and friend of Pericles, was 
charged with disseminating opinions subversive of the national religion, and 
banished from Athens. Respecting another celebrated individual who at 
this time fell under persecution, it becomes necessary to say a few words. 
Aspasia of Miletus was a woman of remarkable beauty and brilliant tal- 
ents, but she wanted that chastity which is the greatest of feminine graces, 
and by her dissolute life was rendered a reproach, as she would otherwise 
have been an ornament, to her sex. This remarkable woman having come 
to reside in Athens, attracted the notice of Pericles, who was so much fas- 
cinated by her beauty, wit and eloquence, that, after separating from his 
wife, with whom he had lived unhappily, he married Aspasia. It was gen- 
erally believed that for the gratification of a private grudge, she had insti- 
gated Pericles to quarrel with the Peloponnesian states, and her unpopu- 
larity on this score was the true cause of her being now accused, before 
the assembly of the people, of impiety and grossly-immoral practices. 
Pericles conducted her defense in person, and plead for her with so much 
earnestness, that he was moved even to tears. The people, either finding 
the accusations to be really unfounded, or unable to resist the eloquence of 
Pericles, acquitted Aspasia. His enemies next directed their attack against 
himself. They accused him of embezzling the public money ; but he com- 
pletely rebutted the charge, and proved that he had drawn his income 
from no other source than his private estate. His frugal and unostenta- 
tious style of living must have of itself gone far to convince the Athenians 
of the honesty with which he had administered the public affairs ; for while 
he was filling the city with temples, porticoes, and other magnificent works 
of art, and providing many costly entertainments for the people, his own 
domestic establishment was regulated with such strict attention to econo- 
my, that the members of his family complained of a parsimony which 
formed a marked contrast to the splendor in which many of the wealthy 
Athenians then lived. 

Confirmed in his authority by his triumphant refutation of the slanders 
of his enemies, Pericles adopted the wisest measures for the public defense 
against the invasion which was threatened by the Peloponnesians. Un- 
willing to risk a battle with the Spartans, who were esteemed not less 
invincible by land than the Athenians were by sea, he caused the inhabi- 
tants of Attica to transport their cattle to Eubcea and the neighboring is- 
lands, and to retire with as much of their other property as they could 
take with them, within the walls of Athens. By this provident care, the 
city was stored with provision sufficient for the support of the multi- 
tudes which now crowded it ; but greater difficulty was found in furnish- 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 69 

ing proper accommodation for so vast a population. Many found lodgings 
in the temples and other public edifices, or in the turrets on the city walls, 
while great numbers were obliged to construct for themselves temporary 
abodes in the vacant space within the long walls extending between the 
city and the port of Piraeus. 

The memorable contest of twenty-seven years' duration, called, the Pelo- 
ponnesian War,' now commenced (431 b. a). The Spartan king, Archi 
damus, entered Attica at the head of a large army of the confederates, and 
meeting with no opposition, proceeded along its eastern coast, burning the 
towns, and laying waste the country in his course. When the Athenians 
saw the enemy ravaging the country almost up to their gates, it required 
all the authority of Pericles to keep them within their fortifications. While 
the confederates were wasting Attica with fire and sword, the Athenian 
and Corcyrean fleets were, by the direction of Pericles, avenging the inju- 
ry by ravaging the almost defenseless coasts of the Peloponnesus. This, 
together with a scarcity of provisions, soon induced Archidamus to lead his 
army homewards. He retired by the western coast, continuing the work 
of devastation as he went along. 

Early in the summer of the following year, the confederates returned 
to Attica, which they were again permitted to ravage at their pleasure, as 
Pericles still adhered to his cautious policy of confining his efforts to the 
defense of the capital. But an enemy far more terrible than the Pelopon- 
nesians attacked the unfortunate Athenians. A pestilence, supposed to 
have originated in Ethiopia, and which had gradually spread over Egypt 
and the western parts of Asia, broke out in the town of Piraeus, the inhab- 
itants of which at first supposed their wells to have been poisoned. The 
disease rapidly advanced into Athens, where it carried off a great number 
of persons. It is described as having been a species of infectious fever, 
accompanied with many painful symptoms, and followed, in those who survived 
the first stages of the disease, by ulcerations of the bowels and limbs. 

Historians mention, as a proof of the singular virulence of this pesti- 
lence, that the birds of prey refused to touch the unburied bodies of its 
victims, and that the dogs which fed upon the poisonous relics perished. 

The mortality was dreadful, and was of course greatly increased by the 
overcrowded state of the city. The prayers of the devout, and the skill of 
the physicians, were found equally unavailing to stop the progress of the dis- 
ease ; and the miserable Athenians, reduced to despair, believed themselves 
to be forgotten or hated by their gods. The sick were in many cases left 
unattended, and the bodies of the dead allowed to lie unburied, while those 
whom the plague had not yet reached, openly sat at defiance all laws, hu- 
man and divine, and rushed into every excess of criminal indulgence. 

Pericles was in the meantime engaged, with a fleet of 150 ships, in wasting 
with fire and sword the shores of Peloponnesus. At his return to Athens, 
finding that the enemy had hastily retired from Attica, through fear of the 
contagion of the plague, he despatched the fleet to the coast of Chalcidice, 
to assist the Athenian land forces who were still engaged in the siege of 
Potidaea — an unfortunate measure, productive of no other result than the 
communication of the pestilence to the besieging army, by which the major- 
ity of the troops were speedily swept away. Maddened by their suffer- 
ings, the Athenians now became loud in their murmurs against Pericles, 
whom they accused of having brought upon them at least a portion of their 



70 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

calamities, by involving them in the Peloponnesian war. An assembly of 
the people was held, in which Pericles entered upon a justification of his 
conduct and exhorted them to courage and perseverance in defense of their 
independence. The hardships to which they had been exposed by the war, 
were, he observed, only such as he had in former addresses prepared them 
to expect ; and as for the pestilence, it was a calamity which no human 
prudence could either have foreseen or averted. He reminded them that 
they still possessed a fleet which that of no potentate on earth could equal 
or cope with, and that, after the present evil should have passed away, 
their navy might yet enable them to acquire universal empire. ' What we 
suffer from the gods,' continued he, 'we should bear with patience ; what 
from our enemies, with manly firmness ; and such were the maxims of our 
forefathers. From unshaken fortitude in misfortune has arisen the present 
power of this commonwealth, together with that glory which, if our empire, 
according to the lot of all earthly things, decay, shall still survive to all 
posterity.' 

The eloquent harangue of Pericles diminished, but did not remove, the 
alarm and irritation of the Athenians, and they not only dismissed him 
from all his offices, but imposed upon him a heavy fine. Meanwhile do- 
mestic afflictions were combining with political anxieties and mortifications 
to oppress the mind of this eminent man, for the members of his family 
were one by one perishing by the plague. Still, however, he bore himself 
up with a fortitude which was witnessed with admiration by all around him ; 
but at the funeral of the last of his children, his firmness at length gave 
way ; and while he was, according to the custom of the country, placing a 
garland of flowers on the head of the corpse, he burst into loud lamenta- 
tions, and shed a torrent of tears. It was not long till his mutable coun- 
trymen repented of their harshness towards him, and reinvested him with 
his civil and military authority. He soon after followed his children to the 
grave, falling, like them, a victim to the prevailing pestilence (429 b. a). 
The concurrent testimony of the ancient writers assigns to Pericles the 
first place among Grecian statesmen for wisdom and eloquence. Though 
ambitious of power, he was temperate in its exercise ; and it is creditable 
to his memory, that, in an age and country so little scrupulous in the shed- 
ding of blood, his long administration was as merciful and mild as it was 
vigorous and effective. When constrained to make war, the constant study 
of this eminent statesman was, how to overcome his enemies with the least 
possible destruction of life, as well on their side as on his own. It is relat- 
ed that, when he was lying at the point of death, and while those who sur- 
rounded him were recounting his great actions, he suddenly interrupted 
them by expressing his surprise that they should bestow so much praise on 
achievements in which he had been rivaled by many others, while they 
omitted to mention what he considered his highest and peculiar honor — 
namely, that no act of his had ever caused any Athenian to put on mourning. 

After the death of Pericles, the war was continued, without interruption, 
for seven years longer, but with no very decisive advantage to either side. 
During this period the Athenian councils were chiefly directed by a coarse- 
minded and unprincipled demagogue named Cleon, who was at last killed 
in battle under the walls of Amphipolis, a Macedonian city, of which the 
possession was disputed by the Athenians and Lacedaemonians. Cleon was 
succeeded in the direction of public affairs by Nicias, the leader of the aris 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 71 

tocratic party, a man of virtuous but unenterprising character, and a mili- 
tary officer of moderate abilities. Under his auspices a peace for fifty 
years, commonly known by the name of the ' Peace of Nicias,' was conclu- 
ded in the tenth year of the war (421 b. a). It was not long, however, 
till the contest was resumed. Offended that its allies had given up a con- 
test undertaken for the assertion of its alleged rights, Corinth refused to 
be a party to the treaty of peace, and entered into a new quadruple alli- 
ance with Argos, Elis, and Mantinsea, a city of Arcadia ; the ostensible ob- 
ject of which confederation was the defense of the Peloponnesian states 
against the aggressions of Athens and Sparta. This end seemed not diffi- 
cult of attainment, as fresh distrust had arisen between the two last-men- 
tioned republics, on account of the reluctance felt and manifested by both 
to give up certain places which they had bound themselves by treaty mutu- 
ally to surrender. The jealousies thus excited were fanned into a violent 
flame by the artful measures of Alcibiades, a young Athenian, who now 
began to rise into political power, and whose genius and character subse- 
quently exercised a strong influence upon the affairs of Athens. 

Alcibiades. Alcibiades was the son of Clinias, an Athenian of high 
rank. Endowed with uncommon beauty of person, and talents of the 
very highest order, he was unfortunately deficient in that unbending 
integrity which is an essential element of every character truly great, 
and his violent passions sometimes impelled him to act in a manner which 
has brought disgrace on his memory. While still very young, Alcibiades 
served in the x\thenian army, and became the companion and pupil of 
Socrates, one of the wisest and most virtuous of the Grecian sages. Hav- 
ing rendered some service to his country in a protracted and useless war 
with Lacedsemon, and being possessed of a talent for addressing the 
passions of the multitude, Alcibiades, as others had done before him, 
became the undisputed head of public affairs in Athens. But this preemi- 
nence was not of long continuance. An opinion arose among the people 
that he designed to subvert the constitution, and his fall was as quick as 
his promotion. Many of his friends were put to death, and he, while ab- 
sent on an expedition, deprived of his authority. Being thus left without 
a public director of affairs, Athens, as usual, was torn by internal discords : 
the aristocratic faction succeeded in overthowing the democratic govern- 
ment (411 b. c), and establishing a council of 400 individuals to admin- 
ister the affairs of state, with the power of convoking an assembly of 
5000 of the principal citizens for advice and assistance in any emergency. 
These 400 tyrants, as they were popularly called, were no sooner invested 
with authority, than they annihilated every remaining portion of the free 
institutions of Athens. They behaved with the greatest insolence and 
severity towards the people, and endeavored to confirm and perpetuate 
their usurped power, by raising a body of mercenary troops in the islands 
of the iEgean, for the purpose of overawing and enslaving their fellow- 
citizens. The Athenian army was at this period in the island of Samos, 
whither it had retired after an expedition against the revolted cities of 
Asia Minor. When intelligence arrived of the revolution in Athens, and 
the tyrannical proceedings of the oligarchical faction, the soldiers indignant- 
ly refused to obey the new government, and sent an invitation to Alcibiades 
to return among them, and assist in reestablishing the democratic con- 



72 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

stitution. He obeyed the call ; and as soon as he arrived in Samos, the 
troops elected him their general. He then sent a message to Athens, 
commanding the 400 tyrants to divest themselves immediately of their 
unconstitutional authority, if they wished to avoid deposition and death at 
his hands. 

This message reached Athens at a time of the greatest confusion and 
alarm. The 400 tyrants had quarreled among themselves, and were 
about to appeal to the sword : the island of Eubcea, from which Athens 
had for some time been principally supplied with provisions, had revolted, 
and the fleet which had been sent to reduce it had been destroyed by the 
Lacedaemonians, so that the coasts of Attica, and the port of Athens itself, 
were now without defense. In these distressing circumstances, the people, 
roused to desperation, rose upon their oppressors, overturned the govern- 
ment of the 400, after an existence of only a few months, and reestablished 
their ancient institutions. Alcibiades was now recalled ; but before revisit- 
ing Athens, he was desirous of performing some brilliant military exploit, 
which might obliterate the recollection of his late connection with the 
Spartans, and give his return an air of triumph. He accordingly joined 
the Athenian fleet, then stationed at the entrance of the Hellespont, and 
soon obtained several important victories over the Lacedaemonians, both 
by sea and land. He then returned to Athens, where he was received 
with transports of joy. Chaplets of flowers were showered upon his head, 
and amidst the most enthusiastic acclamations he proceeded to the place 
of assembly, where he addressed the people in a speech of such eloquence 
and power, that at its conclusion a crown of gold was placed upon his 
brow, and he was invested with the supreme command of the Athenian 
forces, both naval and military. His forfeited property was restored, * 
and the priests were directed to revoke the curses which had formerly 
been pronounced upon him. 

This popularity of Alcibiades was not of long continuance. Many of 
the dependencies of Athens being in a state of insurrection, he assumed 
the command of an armament intended for their reduction. But circum- 
stances arose which obliged him to leave the fleet for a short time in charge 
of one of his officers, named Antiochus, who, in despite of express orders 
to the contrary, gave battle to the Lacedaemonians during the absence of 
the commander-in-chief, and was defeated. When intelligence of this 
action reached Athens, a violent clamor was raised against Alcibiades : 
he was accused of having neglected his duty, and received a second 
dismissal from all his offices. On hearing of this, he quitted the fleet, and 
retiring to a fortress he had built in the Chersonesus of Thrace, he collect- 
ed around him a band of military adventurers, with whose assistance he 
carried on a predatory warfare against the neighboring Thracian tribes. 

Alcibiades did not long survive his second disgrace with his countrymen. 
Finding his Thraeian residence insecure, on account of the increasing 
power of his Lacedaemonian enemies, he crossed the Hellespont, and 
settled in Bithynia, a country on the Asiatic side of the Propontis. Being 
there attacked and plundered by the Thracians, he proceeded into Phrygia, 
and placed himself under the protection of Pharnabasus, the Persian satrap 
of that province. But even thither the unfortunate chief was followed by 
the unrelenting hatred of the Lacedaemonians, by whose directions he was 
privately and foully assassinated. Thus perished, about the fortieth year 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 73 

of his age (403 B.C.), one of the ablest men that Greece ever produced. 
Distinguished alike as a warrior, an orator, and a statesman, and in his 
nature noble and generous, Alcibiades would have been truly worthy of 
our admiration if he had possessed probity ; but his want of principle, and 
his unruly passions, led him to commit many grievous errors, which con- 
tributed not a little to produce or aggravate those calamities which latterly 
overtook him. 

DECLINE OF ATHENIAN INDEPENDENCE. 

With Alcibiades perished the last of the great men who possessed the 
power to sway the wild democracy, or, properly speaking, the mob of 
Athens. From the period of his death till the subjugation of the country, 
the Athenian people were at the mercy of contending factions, and with- 
out a single settled principle of government. During this brief period of 
their history, in which a kind of popular democracy had attained the 
command of affairs, happened the trial and condemnation of Socrates, 
an eminent teacher of morals, and a man guiltless of every offense but 
that of disgracing, by his illustrious merit, the vices and follies of his 
cotemporaries. On the false charge of corrupting the morals of the 
pupils who listened to his admirable expositions, and of denying the reli- 
gion of his country, he was, to the eternal disgrace of the Athenians, 
compelled to die by drinking poison, a fate which he submitted to with 
a magnanimity which has rendered his name for ever celebrated. This 
odious transaction occurred in the year 400 b. c. 

After the death of this great man, the political independence of Athens 
drew to its termination — a circumstance which cannot excite the least sur- 
prise, when we reflect on the turbulence of its citizens, their persecution of 
virtue and talent, and their unhappy distrust of any settled form of govern- 
ment. Their ruin was finally accomplished by their uncontrollable thirst 
for war, and can create no emotions of pity or regret in the reader of their 
distracted history. The Lacedaemonians, under the command of an able 
officer named Lysander, attacked and totally destroyed the Athenian fleet. 
By this means having obtained the undisputed command of the sea, Lysan- 
der easily reduced those cities on the coasts of Thrace and Asia Minor, 
and those islands of the .ZEgean, which still acknowledged the supremacy 
of Athens. Having thus stripped that once lordly state of all its dependen- 
cies, he proceeded to blockade the city of Athens itself. The Athenians 
made a heroic defense ; but after a lengthened siege, during which they 
suffered all the horrors of famine, they were obliged to surrender on such 
conditions as their enemies thought fit to impose (404 b. a). The Spar 
tans demanded that the fortifications of Piraeus, and the long walls which 
connected it with the city, should be demolished ; that the Athenians should 
relinquish all pretensions to authority over their former tributaries, recall 
the exiled partisans of the 400 tyrants, acknowledge the supremacy of 
Sparta, and follow its commanders in time of war ; and finally, that they 
should adopt such a political constitution as should meet the approbation of 
the Lacedaemonians. 

Thus sank the power of Athens, which had so long been the leading 
state of Greece, and thus terminated the Peloponnesian war, in which the 
Grecian communities had been so long engaged, to little other purpose than 



74 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to waste the strength, and exhaust the resources, of their common coun- 
try. 

Condition of Athens. During the age preceding its fall, Athens, as 
already mentioned, had been greatly beautified and enlarged by Pericles. 
At the same time, the comparative simplicity of manners which formerly 
prevailed was exchanged for luxurious habits. This alteration has been 
thus described by Gillies in his ' History of Ancient Greece :' — ' In the 
course of a few years, the success of Aristides, Cimon, and Pericles, had 
tripled the revenues, and increased in a far greater proportion the dominions 
of the republic. The Athenian galleys commanded the eastern coasts of 
the Mediterranean ; their merchantmen had engrossed the traffic of the ad- 
jacent countries ; the magazines of Athens abounded with wood, metal, 
ebony, ivory, and all the materials of the useful as well as of the agreeable 
arts ; they imported the luxuries of Italy, Sicily, Cyprus, Lydia, Pontus, 
and Peloponnesus ; experience had improved their skill in working the 
silver mines of Mount Laurium ; they had lately opened the valuable mar- 
ble veins in Mount Pentelicus ; the honey of Hymettus became important 
in domestic use and foreign traffic ; the culture of their olives (oil being 
long their staple commodity, and the only production of Attica which Solon 
allowed them to export) must have improved with the general improvement 
of the country in arts and agriculture, especially under the active adminis- 
tration of Pericles, who liberally let loose the public treasure to encourage 
every species of industry. 

' But if that minister promoted the love of action, he found it necessary 
at least to comply with, if not to excite, the extreme passion for pleasure 
which then began to distinguish his countrymen. The people of Athens, 
successful in every enterprise against their foreign as well as domestic ene- 
mies, seemed entitled to reap the fruits of their dangers and victories. 
For the space of at least twelve years preceding the war of Peloponnesus, 
their city afforded a perpetual scene of triumph and festivity. Dramatic 
entertainments, to which they were passionately addicted, were no longer 
performed in slight, unadorned edifices, but in stone or marble theatres, 
erected at great expense, and embellished with the most precious produc- 
tions of nature and of art. The treasury was opened, not only to supply 
the decorations of this favorite amusement, but to enable the poorer citi- 
zens to enjoy it, without incurring any private expense ; and thus, at the 
cost of the state, or rather of its tributary allies and colonies, to feast and 
delight their ears and fancy with the combined charms of music and poe- 
try. The pleasure of the eye was peculiarly consulted and gratified in the 
architecture of theatres and other ornamental buildings ; for as Themisto- 
cles had strengthened, Pericles adorned, his native city ; and unless the 
concurring testimony of antiquity was illustrated in the Parthenon, or Tem- 
ple of Minerva, and other existing remains worthy to be immortal, it would 
be difficult to believe that in the space of a few years there could have been 
created those numerous, yet inestimable wonders of art, those temples, the- 
atres, statues, altars, baths, gymnasia, and porticoes, which, in the lan- 
guage of ancient panegyric, rendered Athens the eye and light of Greece. 

' Pericles was blamed for thus decking one favorite city, like a vain vo- 
luptuous harlot, at the expense of plundered provinces ; but it would have 
been fortunate for the Athenians*if their extorted wealth had not been em- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 75 

ployed in more perishing, as well as more criminal, luxury. The pomp of 
religious solemnities, which were twice as numerous and costly in Athens as 
in any other city of Greece — the extravagance of entertainments and ban- 
quets, which on such occasions always followed the sacrifices — exhausted 
the resources, without augmenting the glory, of the republic. Instead of 
the bread, herbs, and simple fare recommended by the laws of Solon, the 
Athenians, soon after the eightieth Olympiad, availed themselves of their 
extensive commerce to import the delicacies of distant countries, which 
were prepared with all the refinements of cookery. The wines of Cyprus 
were cooled with snow in summer ; in winter, the most delightful flowers 
adorned the tables and persons of the wealthy Athenians. Nor was it 
sufficient to be crowned with roses, unless they were likewise anointed 
with the most precious perfumes. Parasites, dancers, and buffoons, were 
a usual appendage of every entertainment. Among the weaker sex, the 
passion for delicate birds, distinguished by their voice or plumage, was 
carried to such excess, as merited the name of madness. The bodies of 
such youths as were not peculiarly addicted to hunting and horses, which 
began to be a prevailing taste, were corrupted by a lewd style of living ; 
while their minds were still more polluted by the licentious philosophy of 
the sophists. It is unnecessary to crowd the picture, since it may be ob- 
served, in one word, that the vices and extravagances which are supposed 
to characterize the declining ages of Greece and Rome, took root in Athens 
during the administration of Pericles, the most splendid and most prosper- 
ous in the Grecian annals.' 

During this period flourished iEschylus and Sophocles, Euripides and 
Aristophanes, dramatists ; Pindar, a lyrical poet ; Herodotus and Thucyd- 
ides, historians ; Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and 
Socrates, philosophers (reasoners upon the nature of the human mind, 
and upon man's immortal destiny). In this period also, under the admin- 
istration of Pericles (from 458 to 429 b. a), sculpture and architecture 
attained their perfection. It was then that Phidias executed those splen- 
did works, statues of the gods and goddesses, which excited the admiration 
of the world, and which succeeding artists have in vain endeavored to 
rival. While Athens had extended its power over a great part of the 
coasts of the iEgean Sea, and increased its trade and commerce by every 
available means, it had also become a city of palaces and temples, whose 
ruins continue to be the admiration of ages for their grandeur and beauty. 
It is understood that the Greeks had acquired their knowledge of archi- 
tecture from the Egyptians ; but they greatly excelled them in the ele- 
gance of their designs, and are in a great measure entitled to the char- 
acter of inventors in the art. The beauty of the Corinthian pillar, for ex- 
ample, has never been excelled either in ancient or modern times. 

After the surrender of Athens to the Spartans (404 b. c), the demo- 
cratic constitution was abolished, and the government was intrusted to 
thirty persons, whose rapacious, oppressive, and bloody administration ere 
long procured them the title of the Thirty Tyrants. The ascendancy of 
these intruders was not, however, of long duration. Conon, assisted pri 
vately by the Persians, who were desirous of humiliating the Spartans, 
expelled the enemy, and reestablished the independence of his country. 
About seventy years later a new source of agitation throughout Greece 



76 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

was caused by the warlike projects of Alexander, king of Macedon, usual 
ly styled 

Alexander the Great. This intrepid and ambitious soldier was the 
son of Philip, king of Macedon, a small territory adjacent to the Grecian 
states, from which it had originally received a knowledge of arts and learn- 
ing. Alexander was born in the year 356 b. c, and by his father was 
committed to the charge of the philosopher Aristotle to be educated ; a 
duty which was faithfully fulfilled. By the assassination of Philip, Alex- 
ander was called to the throne of Macedon while yet only twenty years of 
age, and immediately had an opportunity of displaying his great warlike 
abilities in conducting an expedition into Greece, which was attended with 
signal success, and procured for him the honor of succeeding his father 
as commander-in-chief of the Grecian states. He now carried out a de- 
sign which had been formed by Philip, to subdue Persia and other 
countries in Asia. In the spring of 334 b. c, he crossed over to the 
Asiatic coast, with an army of 30,000 foot and 5000 horse, thus com- 
mencing the most important military enterprise which is narrated in the 
pages of ancient history. Alexander marched through Asia Minor, and 
in successive encounters completely conquered the armies of Persia ; but 
the whole history of his progress is but an account of splendid victories. 
During a space of about seven or eight years, he conquered Persia, As- 
syria, Egypt, Babylonia, and, in fact, became master of nearly all the 
half-civilized countries in Asia and Africa. It does not appear that Alex 
ander had any motive for this wide-spread overthrow of ancient and re- 
mot* sovereignties, excepting that of simple ambition, or desire of conquest, 
with perhaps the indefinite idea of improving the social condition of the 
countries which he overran. From various circumstances in his career, it 
is apparent that he never contemplated the acquisition of wealth or of 
praise, except such as could be shared with his soldiers, for whom he dis- 
played a most paternal affection. 

The extraordinary career of Alexander was suddenly cut short by death. 
At Babylon, while engaged in extensive plans for the future, he became 
sick, and died in a few days, 323 b. c. Such was the end of this con- 
queror, in his thirty-second year, after a reign of twelve years and eight 
months. He left behind him an immense empire, which, possessing no 
consolidated power, and only loosely united by conquest, became the scene 
of continual wars. The generals of the Macedonian army respectively 
seized upon different portions of the empire, each trusting in his sword for 
an independent establishment. The greedy struggle for power finally 
terminated in confirming Ptolemy in the possession of Egypt ; Seleucus in 
Upper Asia ; Cassander in Macedon and Greece ; while several of the 
provinces in Lower Asia fell to the share of Lysimachus. 

CONCLUDING PERIOD OF GREEK HISTORY. 

At the death of Alexander, the Athenians considered it a fit opportunity 
to emancipate themselves from the ascendancy of Macedon ; but without 
success. Demosthenes, one of the most eminent patriots and orators of 
Athens, on this occasion, to avoid being assassinated by order of Antipater, 
the Macedonian viceroy, killed himself by swallowing poison ; and his com- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 77 

patriot Phocion was shortly afterwards put to death by his own country- 
men, the Athenians, in a mad outbreak of popular fury. Greece cannot 
be said to have produced one great man after Phocion ; and this deficiency 
of wise and able leaders was doubtless one chief cause of the insignificance 
into which the various states, great and small, sunk after this epoch. 

The ancient history of Greece, as an independent country, now draws 
to a close. Achaia, hitherto a small, unimportant state, having begun to 
make some pretensions to political consequence, excited the enmity of 
Sparta, and was compelled to seek the protection of Philip, the ruling 
prince of Macedon. Philip took the field against the Spartans, and their 
allies the iEtolians, and was in a fair way of subjecting all Greece, by 
arms and influence, when he ventured on the fatal step of commencing 
hostilities against the Romans. This measure consummated the ruin of 
Greece, as well as that of Macedon. The Romans warred with Philip till 
the end of his life (175 b. a), and continued the contest with his son 
Perseus, whom they utterly defeated, and with whom ended the line of 
the kings of Macedon. In a few years the once illustrious and free re- 
publics of Greece were converted into a Roman province, under the name 
of Achaia (146 b. c). 

Thus terminates the fourth and last period of Greek history, during 
which flourished several eminent writers and philosophers, among whom 
may be numbered Theocritus, a pastoral poet; Xenophon, Polybius, Dio- 
dorus Siculus, Dionysius Halicarnassus, Plutarch, and Herodian, histori- 
ans ; Demosthenes, an orator ; and Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus, 
philosophers; also Zeuxis, Timanthes, Pamphilus, Nicias, Appelles, and 
Eupompus, painters; and Praxiteles, Polycletus, Camachus, Naucides, 
and Lysippus, sculptors. 

In the condition of a humble dependency of Rome, and therefore following 
the fate of that empire, Greece remained for upwards of four succeeding 
centuries ; but although of little political importance, it still retained its 
preeminence in learning. Enslaved as the land was, it continued to be 
the great school of the time. As Greece had formerly sent her knowledge 
and arts over the East by the arms of one of her own kings, she now dif- 
fused them over the western world under the protection of Rome. Ath- 
ens, which was the emporium of Grecian learning and elegance, became 
the resort of all who were ambitious of excelling either in knowledge or 
the arts ; statesmen went thither to improve themselves in eloquence ; 
philosophers to learn the tenets of the sages of Greece; and artists to 
study models of excellence in building, statuary, or painting ; natives of 
Greece were also found in all parts of the world, gaining an honorable 
subsistence by the superior knowledge of their country. That country in 
the meantime was less disturbed by intestine feuds than formerly, but was 
not exempt from the usual fate of conquests, being subject to the continu- 
al extortions of governors and lieutenants, who made the conquered prov- 
inces the means of repairing fortunes which had been broken by flattering 
the caprices of the populace at home. 

The period of the independence of Greece, during which all those great 
deeds were performed which have attracted the attention of the world, 
may be reckoned from the era of the first Persian war to the conquest of 
Macedon, the last independent Greek state, by the Romans. This period, 
as we have seen, embraced little more than 300 years. It is not, there- 



78 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

fore, from the duration of the independent political power of the Grecian 
states that their celebrity arises. Even the patriotism of their soldiers, 
and the devoted heroism of Thermopylae and Marathon, have been emula- 
ted elsewhere without attracting much regard ; and we must therefore con- 
clude that it is chiefly from the superiority of its poets, philosophers, his- 
torians, and artists, that the importance of the country in the eyes of mod- 
ern men arises. The political squabbles of the Athenians are forgotten; 
but the moral and intellectual researches of their philosophers, and the 
elegant remains of their artists, possess an undying fame. 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



About the year 754 B.C., at that point of Central Italy, nearly fifteen 
miles from the Tuscan Sea, where the Anio joins the Tiber, there stood on 
a height, called the Palatine Mount, a little village named Roma, the centre 
of a small township, consisting probably of 5000 or 6000 inhabitants, all of 
them husbandmen and shepherds. This Rome was one of the border town- 
ships of Latium, a territory of fertile and undulating table-land extending 
from the Tiber to the Liris, and from the sea-coast to the hills of the interi- 
or. The whole surface of Latium was under diligent cultivation, and was 
covered with villages similar to Rome, which together constituted what was 
called the Latin nation. 

Rome, we have said, was a frontier township of Latium. It was situa- 
ted precisely at that point where the territories of Latium adjoined those 
of two other nations — of the Sabines, a hardy Oscan race of shepherds 
inhabiting the angular district between the Anio and the Tiber ; and of the 
Etruscans, a remarkable people, of unknown but probably Oriental origin, 
who had arrived in the north of Italy some centuries later than the Pelas- 
gians, and conquering all before them, whether Pelasgians or Oscans, by the 
force of superior civilization, had settled chiefly in the region between the 
Arnus and the Tiber, corresponding to modern Tuscany. Between these 
three races — Oscans, Pelasgians and Etruscans — either apart, or in va- 
rious combinations, all Italy, with the exception perhaps of some portions 
near the Alps, was divided : the Oscan predominating in the interior ; the 
Pelasgians or rather Pelasgo-Oscans, along the coasts, as in Latium ; and 
the Etruscans in the parts above-mentioned. While the Italian peninsula 
was thus occupied but by three great races or main stocks ; the political 
divisions or nations into which it was parceled out were so numerous, how- 
ever, that it would be scarcely possible to give a complete list of them. 

Situated so near to the Sabine and Etruscan frontiers, an intercourse, 
sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile, must naturally have been car- 
ried on between the Latins of Rome and the Sabines and Etruscans, with 
whom they were in contact. A chain of events, which history cannot now 
trace, but which is indicated in a poetic manner by a number of early 
Roman legends, led to the incorporation of Rome with two neighboring 
towns — one of them a small dependency of the Etruscans, situated on the 
Cselian Hill, and probably named Lucerum ; another a Sabine village on 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 79 

the Quirinal Hill, called Quirium. The Etruscans, or Etrusco-Latins as 
they seem rather to have been, of Lucerum, were received on a subordinate 
footing ; the Sabines of Quirium on one of equality ; but the joint city 
continued to bear its old name of Roma. The population of this new 
Home consisted, therefore, of three tribes — the ancient Romans, who call- 
ed themselves Ramnes ; the Sabines of Quirium, who called themselves 
Tities ; and the Etrusco-Latins of Lucerum, who were named Luceres. 

ORIGINAL ROMAN CONSTITUTION— EARLY HISTORY UNDER THE 
KINGS — ORIGIN OF THE PLEBEIANS. 

With the enlargement of the population of Rome by the addition of 
these new masses of citizens, a change of the constitution became of course 
necessary. The following seems to have been the form ultimately assum- 
ed: — Governed by a common sovereign, eligible by the whole community 
from one of the superior tribes — the Ramnes and the Tities — the three 
tribes intrusted the conduct of their affairs to a senate composed of 200 
members, 100 of whom represented the gentes of the Ramnes, and 100 
the gentes of the Tities. The Luceres as an inferior tribe, were not rep 
resented in the senate ; and their political influence was limited to the right to 
vote with the other two tribes in the general assemblies of the whole people. 

In these general assemblies, or Comitia, as they were called, the people 
voted ; not individually, nor in families, nor in gentes, but in divisions called 
Ourix or Curies ; the Curia being the tenth part of a tribe, and inclu- 
ding, according to the ancient system of round numbers, ten gentes. Thus 
the entire Populus Romanus, or Roman people, of this primitive time, con- 
sisted of thirty curies — ten curies of Ramnes, ten of Tities, and ten of 
Luceres : the ten curies of each tribe corresponding to 100 gentes, and 
the thirty curies together making up 300 gentes. As the Luceres were an 
inferior tribe, their gentes were called (rentes Minores, or Lesser Houses ; 
while those of the Ramnes and Tities were called Crentes Majores or Grea 
ter Houses. The assembly of the whole people was called the Comitia 
Curiatia, or meeting of curies. After a measure had been matured by 
the king and senate, it was submitted to the whole people in their curies, 
who might accept or reject, but could not alter, what was thus proposed to 
them. An appeal was also open to the curies against any sentence of the 
king, or of the judges nominated by him in his capacity of supreme justi- 
ciary. The king, moreover, was the high priest of the nation in peace, as 
well as the commander-in-chief during war. The 300 gentes furnished 
each a horseman, so as to constitute a body of cavalry ; the mass of the 
people forming the infantry. The right of assembling the senate lay with 
the king, who usually convened it three times a month. 

Such was ancient Rome, as it appears to the historic eye endeavoring to 
penetrate the mists of the past, where at first all seems vague and waver- 
ing. The inquirer to whom we owe the power to conceive the condition 
of ancient Rome, so far as that depended on political institutions, was the 
celebrated German historian Niebuhr. Not so, however, did the Romans 
conceive their own early history. In all ancient communities, it was a 
habit of the popular imagination, nay, it was part of the popular religion, 
to trace the fortunes of the community to some divine or semi-divine foun- 
der ; whose exploits, as well as those of his heroic successors, formed the 



80 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

subject of numerous sacred legends and ballads. Now, it was part of the 
Roman faith that their city had been founded at a point of time correspon- 
ding with b. c. 754, by twin brothers of miraculous birth, called Romulus 
and Remus, whose father was the war god Mars, and their mother a vestal 
virgin of the line of the Alban kings, the progeny of the great iEneas. 

Romulus, according to this legend, surviving his brother Remus, became 
the king of the village of shepherds which he had founded on the Palatine ; 
and it was in his reign that those events took place which terminated in 
the establishment of the triple community of the Ramnes, Tities, and Luce- 
res. Setting out with Romulus, the Romans traced the history of their state 
through a series of legends relating to six kings his successors, whose char- 
acters, and the lengths of their reigns, are all duly determined. Of thi3 
traditionary succession of seven kings, extending over a period of 245 years 
(b. c. 754-509), history can recognize with certainty the existence of 
only the two or three latest. It is possible, however, to elicit out of the 
legends a glimmering of the actual history of the Roman state during these 
imaginary reigns. 

Possessed, as all our information respecting the Romans in later times 
justifies us in supposing, of an unusual degree of that warlike instinct 
which was so rampant among the early tenants of our globe, the shepherd 
farmers of Rome were incessantly engaged in raids on their Latin, Etruscan, 
and Sabine neighbors. Strong-bodied, valiant, and persevering, as we 
also know them to have been, they were, on the whole, successful in these 
raids; and the consequence was, a gradual extension of their territory, 
particularly on the Latin side, by the conquest of those who were weaker 
than themselves. After each conquest, their custom was to deprive the 
conquered community of a part of their lands, and also of their political 
independence, annexing them as subjects to the Populus Romanus. The 
consequence was a gradual accumulation round the original Populus, with 
its 300 Houses, of a subject-population, free-born, and possessing property, 
but without political influence. This subject-population, the origin of 
which is dated by the legends from the reign of Ancus Martius, the fourth 
king from Romulus, received the name of the Plebs, a word which we 
translate ' common people,' but which it would be more correct, in refer- 
ence to these very ancient times, to translate ' conquered people.' Besides 
the plebs, the Roman community received another ingredient in the per- 
sons called Clients ; strangers, that is, most of them professing mechanical 
occupations, who, arriving in Rome, and not belonging to a gens, were 
obliged, in order to secure themselves against molestation, to attach them- 
selves to some powerful citizen willing to protect them, and called by them 
Patronus, or Patron. About six centuries before Christ, therefore, the 
population of the growing township of Roma may be considered as having 
consisted of four classes : 1st, The populus, or patricians, a governing class, 
consisting of a limited number of powerful families, holding themselves 
aloof from the rest of the community, not intermarrying with them, and 
gradually diminishing in consequence ; 2c?, The plebs, or plebeians, a large 
and continually-increasing subject-population, of the same mixed Etrusco- 
Sabine-Latin blood as the populus, but domineered over by them by right 
of conquest ; 3d, The clients, a considerable class, chiefly occupied in 
handicraft professions in the town, while the populus and the plebs confined 
themselves to the more honorable occupation, as it was then esteemed, of 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 81 

agriculture ; and 4th, The slaves or servi, whether belonging to patricians, 
plebeians, or clients — a class who were valued along with the cattle. 

The increasing numbers of the plebs, the result of fresh wars, and the 
value of their services to the community, entitled them to possess, and em- 
boldened them to claim, some political consideration. Accordingly, in the 
reign of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth of the legendary kings, and in whoso 
reputed Etruscan lineage historians fancy that they can discern a time 
when Etruscan influence, if not Etruscan arms, reigned paramount in 
Rome, a modification of the original constitution took place. A number 
of the richest plebeian families were drafted into the populus, to supply 
the blanks caused by the dying out of many of the ancient gentes of the 
Ramnes, Titles, and Luceres ; and at the same time the number of senators 
was increased to 300, by the admission of the Luceres to the same rights 
as the other two tribes. Even this modification was insufficient ; and in 
order to do justice to the claims of the plebs, Servius Tullius, the success- 
or of Tarquinius, and who is gratefully celebrated in Roman history as- 
' the King of the Commons,' proposed and effected an entire renovation of 
the political system of the state. His first reform consisted in giving the 
plebs a regular internal organization for its own purposes, by dividing it 
into thirty tribes or parishes — four for the town, and twenty-six for the 
country — each provided with an officer or tribe convener called the Tribune, 
as well as with a detailed machinery of local government ; and all permitted 
to assemble in a general meeting called the Camilla Tributa, to discuss 
matters purely affecting the plebs. But this was not all. To admit the 
plebs to a share in the general legislative power of the community, he in- 
stituted a third legislative body, called the Comitia Centuriata, in addition 
to the two — the senate and the comitia curiata — already existing. The 
comitia centuriata was an assembly of the whole free population of the 
Roman territory — patricians, plebeians, and clients — arranged, according 
to the amount of their taxable property, in five classes, which again were 
subdivided into 195 bodies, called Centuries, each century possessing a vote, 
but the centuries of the rich being much smaller than those of the poor, so 
as to secure a preponderance to wealth. The powers of the comitia cen- 
turiata were similar to those of the comitia curiata under the former sys- 
tem. They had the right to elect supreme magistrates, and to accept or 
reject a measure referred to them by the king and senate. The comitia 
curiata, however, still continued to be held ; and a measure, even after it 
had passed the comitia centuriata, had still to be approved by the curies 
ere it could become a law. Notwithstanding this restriction, the consti- 
tution of Servius Tullius was a great concession to the popular spirit, as it 
virtually admitted every free individual within the Roman territory to a 
share in the government. 

An attempt on the part of Tarquinius Superbus, the successor of Servius 
Tullius, to undo the reforms of his predecessor, and to establish what the 
ancients called a tyranny, or a government of individual will, led to the 
expulsion of him and his family, and to the abolition of the kingly form of 
government at Rome, b. c. 509, or in the year of the city 245. Instead 
of a king, two annual magistrates called Consuls were appointed, in whom 
were vested all the kingly functions, with the exception of the pontifical, 
for which special functionaries were created. Otherwise, the Servian con- 
stitution remained in full operation. 
6* 



82 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



THE COMMONWEALTH TO THE GAULISH INVASION — STRUGGLE BETWEEN 
THE PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS. 

After the expulsion of the kings, the little republic had to struggle 
through many difficulties arising from the attacks of the neighboring nations, 
incited thereto by the Tarquinii. Ten of the twenty-six rural parishes 
were torn away in the contest — a loss equivalent to a full third part of 
the Roman territory. It would have required a prophetic eye to foresee 
that, of all the states into which Italy was then divided, this little strug- 
gling republic was to obtain the preeminence. One would have been 
disposed to promise the supremacy of the peninsula rather to the cultured 
and large-brained Etruscans, already masters of the north of Italy ; to the 
hardy and valiant Samnites, who were fast overspreading the southern in- 
terior ; or, most probably of all, to the Greeks, who, after adding Sicily to 
the empire of their gifted race, were rapidly establishing colonies on the 
southern coasts of the peninsula. Nay, clustered round the Roman terri- 
tories there were various petty states, any one of which might have appeared 
a match for Rome — the Latins, the iEquians, the Volcians, the Hernicans, 
the Sabines, and the Etruscans of Veii on the right bank of the Tiber. 
Who could have predicted that, bursting this cincture of nations, the men 
of the Tiber would overspread the peninsula, and, by the leavening influ- 
ence of their character and institutions, throw first it and then all Europe, 
into fermentation ? 

It required a period of 119 years (b. c. 509-390) to enable the 
Romans to burst the chain of petty nations — Latins, Volscians, Vejentes, 
etc. — which girdled in their strength. This was a period of almost in- 
cessant warfare ; the last glorious act of which was the siege and capture 
of Veii by the hero Camillus, b. c. 395, or in the year of the city 359. 
By this capture part of Etruria was added to the Roman dominions, and 
the influence of the state considerably extended on all sides. This con- 
quest, as well as the career of victory against iEquians, Volscians, etc., 
which had preceded it, was greatly facilitated by a confederacy, offensive 
and defensive, which had subsisted between the Romans and the adjacent 
nations of the Latins and the Hernicans from the year of the city 268, the 
twenty-third year after the expulsion of the kings, when it had been estab- 
lished by the instrumentality of an able patrician named Spurius Cassius, 
who was three times, in cases of difficulty, elected to the consulship. 
This confederacy with two powerful nations had insured the stability of 
the infant republic against all assaults. 

The second consulship of Spurius Cassius (year of Rome 261, or B. c. 
493) had also been remarkable as the epoch of a formidable civic tumult 
— the first of that long series of struggles between the patricians and the 
plebeians which constitutes the most interesting portion of the annals of 
the early Commonwealth. Not long after the expulsion of the kings, the 
patrician gentes had begun to show a disposition to tamper with the Servian 
constitution, or at least to prevent the plebs from obtaining more power 
than they already possessed. The principal instrument by which they 
were able to cripple the energies of the plebs was the operation of the 
law of debt. In primitive Rome, as in other ancient states, an insolvent 
debtor vas liable to be seized by his creditor, and kept in chains, or made 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 83 

to work as his slave. Now, such had been the distress of the first years 
of the republic, that multitudes of the plebeians, deprived, by the casualties 
of war, of their little properties, had been obliged, in order to preserve 
the lives of their families, to become debtors to the patricians, the exclusive 
proprietors of the state lands. Hundreds had, in consequence, fallen into 
a condition of slavery ; and many more, fearing to offend their patrician 
creditors by opposing their designs, had become mere ciphers in the comitia 
centuriata. In short, the plebs, as a body, were disintegrated and dis- 
heartened. Some instances of oppression, more flagrant than ordinary, 
led to an outbreak, and a clamor for the abolition of all existing debts ; 
and to enforce their demands, the plebeians adopted a method of agitation 
wnich seems singular enough to our modern conceptions ; they, or at least 
such of them as were in arms for military service, retired in a mass from 
the city at a time when it was threatened with invasion, and encamped on 
a hill near, declaring they would starve sooner than live in such a place 
as Rome was. The government was thus reduced to a dead lock ; Spurius 
Cassius was chosen consul by the patricians ; and by his instrumentality an 
arrangement was come to, by which the demands of the commons were 
conceded, existing debts abolished, a treaty of mutual obligation for the 
future agreed to between the populus and the plebs as between two inde- 
pendent communities, and a new office instituted, under the title of the 
Tribuneship of the Common People, for the express purpose of protecting 
the interests of the plebs. The commons then returned to the city ; two 
tribunes of the people were appointed ; and their number was subsequently 
increased first to five, and afterwards to ten. No one could have foreseen 
how important this office would become. 

Not content with alleviating the temporary distresses of the plebeians, 
Spurius Cassius wished permanently to ameliorate their condition ; and 
accordingly, in his third consulship, in the year of the city 268, or B. c. 
48fJ, he boldly proposed and carried what was called an Agrarian Law. 
It is absolutely necessary that the reader of Roman history should under- 
stand this term. According to the early Roman constitution, the lands 
acquired in war became the property of the whole populus, or body of 
patricians, in common. Portions of the conquered lands might be pur 
chased from the state by rich persons ; and in such cases the purchaser, 
whether patrician or plebeian, became absolute owner. Usually, however, 
the lands were not sold, but were annexed to the unallotted property al- 
ready belonging to the populus. With regard to this state land, a very 
curious system prevailed. Any patrician (but none else) was allowed to 
occupy and cultivate as much of it as he chose, on condition of paying to 
the state a tithe of the annual produce if it were arable land, and a fifth 
if it were laid out in oliveyards or vineyards. The land thus occupied 
did not, by right of possession, become the property of the individual : he 
was liable to be turned out of it at the pleasure of the state — his landlord ; 
and it was entirely at his own risk that he laid out capital in improving it. 
As. however, it rarely happened that an individual was ejected from land 
which he had thus occupied, large tracts of the state land were speedily 
occupied by enterprising patricians. Such being the plan of distribution, 
it is evident that in the state lands, occupied and unoccupied, the govern- 
ment possessed a constant fund upon which they could draw in cases of 
emergency. By selling portions of it, they could raise money ; and by 



84 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

assigning portions of it to indigent families, they could permanently pro- 
vide for them. Several times, it appears, this had been done in the case 
of indigent plebeian families ; and the agrarian law of Spurius Cassius 
was simply a proposal that — a large accession to the state lands having 
just taken place — the government should seize the opportunity to provide 
for the distressed plebeians, by apportioning them small portions of these 
state lands. To the plebeians this proposal was exceedingly agreeable ; 
not so, however, to the patricians, who possessed the right of occupying 
and farming as much of the public territory as they chose, but who lost 
that right from the moment that the land was apportioned by the state. 
The patricians, accordingly, resisted the proposal with all their might ; 
and Spurius Cassius having carried it notwithstanding, they caused him to 
be impeached and put to death as soon as his consulship had expired. 

After this event, the patricians renewed their efforts to suppress the 
plebs, proceeding so far as to transfer the right of electing the consuls 
from the centuries to the purely patrician body of the curies. The plebe- 
ians, however, behaved resolutely, asserting their rights through their tri- 
bunes, and by clamors in the comitia tributa, where none but plebeians 
had a right to take a part. In the year of the city 271, or b. c. 483, 
they regained the power of choosing one of the consuls ; and in the year 
283, or b. c. 471, they wrung from the patricians the right of electing 
their tribunes in their own comitia tributa, instead of the centuries, at 
the same time obtaining the right to discuss in the comitia tributa affairs 
affecting the whole Commonwealth. Other concessions followed ; and at 
length, in the year 292, or b. c. 462, a tribune named Caius Terentilius 
Harsa was so bold as to propose a complete revision of the constitution in 
all its parts. It was not desirable, he said, that the old distinction be- 
tween populus and plebs, which had originated in war, should be longer 
kept up ; let, therefore, a revision of the whole body of the laws be under- 
taken, with a view to put the plebeians on a legal equality with the patri- 
cians, and let some more limited form of supreme magistracy be substitu- 
ted for the consulship. After a protracted opposition, this proposal re- 
sulted, in the year 303, or b. c. 452, in the appointment of the famous 
First Decemvirate ; a board of ten patricians, who were to revise the en- 
tire body of the laws, as well as the political machinery of the state, su- 
perseding in the meantime all other authority. The digest of Roman law 
prepared by these decemvirs became the foundation of all subsequent ju- 
risprudence among the Romans ; the amendments which they effected on 
the old laws were favorable to the plebeians. The principal constitution 
al changes which they carried out were the incorporation of patricians 
and clients with the plebeian tribes ; the investment of the centuries with 
the powers of an ultimate court of appeal ; and the substitution of the 
decemviral office, of which they themselves were an example, for the con- 
sulship, five of the decemvirs to be plebeians. This last change, however, 
was of short duration ; for the second decemvirate was brought to an end 
by its own depravity. Compelled, by a new secession of the commons, to 
abdicate, the decemvirs of 305 were succeeded by two popular consuls, 
under whose auspices several important privileges were obtained for the 
plebeians, the most important of which was a law conferring on a plebis- 
citum, or resolution of the tribes, the right to become law on receiving 
the sanction of the patricians, thus enabling the whole people to originate 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 85 

measures as well as the senate. In 310, the plebeians mustered courage 
to demand that one of the consuls should thenceforward be chosen from 
their order. To divert them from this, the patricians yielded to another 
demand — the repeal of the law prohibiting intermarriage between trie 
two orders. The plebeians, however, still persisting in their demand re- 
garding the consulship, the patricians, in 311, offered a compromise, which 
consisted in breaking down the supreme authority, hitherto concentrated 
in the consulship, into three offices — the Censorship, the Quaestorship, 
and the Military Tribunate — with consular powers. The censors were to 
be two in number, chosen for a period of five years, by the curies from 
among the patricians, subject to the approval of the centuries. The os- 
tensible duty of the censors was the administration of the public revenues ; 
but as they were intrusted with the task of determining the rank of every 
citizen, and of rating his taxable property, their power was, in reality, 
enormous. To watch over the moral conduct of the citizens, and to de- 
grade such senators or knights as disgraced their order, were parts of their 
understood duty. The qucpstors, two in number, were to keep the public 
accounts ; they were likewise to be patricians, but were to be chosen by 
the centuries. Regarding the third office, the military tribunate, the ple- 
beians were to have the option of this office, consisting of an indefinite 
number of persons of somewhat less dignity than the consuls, but to be 
chosen by the centuries from either order indiscriminately, or of consuls 
to be chosen, as before, from among the patricians only. 

This compromise having been accepted, the period from 311 to 350 
was one of incessant agitation on the part of the plebeians, of incessant 
opposition on the part of the patricians, of incessant shifting between the 
consulship and the military tribunate, according as the patricians or the 
plebeians were the stronger. On the whole, however, the plebeians gain- 
ed ground. In 321, the active authority of the censors was limited to 
eighteen months out of the five years for which they were appointed. In 
328, the tribes obtained the right of deliberating on questions of peace 
and war. In 334, the number of the quaestors was increased to four, to 
be chosen indiscriminately from either order. Lastly, in 350, or b. c. 
404, the system of payment for military service became common. During 
these forty years the patricians had frequently had recourse to the expe- 
dient of appointing a Dictator, or supreme magistrate, with unlimited au- 
thority for six months. Such an appointment almost always proved a tem- 
porary check to the political advancement of the plebeians. In cases of 
difficulty also, arising from external danger, it was usual to appoint some 
able man dictator ; and it was at such a juncture, in the year 359, that, 
determined to bring the siege of Veii to a close, the Romans appointed 
Camillus to this high office. 

The siege of Veii having terminated so successfully, the Romans were 
prepared to resume their career of conquest without, and their political 
agitations within, when both the one and the other received a check from 
an unexpected quarter. Some cause, now unknown, had thrown the Gauls, 
or Celtic populations inhabiting the western portion of Central Europe, 
into commotion ; and bursting from their native haunts, a mass of these 
savages crossed the Alps in quest of plunder and settlements, established 
a permanent abode in the country adjacent to the Po, and pushed their de- 
structive way through almost the whole length of the peninsula. Rome 



86 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

suffered more severely than any other city. For several months (364-5, 
or b. c. 390-89) it was in the possession of the savages — its rightful in- 
habitants, routed in the battle, having dispersed themselves for safety 
through the surrounding country. At length, however, the Gauls were 
bribed to return to their homes in the north, leaving Rome in ruins. 

GRADUAL CONQUEST OF THE PENINSULA — ITALY UNDER THE 
ROMAN RULE. 

The invasion of the Gauls is a great notch in the line of the Roman an- 
nals. From this epoch to the time of the complete subjugation of the pe- 
ninsula by the Romans (365-490, or — b. c. 389-264) is a period of 125 
years. Of this period, the first fifty years were spent in repairing the shat- 
tered Commonwealth. Her strength having been fairly renewed, the repub- 
lic shook off all impediments, announced to Latins and Hernicans that she re- 
quired their cooperation no longer, and boldly declared her resolution to 
conquer central Italy. The series of wars against Etruscans, Latins, Her- 
nicans, Gauls, Volscians, and Samnites, sometimes singly, sometimes in 
combination, by which she carried her resolution into effect, is usually known 
in Roman history by the general designation of ' the Samnite Wars ' (412 
—463), the Samnites being the leaders in this onset of the nations on 
Rome, the issue of which was to determine whether Rome or Samnium should 
govern Italy. Extricating herself by her valor from this confused conflict 
of nations, Rome, about the year 463, found herself mistress of Central It- 
aly — Samnites, Latins, etc., all her subjects. A consequence of the con- 
duct of the Latins and Hernicans during these Samnite wars was, that the 
famous triple confederacy between these two nations and the Romans was 
brought to an end precisely when it had fully served its purpose, and when 
its longer continuance would have impeded the growth in Italy of that Ro- 
man unity which it had fostered. ' The Samnite Wars ' were succeeded by 
a short but brisk war, designated in Roman history ' the War with Pyrr- 
hus and the Greeks in Italy.' Pyrrhus was an able and enterprising Greek 
prince, whom the Greek towns of southern Italy — fearful of being over- 
whelmed by the conquering barbarians, as they called them, of the Tiber, 
before whom even the Samnites had given way — had invited over from his 
native kingdom of Epirus, that he might place himself at the head of a con- 
federacy which they were forming against Rome. Full of enmity towards 
their conquerers, all the recently-subdued nations of Central and Northern 
Italy welcomed the arrival of Pyrrhus ; and all Southern Italy followed his 
standard. His enterprise, however, failed, notwithstanding several victo- 
ries ; and about the year B. c. 275, Pyrrhus having withdrawn from Italy, 
the confederacy against the Roman Commonwealth crumbled to pieces, and 
the whole peninsula lay at their mercy. Before describing the manner in 
which the peninsula, thus acquired, was laid out and governed by the Ro- 
mans, it will be necessary to continue our narrative of the gradual develop- 
ment of the constitution within, during the period which had elapsed since 
the Gaulish invasion. 

The situation of Rome after the Gaulish invasion was extremely similar 
to what it had been after the expulsion of the kings — the plebeians distressed, 
and many of them in slavery for debt, and the patricians disposed to tyran- 
nize. As on the former occasion there had risen up, as the best friend of 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 87 

the plebs, the noble patrician Spurius Cassius, so on this occasion there ap- 
peared as their champion a prudent and brave plebeian, Caius Licinius Sto- 
lo, a tribune of the people. His measures were very similar to those of 
Spurius Cassius — namely, a compromise on the subject of debts (not, how 
ever, an abolition of them) ; and an agrarian law, prohibiting any citizen 
from occupying any more than five hundred jugera (about 330 acres) of 
the public land, and depriving all who exceeded that quantity of the sur 
plus for distribution among indigent commons. To these he added a pro- 
posal for constitutional reform — namely, that the military tribunate should 
be abolished, and that the consulship should be reverted to, one of the con- 
suls to be of necessity a plebeian. After a hard struggle, these important 
measures were carried in the year 384, nineteen years after the Gaulish in- 
vasion. Under these Licinian Laws, as they were called, the state enjoyed 
tolerable repose for a long period of years — the principal source of disturb- 
ance being the attempts of the wealthy citizens to evade the operation of 
the agrarian law. The next great movement was in the year of the city 
416, when, under the auspices of a plebeian dictator (for the dictatorship 
had also been thrown open to the plebeians), a considerable simplification 
of the constitution was effected. It was now rendered essential that one 
of the censors should be a plebeian ; and the old patrician body of the curies 
was struck out of the machinery of the legislature, so as to leave the busi- 
ness of the state in the hands of the senate (itself become partly a plebeian 
body) and the people. Met in their centuries, the people could only accept 
or reject the measures proposed by the senate ; but met in their tribes, 
they could originate a measure, and oblige the senate to consider it. Thus 
sometimes in the shape of a matured scheme descending from the senate 
to the people, sometimes in the shape of a popular resolution sent up to the 
senate, a measure became law. From this simplification of the constitution 
commences, according to historians, the golden age of Roman politics. The 
extension of dominion in the Samnite wars, by providing a large subject- 
population inferior both to patricians and plebeians, disposed these bodies 
to forget their differences, and to fall back upon their common conscious- 
ness of Roman citizenship. During the Samnite wars, however, a third 
party appeared in the field claiming political rights. These were the ^Jra- 
rians, the name applied to all those residents in town pursuing mechanical 
occupations, who, as not belonging to any of the tribes (now thirty-three in 
number), did not rank as citizens. The claims of this class — the city rab- 
ble, as both patricians and plebeians called it — were supported by a daring 
and able patrician, Appius Claudius, who, during his censorship, admitted 
serarians into all the tribes indiscriminately. Eventually, however, a com 
promise was effected : the jerarians were enrolled in the four city tribes, thus 
obtaining some influence, but not so much as Appius seemed to destine for 
them. It appears to have been at some period also during the Samnite 
wars that a modification took place in the constitution of the comitia centu- 
riata, the leading feature of which seems to have been a blending of the 
tribes with the centuries, so as to accommodate the assembly to the altered 
state of society and the altered scale of wealth. Of the precise nature of 
this change, however, as of the precise time at which it occurred, we are 
ignorant. It may be considered, nevertheless, to have perfected the Ro- 
man constitution, and to have adapted it for the function of maintaining 
the government of the entire peninsula. 



88 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Italy, once fairly subjugated and laid out by the Romans (b. c. 266), 
its population may be considered as having been distributed into three po- 
litical divisions — the Populus Bomanus, or citizens of Rome, properly so 
called ; the Socii, or inhabitants of the allied and dependent Italian states ; 
and the Nomen Latinum, or citizens of the ' Latin name.' 

The first of these, the Populus Romanus, included the whole body of the 
free inhabitants of the thirty-three tribes or parishes north and south of 
the Tiber, which constituted the Roman territory strictly so called, together 
with a considerable number of persons scattered over the other parts of Ita- 
ly, who were also accounted citizens, either because they were colonists of 
Roman descent, or because the title had been conferred on them as an 
honorary distinction. The total number of adult Roman citizens towards 
the close of the fifth century was under 300,000 — a small proportion, evi- 
dently, of the vast Italian mass, which consisted, including the slaves, of 
about 5,000,000. Nor were all these equal in point of civil rights, many 
of them having the franchise, as it was called, or legal rights of citizens, 
without the suffrage, or political rights. The citizens with suffrage, those 
who voted on public questions — the real governing power, therefore, by 
whose impulses all Italy, with its millions of inhabitants, was swayed, as the 
body is moved by the beats of the heart — were a mere handful of men, such 
as might be assembled with ease in any public park or square. 

The Italian subjects were the inhabitants of the allied or dependent 
states. The list of these was a long one, including, as it did, the various 
communities which made up the populations of Etruria, Umbria, the Sa- 
bine territory, Samnium, Campania, Apulia, Lucania, Messapia, and Brut- 
tium. All the allies, however, were not equally subject to Rome : the re- 
lations in which they stood to it were determined by the particular treaties 
which formed the separate alliances, and these, of course, varied according 
to the circumstances under which they had been concluded. Almost all 
the allied states, however, were permitted to retain their own laws, their 
own municipal arrangements, their own judges, etc. Throughout the pe- 
ninsula, however, care was taken to destroy every vestige of nationality or 
national legislature among the allies of the same race. Upon the whole, 
this change from independence to subjection to Rome was beneficial to the 
Italian nations. Not the least benefit attending it was the total abolition 
of those wars between neighboring states which, while the peninsula was 
subdivided into small independent territories, had raged incessantly and 
fiercely. 

The Nomen Latinum, or Latin name, was a fictitious designation ap- 
plied to a number of colonies scattered through the peninsula, and which, 
in respect of privileges, stood in an intermediate position between the Ro- 
man citizens and the Italians. The name probably originated in the cir- 
cumstance, that the original colonists of this description were Latins. 

It is a curious fact, that even after Rome had attained the supremacy of 
the peninsula, there did not exist such a thing as even a dawning Roman 
literature, although the state had now existed nearly five hundred years ; 
so much earlier than their literary faculty did the native talent of the Ro- 
mans for governing mankind develop itself. It was by their massive char- 
acter, more than by their powers of speculation or expression, that they 
were to impress the world. 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 



THE PUNIC WARS— SUBJUGATION OF FOREIGN NATIONS— ADMINISTRA- 
TION OF THE PROVINCES. 

Masters of Italy, it -was not long before the Romans found themselves 
in collision with the nations surrounding the great basin of the Mediterra- 
nean ; and as the last 125 years of the existence of the Roman state had 
been spent in the gradual conquest of the Italic nations, so the next 130 
years (y. r. 490-620, or b. c. 264-134) were spent in a series of con- 
quests, by which various foreign countries were reduced to the condition of 
mere provinces of Italy. This series of conquests may be designated gen- 
erally by the title of ' the Punic Wars, and the Wars with the Greek States.' 
A bare enumeration of them, with a statement of their results, is all that 
our limits will allow. 

The first foreign people with which the Romans came into collision were 
the Carthaginians — a people of Phoenician lineage, who, settling in that 
part of Africa now called Tunis, and building a city there, about a century 
before Rome was founded, had in the interval become a great commercial 
nation, with ships sailing to all parts of the Mediterranean, and with col- 
onies along the coasts of Algiers, in Sardinia and Corsica, and even in 
Spain. They had recently gained a footing in Sicily, and now shared it 
with the Greeks of Syracuse ; and it was on this rich island as a battle- 
field that the Romans first came into conflict with the merchant-people of 
Africa. Invited over by the Mamertines, a robber-people who inhabited 
the north-eastern corner of the island, the Roman soldiers fought the armies 
of mercenaries hired by the Carthaginians. The war thus begun, the ' First 
Punic War,' as it is called, lasted twenty-three years (y. r. 490-513, or 
B. c. 264-241). During it the Romans first learned to build ships of 
war, and to fight naval battles ; and they were soon able to defeat the 
Carthaginians on their own element. On land they were sure of victory 
against mere mercenaries, collected, as these were, from all nations, and 
commanded by Carthaginian generals of ordinary capacity. In 249 b. c, 
however, the Carthaginians sent over the great Hamilcar Barca to com- 
mand their forces in Sicily ; and his efforts checked the Romans, who, 
meanwhile, had invaded Africa, and been repulsed. A victory or two, 
however, gained by the Romans over other generals than Hamilcar, dis- 
posed the Carthaginians for peace, who accordingly agreed (b. c. 241) to 
evacuate Sicily, and to pay the victors a large sum of money. The Ro- 
mans then made themselves masters of Sicily ; and shortly afterwards they 
found a pretext for wresting Corsica and Sardinia from the Carthaginians. 
For twenty-two years after these conquests (b. c. 241-119) the Romans 
were engaged in wars with the Cisalpine Gauls and other nations in the 
north of Italy, the effect of which was to extend their dominion to the foot 
of the Alps. Beyond the Alps, also, Illyria, a country skirting the east 
coast of the Adriatic, was at this time annexed to the dominions of the 
Commonwealth. 

Meanwhile the Carthaginians had not been idle. During several years 
they had, in accordance with the advice of Hamilcar, been establishing 
their dominion in Spain, intending to repay themselves with that fine pe- 
ninsula for the loss of Sicily and Sardinia. Killed in battle by a native 
tribe, Hamilcar was succeeded in Spain by his son-in-law Hasdrubal ; and 



90 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

on his death, which took place soon after, Hannibal Barca, the son of Ham 
ilcar, and then only twenty-six years of age, was appointed to the com- 
mand. The siege by him of Saguntum, an independent Spanish town, 
which had claimed the assistance of the Romans, led to the Second Punic 
War (b. c. 218-201). Little did the Romans know what a war it was 
to be ! Crossing the Pyrenees, the young Carthaginian general, the great- 
est military commander probably, and certainly one of the ablest men the 
world ever saw, pushed his way through the Gallic tribes, and effecting the 
passage of the Alps, descended into Italy with an army of 12,000 Africans, 
8,000 Spaniards, and 6,000 Carthaginian horse. Rousing the Cisalpine 
Gauls, and defeating in several successive battles the Roman generals sent 
against him, he made his way into the south of Italy (b. c. 217) ; and 
having in the following year inflicted on the Romans at Cannae the great- 
est defeat they had ever received, he remained in Italy fifteen years (b. C. 
217-202), moving hither and thither, keeping seven or eight Roman gen- 
erals, and among them the wary Fabius and the bold Marcellus, continual- 
ly employed, scattering the Romans like chaff wherever he appeared, ex- 
hausting the finances of the state, and detaching the Italian nations from 
their allegiance. Had he received reinforcements, as he expected, from 
Spain, where he had left his brother Hasdrubal in command, Rome might 
have fallen. Fortunately, however, for the Romans, while they were man- 
fully opposing Hannibal in Italy, one of their generals, the great Scipio, 
was busily engaged in Spain. To prevent Spain from falling into Scipio's 
hands, Hasdrubal was obliged to remain in it; and it was not till b. c. 207, 
when all hope of retaining his footing in that peninsula was lost, that he 
set out to join his brother. He crossed the Alps in safety, but was attacked, 
defeated and slain on his march through Italy ; and Hannibal was left to 
his own resources. These, however, were exhaustless ; and with the as- 
sistance of the Italian nations, who, especially the unprivileged classes, 
were friendly to the Carthaginians, and hated Rome, he might still have 
shattered the Commonwealth in pieces, had not Scipio passed over from 
Spain into Africa, and defeating the Carthaginians in several battles, with 
the help of a Numidian prince named Masinissa, compelled them to recall 
their greatest man for the defense of his native city. In B. c. 202, or the 
year of the city 552, Hannibal quitted Italy, where he had spent the best 
period of his life. Not long after his landing in Africa, he was defeated by 
Scipio at Zama, and his countrymen were obliged in consequence to agree 
to a peace on very severe terms. 

The Second Punic War concluded, and Italy once more pacified, the 
Romans made war on Philip III. king of Macedonia, and virtual ruler of 
all the Greek states, who had offended them by entering into a treaty with 
Hannibal. The war was protracted over seventeen years (b. c. 214 — 
197,) but ended in the reduction of Macedonia, and the proclamation by 
the Romans of the independence of the other Greek states. Seized with 
a desire to assume the place which the Macedonian king had been unable 
to maintain, Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, and representative there- 
fore of the Greek empire in Asia, crossed into Greece, where he joined the 
iEtolians against the Romans. Defeated, however, in Greece, and for 
saken by the iEtolians, he was pursued into Asia, and after the loss of a 
great battle at Magnesia, obliged to submit to the Romans, who thus be- 
came virtual masters of the various kingdoms and states of Asia Minoi 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 91 

(b.c. 188). Meanwhile they had been engaged in suppressing various 
movements among the Ligurians, Boians, Istrians, and other nations in the 
north of Italy, as well as among the Spanish tribes and the savages of 
Sardinia. A declaration of hostilities by Perseus, the successor of Philip 
in Macedonia, in conjunction with Genthius, king of Illyria, led to another 
war against these countries, which terminated in their complete subjuga- 
tion (b. c. 168). The next twenty years were spent in securing these con- 
quests, and in establishing relations, virtually those of sovereignty, with vari- 
ous states of Asia Minor, such as Bithynia and Rhodes ; and with various 
others of Africa, as Egypt and Numidia. The whole circuit of the Mediter- 
ranean in their power, and their ships respected in all its ports, as belong- 
ing to the ; sovereign people of Italy,' the Romans at length executed their 
long-cherished project, and pounced upon Carthage (b. c. 149), whose ex- 
istence, even in its fallen condition of a mere commercial capital, they could 
not tolerate. Hannibal had been dead more than thirty years ; but under 
such generals as they had, the wretched Carthaginians offered a desperate 
resistance to the Roman commanders. After a horrible siege, the city, con- 
taining a population of 700,000, was taken and sacked by Scipio iEmilianus, 
the adopted son of the son of the great Scipio (b. c. 146). The houses were 
razed to the ground, and the province of Africa was the prize of this third 
' Punic war.' The fall of Greece was cotemporary with that of Car- 
thage. The Achaian League, a confederacy of cities in Greece proper and 
the Peloponnesus, showing a disposition to be independent of the Romans, 
provoked their vengeance ; and the destruction of Corinth in the same year 
as that of Carthage extinguished the last sparks of liberty in Greece. The 
whole of the Greek countries were parceled out into Roman provinces, 
and from that time Greeks became the slave teachers of the Romans, their 
secretaries, their sycophants, their household wits. Yet out of Greece 
thus ruined there afterwards arose many great spirits ; for no degradation, 
no series of misfortunes, could eradicate the wondrous intellect which 
lurked in the fine Greek organization. The last scene in this long series 
of wars was enacted in Spain, where, roused by a noble patriot called Vir- 
iathus — the Wallace of that day — the native tribes had revolted against 
the Romans. The fate of Spain, however, was sealed by the destruction 
of Numantia by Scipio iEmilianus (b. c. 133). 

By the wars of 130 years which we have thus enumerated, the follow- 
ing countries had become subject to Rome : — Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, 
and the smaller islands of the Mediterranean ; Macedonia ; Illyricum, with 
Thessaly and Epirus ; Greece, including Greece proper and the Pelopon- 
nesus ; Spain ; and the whole northern coast of Africa. The Romans had 
likewise established their influence in Asia. The conquered countries were 
divided into provinces, so that the designation for the Roman dominion be- 
came ' Italy and the Provinces.' The provinces received each an organi 
zation at the time of its formation, according to its circumstances. Retain- 
ing their national habits, religion, laws, etc., the inhabitants of every pro- 
vince were governed by a military president, sent from Rome, with a staff 
of officials. Unlike the Italic nations, who furnished only subsidies of men 
to the sovereign states, the provincials were required to pay taxes in money 
and kind ; and these taxes, were farmed out by the censors — Roman citi- 
zens, whc, under the name of Publicans, settled in the various districts of 
the provinces, and proved a great scourge by their avarice and rapacity. 



92 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA 

To some towns and localities in the provinces, the Italic franchise was 
extended as a token of favor. Altogether, the government of the provin- 
ces was one which, although it led to beneficial results, in binding together 
a large mass of the human race, and carrying on various races and lan- 
guages simultaneously in a career of civilization, yet gave great scope for op- 
pression. Like a network proceeding from a centre, the political system of 
the Romans pervaded the mass of millions of human beings inhabiting the 
shores of the Mediterranean, holding them together by its mechanical te- 
nacity, and slowly working them into union by its own powers of impreg- 
naUw.. as well as by means of those ideas and moral agencies whose dis- 
semination and operation over large areas at once it so marvellously facili- 
tated. What a career was thus opened up for those who occupied the cen- 
tre of this network — the population of Rome! What a grand thing in 
those days to be a Roman citizen ; so that, wherever one walked — in Spain, 
in Africa, or even in once great Athens — one was followed, feasted, flat- 
tered to one's face, and mocked behind one's back ! What means of money- 
making in the provinces for the avaricious Romans! What opportunities 
for well-doing for the philanthropic ! Alas ! a philanthropic Roman was al- 
most a contradiction in terms. To be patriotic was the highest virtue ; and 
if a Roman, along with his patriotism, possessed a just disposition, those 
who were under his government might consider themselves fortunate. Nor 
was the career of administration in the provinces open to ail Roman citi- 
zens. The following passage, which we translate from a French work — 
(' Etudes sur l'Histoire Romaine, par Prosper Merim^e, Paris, 1844,') — 
will give an idea of the manner in which a Roman citizen attained to pub- 
lic honors, and will illustrate the general spirit of the Roman administra- 
tion. ' The laws,' says this author, ' opened to all the citizens the career 
of magistracy ; but in reality it was shut against all but those whom fortune 
or family credit placed in an exceptional situation. As all public offices 
were obtained by the suffrages of the people, it was of the utmost impor- 
tance to make creatures in every class of society. In order to muster all 
these on the great day of election, there were no labors, fatigues, and even 
meannesses to which Romans of illustrious families did not submit from 
their earliest boyhood. Some offered the patronage of their families to 
embarrassed pleaders ; others opened their purses to poor artisans ; who- 
ever had a vote in the comitia was flattered and cajoled in every possible 
way. From the time that the candidate had attained the age at which the 
law permitted him to stand for the dignity of the qusestorship — that by 
which he must make his debut in public life — he appeared in the Forum 
clothed in a white robe, shook hands with all the country folks, and with 
the lowest plebeians, solicited their votes, and often purchased them for 
money. The quaestor, once appointed, found the doors of the senate open 
for him. Ordinarily he was attached to the person of a consul, or a magis- 
trate of superior rank, becoming his lieutenant ; sometimes he obtained a 
little government for himself. In these offices he could learn business hab- 
its and find occasions for distinguishing himself, and for causing his name 
to be mentioned often in the senate or the assemblies of the people. 

After the qusestorship came the Carole Edileship, a purely civil magis- 
tracy, whose duties consisted in watching the arrival of provisions, guard- 
ing public monuments, seeing to the embellishment of the city, and finally, 
in preparing the games and solemn shows. This charge entailed enormous 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 93 

expense on those ediles who wished to make themselves popular. They 
built temples and porticoes at their own cost, opened roads, constructed 
aqueducts ; above all, they tried to surpass their predecessors by the mag- 
nificence of the games which they caused to be celebrated, and the truly 
colossal expense which they in part sustained. A happy man was that 
edile who had been able to exhibit in the arena the deaths of an unusual 
number of able gladiators, or who had presented to the people animals of 
a rare species or unknown before. His name was in every mouth, and all 
applauded his sprouting ambition. The edileship lasted a year. After it 
came the pnetorship. There were six praetors — two presided over the 
tribunals at Rome, the others governed provinces or commanded armies. 
Finally after having successively gone through the three previous stages, 
one presented himself as a candidate for the consulship. Intriguing, cor- 
ruption, manoeuvring of all kinds was now redoubled ; for this was the 
goal of a Roman's ambition. The consuls presided over the government 
of the republic, or directed important wars in person. At the expiration of 
their magistracy — that is, after a year — they were sent to a province 
with the title of Proconsuls ;. often to command military expeditions, almost 
always to administer an extensive government. In turn to amass and ex- 
pend great wealth, was thus the chief care of candidates for honors. The 
profits of the quaestorship enabled one to make a brilliant curule edileship. 
Ruined by his extravagance, the edile repaired his fortune in the praetor 
ship, and returned to Rome rich enough to buy votes at the consular elec 
tion. Frequently he staked his all on this last election, confident of more 
than making it up again in the province which would be assigned him after 
his consulship. In a word, the career of public employment was a species 
of gambling, in which one's profits were proportional to one's stakes.' 

Such a state of things as is here described, implies that an immense 
change had taken place in the character of the Roman society during the 
rapid career of foreign conquest which had elevated Rome from the posi- 
tion of metropolis of Italy to that of metropolis of the civilized world. 
The distinction between patrician and plebeian was now scarcely heard of 
(in b. c. 172 both consuls had been plebeians for the first time) ; it was 
superseded by that between illustrious and obscure ; rich and poor. Al- 
though, however, the system of corruption was so general, that scarcely 
any one could attain to office except by unworthy means, yet there were at 
that time, and in the midst of that system, many men of really noble char- 
acter. Among these must not be forgotten the honest old censor Cato, the 
enemy of Carthage, who kept up a constant protest all his life against 
what he called the growing luxury of his countrymen, and died declaring 
that they were a degenerate race. Of equal integrity with Cato, although 
of altogether a different form of character, were the two brothers of world- 
famous name, whose actions we shall now briefly notice. 

THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE GRACCHI 

i A fatal effect,' says M. Me'rime'e, ' of the Roman domination was the 
impoverishment and depopulation of Italy. At Rome, where commerce 
and industry were despised, only one way led to wealth — a career of 
public service. On his return from his government, a Roman official bought 
lands, built villas, and all at once became a great proprietor. If he chanced 



94 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to have in his neighborhood an estate to his taste, he caused it to be ceded 
to him ; sometimes he seized it while the lawful owner was fighting far 
away under the Roman eagles. By degrees all the small proprietors were 
despoiled, in order to form vast estates for the privileged class o£ public 
functionaries. Parks, gardens, and expensive fish-ponds took the place of 
cultivated fields. Laborers disappeared, and the country was peopled with 
slaves, dangerous by their numbers, and also by their robber habits, which 
they practised with impunity. Some masters, it is said, shared the profits 
of robbery with these wretches.' 

The great social evils of the day — the extinction of the old peasant 
proprietors of Italy ; and the vast increase of slaves, the danger of which 
had been already manifested by several servile revolts in Sicily ; and the 
congregation in the towns, and especially in Rome, of vast masses of pop- 
ulation, not living as the artisans and traders in modern towns do, by hon- 
est industry, but living in noisy idleness upon the alms of the provinces 
and the sums they received for their votes — these social evils must have 
struck many generous hearts among the Romans. The man, however, on 
whom they produced so decided an impression as to lead him to devote 
his life to their removal, was Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the son of a 
plebeian of rank who had attained distinction in the Spanish wars, and of 
Cornelia, the daughter of the great Scipio. Abandoning, in its first stage, 
the more tempting career which led through the quaestorship, edileship, 
and proctorship to the consulship, Tiberius chose rather the office of tribune 
of the people, which was more suitable for the purposes of political agita- 
tion. Elected to this office b. c. 133, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, 
he propounded his schemes of reform. His grand project was a revival, 
with some modifications, of the famous agrarian law of Licinius, which had 
lone fallen into tacit desuetude. All citizens who were in possession of a 
larger extent of the state land than the 500 jugera allowed by the Licin- 
ian law (unless in the case of fathers of two sons, who were to be allowed 
250 jugera in addition for each of them), were to be deprived of the sur- 
plus ; the buildings, vine-presses, etc., which were erected on these surplus 
lands to be purchased at a fair valuation ; and the whole land thus seized 
was to constitute a stock out of which the pauper plebeians of the city were 
to be furnished with little farms for the honest support of themselves and 
families, these farms to be incapable of alienation by the persons to whom 
they should be allotted. Utterly revolutionary as this measure Avould 
seem in modern legislation, and sufficiently sweeping as it was, even in a 
Roman point of view, considering that however unjustly the ancestors of 
many of the large proprietors had come by their lands, yet long possession 
and frequent transference had in many cases sanctified the ownership — 
still the measure was strictly in the spirit of Roman law, and one of the 
supporters of Gracchus in proposing it was the eminent jurist Mucius 
Scaevola. Tiberius and his associates probably thought that the ends pro- 
posed — the removal of the venal mob out of Rome, and the restoration in 
Italy of a population of hard-working peasant proprietors, instead of the 
gangs of bandit slaves — were difficult enough to require, and glorious 
enough to justify, somewhat revolutionary means. Accordingly, advoca- 
ting by his eloquence in the Forum the scheme which he had matured in 
private, he did not cease until, in spite of the most obstinate resistance on 
the part of the senators, who used as their instrument against him one of 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 95 

his own colleagues in the tribuneship, he had gained his end. Three com- 
missioners were appointed to superintend the execution of the law — Tibe- 
rius himself, his father-in-law Appius Claudius, and his younger brother 
Caius. Loud and deep were the vows of vengeance on the part of the 
senators ; and Tiberius saw that his only chance of life lay in being re- 
elected to the tribuneship, the dignity of which was an inviolable protec- 
tion. To prevent this, the senatorial party mustered all their strength ; 
and a tumult ensuing on one of the days of election, Tiberius, along with 
about 300 of his followers, was killed. 

For about ten years the excitement caused by the law of Gracchus con- 
tinued, Fulvius Flaccus and Papirius Carbo acting as his successors in the 
popular interest, and carrying on the struggle against the nobles, who 
raised up obstacles to the execution of the law. But in the year b. c. 123, 
Caius Gracchus, who now felt himself old enough to assume the career 
which his brother had left him as an inheritance, claimed and obtained the 
tribuneship. Caius was a man of more vehement character and more 
comprehensive views than his brother, and the schemes which he proposed 
embraced a great variety of points, besides a reenactment of his brother's 
agrarian law. In fact, a reformer by reputation and education, he made 
it his business to find out abuses, and either declaim against them or pro- 
pose remedies for them. Perhaps the most objectionable of his measures 
was a law enacting a monthly distribution of corn among the city popula- 
tion at a nominal price — a poor-law, for such it may be called, which had 
the effect of attracting all the paupers of Italy to Rome. A more valuable 
measure was his transference of the judicial power from the senators, who 
had hitherto held it, and who had been guilty of great corruption in the 
exercise of it, to the equites, or wealthy capitalists, intermediate between 
the senators and the poorer classes of the community. He also proposed 
and carried the establishment or various colonies in different parts of the 
empire, which afforded room for enterprise, thus relieving Rome of part of 
its overgrown population. More fortunate so far than his brother, he held 
the tribuneship for two years, and thus had time for more extensive action. 
Deserted, however, by the people at the end of the second year, in conse- 
quence of the policy of his opponents, who adopted the plan of outbidding 
him for popular favor, he lost his office. The senators, having him at 
their mercy, spared no means of revenge ; and Gracchus, and his friend 
Fulvius Flaccus, having recourse to the armed assistance of their supporters 
to preserve their lives when they appeared in public, this was construed into 
a design of sedition. The consul was empowered to resort to force against 
them ; a terrible fray occurred in one of the quarters of the town, 3000, 
it is said, being slain ; and Gracchus was killed while trying to escape into 
the country (b. c. 121). He was then only in the thirty-third year of 
his age. 

The aristocracy thus triumphed for the time, and the recent measures 
of reform were suffered to fall into disuse ; but certain portions of the poli- 
cy of the two brothers had taken full effect, and the agitation which they 
had originated was not lulled for many years. The seeds of much that 
afterwards appeared in storm and bloodshed, were sown during these move- 
ments of b. c. 133-121 ; and as long as the world takes an interest in Ro- 
man history, or respects disinterested political courage, it will remember 
the Gracchi. 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



THE JUGURTHINE, CIMBRIC, AND SOCIAL WARS — MARIUS AND SULLA. 

In the year of the first tribuneship of Caius Gracchus, the Belearic islands 
were added to the Roman dominion ; and six years afterwards (b. c. 117), 
Dalmatia was reduced to a Roman province. About this time the famous 
Jugurtha, the illegitimate son of one of the sons of Masinissa, already men- 
tioned as a king of Nuraidia in the Roman interest, was left heir to that 
kingdom, in conjunction with his two cousins, by Micipsa, their father and 
his uncle. Aspiring to the undivided sovereignty, he killed one of his 
cousins, and drove the other to Rome. Interfering in behalf of the expell- 
ed prince, the Romans compelled Jugurtha to share Numidia with him. 
By bribing the commissioners, however, who were sent to effect the divis- 
ion, Jugurtha obtained the best part for himself; and not long after (b. c. 
112), he showed his contempt for the Romans by invading his cousin's 
dominions, and putting him to death. Bribes and wily tactics protected 
him for a while from the vengeance of the Romans ; but at length, in the 
year b. c. 109, the brave consul Metellus, who was proof against bribes, went 
over to Numidia to conduct the war which his predecessors had misman- 
aged. After he had carried on the war successfully for two years, he- 
was supplanted by his second in command, Caius Marius, a man of hum- 
ble birth, and nearly fifty years of age, who, although almost without edu- 
cation, had raised himself to high rank by his military talents, and whose 
services under Metellus had been so favorably represented at Rome, that 
he was appointed consul (b. c. 107), with the express intention that he 
should end the Jugurthine war. This he speedily accomplished, greatly 
assisted by his quaestor, a young man of high patrician family and unusual 
literary accomplishments, named Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Jugurtha was 
sent to Rome, where he was starved in prison (b. c. 106); and the ser- 
vices of Marius were at the disposal of the Romans for a war of an infi- 
nitely more formidable character than that which had been waged against 
this ill-fated African. 

About the year b. c. 113, a numerous tribe of savages, called Cim- 
bri, but who were most probably Celts, had been set in motion in the south- 
east of Europe ; and emigrating westward, they had communicated their 
restlessness to the Tutones, and undoubtedly German race, through whose 
territories they must have passed. Roving about in quest of settlements, 
sometimes together, and sometimes separately, the two barbarian hosts, 
consisting of men, women, and children, had thrown all Gaul into conster- 
nation ; and as the Romans had already colonized the portion of Gaul 
contiguous to the Alps, the duty of checking the savages devolved on 
them, the more especially as there was some danger that Italy would be 
invaded. But such a moving mass of human beings, driven by that hard- 
est of forces, hunger, was not easily to be checked ; and army after army 
sent by the Romans to oppose them had been shivered to pieces. All Ita- 
ly began to tremble, and there was a universal cry among the Romans, 
' Make Marius again consul.' Accordingly Marius was chosen consul a sec 
ond time in his absence (b. c. 104), that he might drive back the Cimbri. 
Meanwhile the poor homeless creatures had made a general rush towards 
Spain ; and the Romans, to secure the services of Marius when they should 
be required, reelected him to the consulship in b. c. 102. In the latter 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 97 

year, when Marius was consul for the fourth time, the barbarians, repuls- 
ed from Spain, directed their march towards the Alps. Fortunately, they 
divided themselves into two masses — the Teutones taking one route, the 
Cimbri another. The former, amounting to about 800,000 men, were 
met by Marius, and slaughtered, all except 90,000, who were made pris- 
oners, and sold as slaves. Meanwhile the Cimbri had been making pro- 
gress in their route, and to oppose them, Marius was elected to a fifth con- 
sulship (b. c. 101). Another bloodv field, in which about 140,000 weiB 
slain, and 60,000 taken prisoners, delivered Italy from its fears. Strange 
and affecting thought, that half a million of human beings, women and chil- 
dren, should be wandering through Europe for years, poor outcasts, with 
their little carts and cooking-kettles, and that a civilized nation should 
have been compelled, by the necessity of self-preservation, to take means 
to sweep them out of existence ! 

Marius was rewarded for his exertions with a sixth consulship (b. C. 
100), which, there being now no enemy to call forth his military activity, he 
employed in political schemes for the humiliation of the aristocratic or sen- 
atorial party, to which, both by the accident of birth and on principle, he 
was a determined enemy. The efforts of the nobles, however, assisted by 
the violent conduct of the partisans of Marius, especially a tribune named 
Saturninus, occasioned a reaction ; and on the expiry of his consulship, 
Marius withdrew from Rome, and undertook a journey to the East, where 
the Roman influence was extending itself. During the following ten years 
the political agitations were incessant, the liberal spirit of that party of 
which Marius was the head developing itself every year in fresh manifesta- 
tions, and the aristocratic party becoming every year more fierce and dog- 
ged in their opposition. On the aristocratic side, the ablest and most 
earnest man, although not yet the most distinguished, was Sulla — the 
former quaestor of Marius, and who had since been employed in various 
capacities both military and civil. At length, in the year B. c. 90, a 
storm which had been long gathering burst out in that war which is de- 
nominated in history ' the Social or Marsic War,' or ' the War of Italian 
Independence.' 

As early as the tribuneship of Caius Gracchus, a clamor had been 
raised for the emancipation of the various Italian states from the thraldom 
in which they were held by the Romans. The progress of time welding 
the various Italian nationalities into one common society, and giving to all 
parts of the peninsula a common interest, had made them sensible to the 
grievances arising from their subordinate condition. The system of a trip- 
le franchise — Roman, Latin, and Italian — inevitable perhaps at first, 
had now become a source of gross injustice. To put an end to this injus- 
tice, the Italians demanded the full Roman franchise. Caius Gracchus 
wished to bestow it on them; and from the time of his death, 'Italian 
emancipation' had been one of the watchwords of the liberal party. Des- 
pairing of effecting their end by agitation, and especially provoked by a 
recent persecution of the Italian tradesmen who had settled in Rome, the 
Italian nations had recourse to arms (b. c. 90). Ten of these — namely, 
the Piceni, the Vestinians, the Marrucenians, the Marsians, the Pelignians, 
the Samnites, the Frentanians, the Hirpinians, the Lucanians, and the Ap- 
ulians, constituted themselves into a confederacy for the destruction of 
Rome, and the foundation of a new Commonwealth, of which Corfinium, 
7* 



98 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

tinder the new name of Italica, was to be the capital, and which was to 
embrace the whole peninsula. Fortunately for Rome, the Latins (includ- 
ing the various colonies of the Latin name throughout Italy), the Etrus- 
cans, the Umbrians, and the Campanians, did not join the confederacy. 
The Latins were instantly rewarded with the Roman franchise, and the 
field was taken against the confederacy. During two years, the war was 
carried on vigorously on both sides, the most distinguished of the Roman 
generals being Marius, Sulla, and Cneius Pompeius Strabo. At length 
(b. c. 89), the Italians having been greatly reduced, and the whole pen- 
insula having suffered much, the Romans saw fit to yield to demands which 
many even of those whose patriotism led them to fight against the allies 
believed to be just. The Roman citizenship was extending to all the na- 
tions of the peninsula south of the Po, the new citizens being either dis- 
tributed, according to one account, among eight of the old tribes, or ar- 
ranged, according to another, in fifteen new ones. At the same time the 
Latin franchise was conferred on the Gauls between the Po and the Alps. 

Sulla had gained greater distinction in the Marsic War than Marius, 
who was now verging on old age. The public eye was consequently turn- 
ed to Sulla ; and as, on the appearance of the Cimbric hosts twenty years 
before, the Romans had placed their dependence on Marius, so now, on the 
breaking out of war in the East, they placed their dependence on his 
younger rival. Mithridates VI, the young king of Pontus, an Oriental 
by birth, but of Greek education, and a man of splendid abilities, had 
been for some years silently extending his dominions in western Asia; 
and the Romans, long jealous of his movements, had at length openly 
warned him to desist. Mithridates scouted the warning ; marched through 
Asia Minor, putting the Romans to the sword ; and was welcomed every 
where by the Asiatic Greeks as a deliverer from the Roman yoke : ulti- 
mately (b. c. 88), crossing over into Greece, he menaced the Empire 
near its centre. 

Sulla, then engaged with the Samnites, the last dregs of the Social 
War, was chosen consul, and invested with the command against the East- 
ern monarch. He was then in the forty-ninth year of his age. Vexed 
at the preference of his rival, the grim old Marius used all his efforts to 
have the appointment canceled, and himself nominated to the Mithridatic 
command. His political opinions recommending him to many, and a tri- 
bune named Sulpicius having procured the passing of a preliminary meas- 
ure distributing the new Italian citizens among all the old tribes, which 
had now attained the number of thirty-five, he at length carried his point, 
and Sulla was superseded. But the aristocratic general was not a man to 
be trifled with. Marching from the south of Italy, where he was when 
he heard the news, he appeared with his army before the city, forced his 
entrance through the rotten walls, dislodged his antagonists from the houses 
from which they were throwing stones and missiles at his men, and com- 
pelled Marius and his adherents to save their lives by a precipitate flight. 
Marius escaped to Africa; Sulla, after settling affairs at Rome, set out 
for Greece. Here he speedily retrieved the Roman losses ; sacked Athens, 
which had provoked him by its opposition ; and reduced Archelaus, the 
general of Mithridates, to such extremities, that having crossed into Asia, 
Mithridates was glad to conclude a peace with him (b. c. 84), by which 
he renounced all he had gained, and agreed to pay the expenses of the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 99 

war. Meanwhile a terrible reaction had occurred at Rome in Sulla's ab- 
sence. Scarcely had he left the city (b. c. 87), when Lucius Cornelius 
China, one of the consuls whose appointment he had sanctioned, proclaim- 
ed himself on the popular side, and commenced a series of measures di- 
rectly opposed to Sulla's views. His colleague Octavius drove him from 
Rome, and the senate deposed him from the consulship. The Italians, 
however, gathered round Cinna ; Marius and his fellow-exiles hearing of 
the movement, hastened back to Italy ; all the able military men of the 
Marian party, and among them a young and generous commander named 
Sertorius, exerted themselves to raise troops ; and at length the aristocrat- 
ic party found themselves besieged in Rome. Famine and pestilence 
began their ravages in the city ; and the senate, reinstating Cinna in the 
consulship, capitulated on the understanding that blood should not be shed. 
But there was little softness in the nature of Marius. Admitted into the 
city, the stern old man, who was already tottering on the brink of the 
grave, revenged his wrongs by a frightful massacre, in which many men 
of distinction fell. Marius then caused himself to be elected to a seventh 
consulship (b. c. 86), his colleague being Cinna. He enjoyed the unpre- 
cedented honor but a few days, dying on the 13th of January (b. c. 86), 
and Valerius Flaccus was named his successor. Flaccus, setting out with 
authority to supersede Sulla in the Mithridatic war, was murdered by his 
legate Flavius Fimbria, who assumed the command of the army, and gain- 
ed some successes ; but being afterwards hard pressed by Sulla, and de- 
serted by his army, committed suicide. This occurred about the time of 
the conclusion of the peace with Mithridates (b. c. 84) ; and Sulla, after 
settling the affairs of Asia Minor, and draining the country of money, so 
remorselessly as to affect its prosperity for a century, commenced his jour- 
ney homewards, with bloody purposes against Cinna and his adherents, 
and an army ready to execute them. 

Cinna did not live to face his dreadful enemy. Murdered by his soldiers 
in his fourth consulship, he left, as his successors in the leadership of the 
popular party, Caius Marius the Younger, Papirius Carbo, and the brave 
Sertorius — the two former of whom were chosen consuls for the year b. 
c. 82, to oppose Sulla in Italy, while Sertorius was despatched to Spain 
to secure that province. But Carbo and the younger Marius, even when 
backed by the brave Samnites and other Italian nations, were not equal to 
a contest with such a general as Sulla, assisted as he was by commanders 
like Metellus, Lucullus, and young Cneius Pompeius Strabo, more com 
monly called Pompey, the son of that Pompeius who had been one of the 
Roman generals in the Marsic War. The consular armies were defeated ; 
Marius killed himself ; Carbo fled to Africa ; and Sulla remained master 
of Italy. Fearful was his vengeance. The massacre which Marius had 
ordered five years before, was slight compared with the butcheries which 
took place by the command of Sulla. In Rome, and over all Italy, every 
man of distinction implicated in the popular movement was sought out and 
slain. Proscription lists, as they were called — that is, lists of doomed 
individuals — were published ; and soldiers were ready to track them out 
for the prices put upon their heads. Military colonies were likewise plant- 
ed in all parts of Italy — lands being taken by force for that purpose : 
thus purging Italy of the Marian leaven, Sulla was resolved to create in 
it a new population, which should be pliant to aristocratic influence. 



100 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

The work of the soldier over, Sulla commenced that of the legislator. 
Appointed perpetual dictator b. c. 82, he continued for three years to ex- 
ercise the sovereignty, making alterations in the constitution, the general 
effect of which was to lessen the power of the people in political affairs, 
and reforming the criminal law. In b. c. 79, he surprised every one by 
abdicating the dictatorship, and retiring into private life ; and in the fol 
lowing year he died of a loathsome and incurable disorder, brought on by 
his debaucheries. Among other evidences of Sulla's literary accomplish- 
ments, he left memoirs of his own life composed in Greek. 

POMPBY— CICERO— CATILINE— (LESAR. 

After the death of Sulla, the most distinguished man of the aristocratic 
party was Pompey, who had been engaged in reducing Sicily and Africa 
to allegiance after his chief had triumphed in Italy. Some attempts were 
made to revive the Marian cause after the dictator's death, but by the ex- 
ertions of Pompey and others they were suppressed, and only in Spain had 
the Marian party still a stronghold. There the brave Sertorius, at the 
head of the Marian refugees and the native Spaniards, was fast establish- 
ing a power likely to rival that of Italy. None of the Sullanian generals, 
not even Pompey, who went to Spain in B. c. 76, could gain an advantage 
when opposed to his splendid generalship ; and had he not perished by 
treachery (b. c. 74), Spain would have become an instrument in his hands 
for overturning all that had been done by Sulla in Italy. Possibly even 
Spain might have superseded her sister peninsula as the seat of Roman 
power. But after the death of Sertorius, his army crumbled away ; and, 
conquering his successor Perpenna, Pompey found the pacification of Spain 
an easy task. Returning to Italy in the height of the reputation which 
the discharge of this office procured to him, he arrived (b. c. 71) in time 
to have some share in another war of a frightful character which had been 
desolating Italy in his absence. In the year B. c. 73, seventy gladiators, 
headed by a Thracian named Spartacus, had broken out of a school, or 
rather gladiator warehouse, at Capua, where they were kept in training ; 
and, speedily joined by all the slaves and gladiators of the neighborhood, 
they had taken up their position on Mount Vesuvius. Finding himself at 
the head of a large army, Spartacus had given battle to several Roman 
generals, and defeated them ; and the conquering host which he comman- 
ded was on the point of crossing into Sicily, after ravaging Italy, when it 
was attacked and cut to pieces by the praetor Licinius Crassus (b. c. 71). 
Spartacus died fighting ; such of the gladiators and slaves as were taken 
prisoners were crucified, or impaled alive ; and the remnant which had es- 
caped Crassus were met and destroyed in the north of Italy by Pompey, 
as he was returning from Spain. Pompey and Crassus were chosen con 
suls for the year b. c. 70, the former being then in his thirty-sixth year. 
Although both were disciples of Sulla, yet obeying the necessities of the 
time, they repealed several of his enactments, and passed various measures 
of liberal tendency. 

Pompey was at this time the idol of Rome ; and although after his con- 
sulship he retired into private life, he was soon called upon to exercise his 
abilities in a post of greater dignity and responsibility than had ever been 
formally conferred on any Roman before him. The Mediterranean was at 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 101 

that time infested with pirates, who had become so numerous and so auda- 
cious during the recent convulsions, that the coast of the Italian peninsula 
itself was not safe from their attacks, and not a ship could sail from any 
port in the Roman dominions, even in the service of government, without 
the risk of being captured. To enable Pompey to free the Empire from 
this nuisance, he was invested (b. c. 67) with supreme command for three 
years over the whole Mediterranean and its coasts for 400 stadia inland, 
with power to raise as many men and ships and as much money as he chose. 
Thus virtually made master of the Roman world, Pompey exerted himself 
so vigorously and judiciously, that within the short period of three months 
he had cleared the sea of every pirate vessel. That his command might 
not lie dormant for the remainder of the three years for which he had been 
appointed, a tribune of the people proposed and carried a law conferring 
on him the additional command of Pontus, Bithynia, and Armenia, in order 
to secure his services in finishing a war which was then going on with 
Mithridates. This was the third war with that monarch ; for there had 
been a second short war with him b. c. 83-81. The present war had orig- 
inated in some overtures made by Sertorius to Mithridates in b. c. 74 ; but 
Sertorius having died in the same year, Mithridates was left to maintain 
the war alone. The general sent to oppose him was Lucullus, who carried 
on the war very successfully till Pompey came to supersede him. For 
four years Pompey remained in Asia, breaking the power of Mithridates, 
and negotiating with the monarchs of Parthia, Armenia, etc. He traver- 
sed the greater part of Asia Minor, establishing the Roman influence ; de- 
throned the king of Syria, and added it and Phoenicia to the number of 
the Roman provinces ; entered Palestine, where a civil Avar was then ra- 
ging between the brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, declared in favor of 
the former, besieged and took Jerusalem, and having imposed a tribute on 
the Jews, commenced his march homewards. On his return through Asia 
Minor, he found that Mithridates had in the meantime killed himself in 
despair ; and as there was no one to take up that monarch's part, he was 
able to parcel out Asia Minor as he chose — erecting some portions into pro- 
vinces, and giving others in charge to tributary princes. With the glory 
of having thus subjugated and settled the East, the fortunate Pompey pre- 
pared to return to Rome in the year B.C. 62. 

Meanwhile Rome had been the scene of one of the most extraordinary 
attempts at revolution recorded in history — the famous conspiracy of Cat- 
iline. No passage in Roman history is involved in such obscurity as this; 
for the accounts of the conspiracy left by Sallust and other Latin authors 
are not nearly so satisfactory to the genuine student of history, as they 
are pleasant to the mere reader for amusement. M. Me'rime'e supposes 
that, several years after Sulla's death, there arose in Rome four distinct 
parties — the ' oligarchical faction,' consisting of the small number of fam- 
ilies, the chiefs of which directed the senate, and in fact governed the re- 
public ; the ' aristocratic faction,' comprehending the mass of the senators, 
anxious to exercise the power which they saw usurped by a small number 
of their colleagues ; the ' party of Marius,' including all those whose fam- 
ilies had been persecuted by Sulla, and who now began to rally, and aspire 
to power ; and lastly, the ' military factions,' embracing a crowd of old 
officers of Sulla, who, having squandered the fortunes they had gained un- 
der him, and seeing themselves excluded from public affairs, were eager 



102 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

for some convulsion which might improve their condition. At the head of 
the first party was Pompey, now absent in Asia. In his absence, the soul 
of the oligarchical party was the celebrated Marcus Tullius Cicero — an 
advocate of extraordinary intellect, born b. c. 106, a few months after 
Pompey, and who, entering public life early, had soon established his rep- 
utation as the first orator in Rome. Of plebeian birth, it might have been 
expected that he would attach himself to the democratic side ; but circum- 
stances, and his natural disposition, which was weak, and fond of the con- 
sideration of others, had won him over to the side of the oligarchy, to whom 
his talents were invaluable. Having passed through the quaestorship, and 
edileship, and praetorship, which last he held b. c. 66, he now aspired to 
the highest dignity in the state. Such was the leader of the oligarchical 
party. The leader of the aristocratic party was Crassus, formerly the 
colleague of Pompey in the consulship, and now his personal rival. Be- 
sides Crassus, the senators had an active and most conscientious partisan 
in Marcus Porcius Cato, who had been tribune of the people — a great- 
grandson of Cato the Censor, and possessed of all his integrity. The leader 
of the third or Marian party was a man six years younger than Pompey 
or Cicero, and who, known during his youth for his accomplishments, his 
love of pleasure, his firmness of purpose, and the boundless generosity of 
his character, had just earned for himself the applauses of all Rome by 
the lavish magnificence of his edileship (b. c. 65). This was Caius Julius 
Caesar, the greatest man that ever Rome produced. He was the son of a 
man who had died suddenly, without having made any figure in public life ; 
his family was one of the noblest in Rome ; and his aunt had been the 
wife of Marius. Literature and pleasure had occupied his youth, and only 
now was he beginning to take an active part in public affairs, although 
with a force and earnestness which at once marked him out as a man who 
was to lead. With chivalrous recklessness of consequences, he had done 
justice to his uncle's memory at a time when it was hardly safe to mention 
the name of Marius ; and now the relics of the Marian party gathered 
round him with hope, while the oligarchy and aristocracy, with the pre- 
sentiment of what he was to become, would fain have crushed him. Nine 
years older than Caesar, and three years older than Cicero or Pompey, was 
the leader of the fourth or military faction — Lucius Sergius Catilina, more 
commonly called Catiline, a man of illustrious birth, and who had distin- 
guished himself as one of the ablest and most ferocious officers of Sulla. 
His reputation, owing partly to his haggard personal appearance, and partly 
to vague rumors of horrible crimes which he had committed, was one of 
the blackest ; and as he walked along the streets with gigantic body, but 
hurried and uncertain step, men pointed, and said that that was Catiline. 
Yet he possessed extraordinary abilities, and a peculiar power of fascina- 
ting those with whom he wished to establish a friendly relation. He had 
already been praetor (b. c. 67), and there was a large class, consisting prin- 
cipally of debauched young patricians and ruined military men, who look- 
ed forward eagerly to his election to the consulship. 

Prevented, by a charge of extortion brought against him in his capacity 
of praetor, from becoming a candidate for the consulship of the year b. c. 
65, Catiline came forward as candidate in the following year. Cicero was 
his rival ; and the senators mustered in sufficient strength to return the ora- 
tor. Enraged at his defeat, Catiline began to plot a seditious movement 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 103 

with his patrician adherents, among whom were Lentulus, Cethegus, Caep- 
arius, etc. Rome, it was said, was to be set on fire, and the consuls and 
many of the senators murdered. Towards the end of the year (b. c. 64), 
these designs had become ripe, and emissaries of Catiline were abroad 
throughout Italy. Meanwhile Cicero had obtained private intelligence of 
the conspiracy, and on the 8th of November he addressed Catiline in such 
vehement terms in the senate-house, that the conspirator fled into Etruria, 
from which he continued to correspond with his accomplices in Rome. 
Having obtained satisfactory proofs of the guilt of these accomplices, and 
having been empowered by the senate to act as he chose for the good of 
state, Cicero caused Lentulus, Cethegus, Statilius, and Caeparius to be ap- 
prehended ; and these four, notwithstanding the motion of Caesar for a 
more moderate punishment, were put to death in prison ; Cicero's activity 
had saved the Commonwealth. Catiline, however, who had raised troops 
in Etruria, continued to menace the state till the beginning of B. c. 62, 
when he and many of his patrician supporters died fighting like lions against 
the troops sent to destroy them. Thus the insane movement of the mili- 
tary faction was crushed : there remained, however, much of the Catilina- 
rian leaven diffused through Italy — men of broken fortunes and profligate 
characters, to whom turmoil and riot afforded the only chance of promotion. 

THE TRIUMVIRATE— CAESAR'S GALLIC WARS— WAR BETWEEN (LESAR 

AND POMPEY. 

When Pompey returned to Rome (b. c. 61), he found the senatorial 
party predominant, and Cicero incessantly talking about the Catilinarian 
conspiracy, and how he had crushed it. Pompey enjoyed a triumph more 
splendid than any conquering general had received before him ; and the 
sums which he added to the public treasury were enormous ; yet he could 
not procure from the senate that general ratification of his measures in 
Asia to which he thought himself entitled. Cato and other senators insisted 
on a full investigation of his measures one by one, ere the sanction which 
he required should be granted. This conduct on the part of the senators 
brought Pompey into closer connection with Caesar ; and these two eminent 
men, finding that they agreed in many of their views, and that at least 
they were one in their opposition to the senate, resolved to unite their 
forces so as to work for their common ends with double strength. For va- 
rious reasons, it was found desirable to admit Crassus to this political part- 
nership ; and accordingly, in the year b. c. 60, was formed that famous 
coalition for mutual support between Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar, which 
is known in Roman history by the name of the ' First Triumvirate.' Elected 
to the consulship of the year B. c. 59, Caesar infused new life into Reman 
politics, proposing measures of so liberal a nature, and persevering in them 
with such obstinacy, that the senate became almost frantic, and his col- 
league Bibulus shut himself up in his house for eight months in disgust. 
Among these measures was a ratification of Pompey's proceedings in Asia, 
and an agrarian law for providing lands for Pompey's disbanded soldiers 
and a number of destitute citizens. In the same year Caesar gave his 
daughter Julia in marriage to Pompey, who had already been married twice. 
On retiring from the consulship, he obtained, by an unusual stretch of 
generosity on the part of the grateful people and the intimidated senate, 



104 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the supreme command for five years over the two Gauls (Cisalpine and 
Transalpine) and Illyricum. This was probably the great object of Caesar's 
desires ; at all events, it was the best possible thing which could have hap- 
pened for him and the republic. Master of Gaul, and with an army devo- 
ted to his will, he could there mature his power silently and undisturbed, 
and qualify himself for entering, at the proper period, upon the career for 
which he was destined, and rescuing, by military force, the ill-governed 
Empire out of the hands of contending factions. 

The condition of affairs in Rome during Caesar's absence in Gaul was 
indeed such as to prove the necessity of some radical change in the system 
of the Commonwealth. All was confusion and violence. Clodius, a profli- 
gate relic of the Catilinarian party, having been elected to the tribuneship 
B. c. 58, procured the banishment of Cicero for his conduct in the affair of 
the conspiracy. In the following year, however, Clodius having in the 
meantime made himself generally odious, Cicero was recalled. Pompey 
and Crassus were elected consuls for the year b. c. 55. Mindful of their 
connection with Caesar, who was of course in constant correspondence with 
them, they procured a prolongation of his command over the Gauls for a 
second period of five years ; at the same time obtaining for themselves — 
Pompey, the government of Spain for five years ; and Crassus that of Sy- 
ria and adjacent countries for a similar period. In b. c. 55, Crassus set 
out for the scene of his command, where, soon afterwards, he perished in 
a fruitless expedition against the Parthians ; Pompey remained at home, 
governing Spain by deputies. During several subsequent years, Rome 
was in a state of anarchy and misrule — the streets perambulated by armed 
mobs, partisans on the one hand of Clodius, and on the other of a powerful 
citizen called Milo, between whom a feud was carried on, as desperate and 
bloody as any that ever distracted a European town in the middle ages. 
In one of the numerous scuffles which took place between the contending 
parties, Clodius was killed ; and taking advantage of the opportunity, the 
tottering government asserted its rights by bringing Milo to trial, and pro- 
curing his banishment. 

Meanwhile the remedy was preparing. Among the marshes and forests 
of Gaul, the great Caesar was accumulating that strength of men and pur- 
pose with which he was to descend on Italy and shiver the rotton fabric of 
the Commonwealth. ' Fain,' says the eloquent Michelet — ' fain would I 
have seen that fair and pale countenance, prematurely aged by the debauch- 
eries of the capital — fain would I have seen that delicate and epileptic man, 
marching in the rains of Gaul at the head of his legions, and swimming 
across our rivers, or else on horseback, between the litters in which his 
secretaries were carried, dictating even six letters at a time, shaking Rome 
from the extremity of Belgium, sweeping from his path two millions of 
men, and subduing in ten years Gaul, the Rhine, and the ocean of the 
north. This barbarous and bellicose chaos of Gaul was a superb material 
for such a genius. The Gallic tribes were on every side calling in the stran- 
ger ; Druidism was in its decline ; Italy was exhausted ; Spain untame- 
able ; Gaul was essential to the subjugation of the world.' Caesar's Gallic 
wars of themselves form a history. We have an account of them yet re- 
maining from the pen of the conqueror himself, and that of his friend Ilir- 
tius. Suffice it to say, that in eight years (b. c. 58-50) Caesar had con 
quered all Gaul, including the present France and Belgium ; had paid two 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 105 

visits to the island of Great Britain (b. c. 55-54) ; and was able, in the 
spring of b. c. 50, to take up his residence in Cisalpine Gaul, leaving the 
300 tribes beyond the Alps, which he had conquered by such bloody 
means, not only pacified, but even attached to himself personally. His 
army, which included many Gauls and Germans, were so devoted to him, 
that they would have marched to the end of the world in his service. 

Caesar's conquests in Gaul were of course a subject of engrossing inter 
est at Rome, and when the city enjoyed an interval of repose from the 
commotions caused by Clodius and Milo, nothing else was talked of. ' Com- 
pared with this man,' said Cicero, ' what was Marius ?' and the saying 
was but an expression of the popular enthusiasm. Caesar's visits to Britain 
excited especial interest ; and at first there were not wanting sceptics who 
maintained that there was no such island in existence, and that the alleged 
visit of Caesar to that place of savages, where pearls were found in the riv- 
ers, was a mere hoax on the public. As, however, the period of Caesar's 
command drew near its close, and it became known that he aspired to a 
second consulship, the fears of the aristocratic party began to manifest 
themselves. ' What may not this conqueror of Gaul do when he returns to 
Rome ? ' was the saying of Cato, and others of the senators. ' Accustomed 
during so many years to the large and roomy action of a camp, will he be 
able to submit again to civic trammels ? Will he not rather treat us as if 
we were 'his subordinate officers — Roman laws as if they were savage cus- 
toms — and our city itself as if it were a Gallic forest ? ' Unfortunately, 
also, the Triumvirate no longer existed to support Caesar's interests. Cras- 
sus was dead ; and Pompey — whose connection with Caesar had been sev- 
ered by the death of his wife, Caesar's beloved daughter Julia (b. c. 54) 
— had since gone over to the aristocratic party, to which he had formerly be- 
longed, and whose policy was, upon the whole, more genial to his character. 
In B. c. 52, he enjoyed a third consulship, without a colleague, having been 
appointed by the senators as the man most likely to restore order to the 
distracted state ; and during the following year, he lent his aid to those en- 
emies of Caesar who insisted that, ere he should be allowed to stand for the 
consulship, he should be obliged to resign his Gallic command, and resume 
his station as a private citizen, ready to meet any charges which might be 
brought against him. Caesar did not want agents in Rome — some of them 
paid, some of them voluntary — to plead his cause ; and through these he 
offered to resign his command, provided Pompey would do the same with 
regard to Spain. The proposal was not listened to ; and a decree of the 
senate having been passed that Caesar should disband his army against a 
certain day, under pain of being treated as a public enemy, his agents left 
the city, and hastened to his camp in Cisalpine Gaul (b. c. 50). 

Caesar did not delay a moment. Sending orders to his various legions 
distributed through Gaul to follow him as speedily as possible, he placed 
himself at the head of such forces as were with him at the instant, crossed 
the small stream called the Rubicon, which separated his province of Cisal- 
pine Gaul from Italy, and advanced towards Rome, amid cheers of welcome 
from the populations which he passed through. Utterly bewildered by his 
unexpected arrival, the whole senatorial party, with Pompey at their head, 
abandoned Rome, and proceeded into the south of Italy, where they tried 
to raise forces. Caesar pursued them, and drove them into Greece. Then 
hastening into Spain, he suppressed a rising Pompeian movement in that 



106 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

country. Returning to Rome with the title of Dictator, which had been 
bestowed on him during his absence, he passed various salutary measures 
for restoring order in Italy, and among them one conferring the Roman cit- 
izenship on the Cisalpine Gauls ; then crossed over into Greece (b. c. 49) 
to give battle to Pompey, who had meanwhile assembled forces from all 
parts of the Roman dominion. At length the two armies met on the plain 
of Pharsalia in Thessaly (9th August b. c. 48), when Pompey sustained a 
complete defeat. Not long afterwards he was killed by the orders of Ptol- 
emy, king of Egypt, when seeking to land on the coast of that country. 
Caesar, who had used his victory with great moderation, arrived in Egypt 
soon after, and remained there several months, fascinated by Cleopatra, 
who was then at -war with her brother Ptolemy. 

Having settled the affairs of Egypt, Caesar proceeded to Asia Minor, 
crushed an insurrection there headed by Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, 
and then (September, b. c. 47) returned to Italy. He remained there 
but a few months, setting out in the beginning of B. c. 46 for Africa, where 
the relics of the Pompeian party had taken refuge. These were soon de- 
feated; and Cato, the most distinguished man among them, killed himself 
rather than to fall into his conqueror's hands. Pompey's two sons escaped 
to Spain, where they excited an insurrection, which, however, was soon sup- 
pressed. 

EXTINCTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH— DICTATORSHIP AND DEATH OF 

CAESAR— THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE— CIVIL WARS OF 

MARK ANTONY AND OCTAVIANUS. 

From August b. c. 48, when he defeated Pompey at Pharsalia, till 
March B. c. 44, when he was assassinated, Julius Caesar was supreme mas- 
ter of the Roman world. Senate and people vied with each other in con- 
ferring dignities upon him ; and all the great offices and titles recognized 
by the Roman constitution — as consul, dictator, censor, tribune, etc. — were 
concentrated in his person, while he exercised the virtual patronage of al- 
most all the rest. In short, the Commonwealth may be said to have ceased 
when he defeated Pompey ; and had he lived long enough, there is no doubt 
that he would have fully established the Empire. It was not so much, how- 
ever, in organic changes of the constitution, as in practical reforms of vast 
moment, that Caesar exercised the enormous power which had been placed 
in his hands. Besides the various measures of reform which he actually 
carried into effect during his dictatorship, among which his famous reform 
of the Calendar deserves especial mention, there were innumerable schemes 
which he had projected for himself, and some of which he would probably 
have executed, had his life not been cut short. To extend the Roman do- 
minion in the East; to drain the Pontine marshes ; to cut through the 
Isthmus of Corinth ; to prepare a complete map of the Roman Empire ; to 
draw up a new digest of Roman law ; to establish public libraries in the 
metropolis — such were a few of the designs which this great man enter- 
tained at the time when the conspiracy was formed which led to his assas- 
sination. At the head of this plot, which consisted of about sixty persons 
of note, were Brutus and Cassius, both men of the highest abilities, and es- 
teemed by Caesar ; and the former at least actuated by motives of the pur- 
est character. The immediate occasion of the conspiracy was the rumc 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 107 

that Caesar intended to accept the title of king, which some of his adher- 
ents were pressing upon him. When the plot was matured (b. c. 44) it 
was resolved that Caesar should be assassinated in the senate-house on the 
ides (the 15) of March, on which day it was understood a motion was to 
be brought forward by some of his friends for appointing him king of Italy. 
' Upon the first onset,' says Plutarch, ' those who were not privy to the 
design were astonished, and their horror of the action was so great, that 
they durst not fly, nor assist Caesar, nor so much as speak a word. But 
those who came prepared for the business enclosed him on every side, with 
their naked daggers in their hands, and which way soever he turned he 
met with blows, and saw their swords leveled at his face and eyes. Bru- 
tus gave him one stab in the groin. Some say that he fought and resisted 
all the rest, and moved from one place to another calling for help ; but 
when he saw Brutus's sword drawn, he covered his face with his robe, and 
quietly surrendered himself, till he was pushed, either by chance or design, 
to the pedestal on which Pompey's statue stood, which by that means was 
much stained with his blood : so that Pompey himself may seem to have had 
his share in the revenge of his former enemy, who fell at his feet, and 
breathed out his soul through the multitude of his wounds ; for they say he 
received three-and-twenty.' 

The assassination of Caesar has justly been pronounced ' the most stupid 
action that ever the Romans committed.' The later ages of the republic 
had been one continued scene of violence and anarchy ; and not until 
Caesar had risen to the chief power in the state was there a restoration of 
order and efficient government. His assassination plunged the Roman 
dominions into new and complicated civil wars. On the one side were the 
conspirators with Brutus and Cassius at their head, bent on the futile pro- 
ject of throwing back the Empire into the condition of a republic. On 
the other were Mark Antony, an able and valiant officer of Caesar's ; Le- 
pidus, another officer of less distinguished abilities ; and Marcus Octavius, 
a young man of eighteen, Caesar's grandnephew, and who, as his uncle's 
heir, now assumed the name of Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus. These 
three united themselves into a triumvirate (November B. C. 44) for aveng- 
ing Caesar's death, and settling the affairs of the republic. After making 
themselves masters of Italy, and putting to death by wholesale proscrip- 
tion all those citizens whose views they suspected, among others the great 
and amiable Cicero, they pursued the conspirators into Greece. At 
length, in the autumn of B. c. 42, two great battles were fought at Philippi 
in Macedonia between the republican forces and those of the triumvirate. 
The former were defeated; Cassius caused himself to be slain, Brutus 
committed suicide, and the triumvirs thus remained masters of the Roman 
world. They divided it among them : Antony assuming the government 
of the East, Lepidus obtaining Africa, and Octavianus returning to Italy, 
master of the countries adjacent to that peninsula. Each continued to 
govern his share for some time independently ; but a quarrel ensuing be- 
tween Octavianus and Lepidus, the latter was deprived of his power, and 
obliged to retire into private life. The Empire was now divided between 
Antony and Octavianus, the former master of the East, the latter of the 
West. At length, however, political and private reasons led to a rupture 
between the two potentates (b. c. 33). The rash and pleasure-loving 
Antony, who had been caught in the toils of Cleopatra, the licentious 



108 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA 

queen of Egypt, and therefore one of his subject sovereigns as master of 
the East, was no match for the cunning, abstemious, and remorseless Oc- 
tavianus. Defeated at the battle of Actium (2d September b. c. 31), he 
fled with Cleopatra to Egypt, where, being hard pressed by Octavianus, 
they both died by their own hands. Octavianus thus remained sole mas- 
ter (b. c. 30) of the great Empire which Julius Caesar had prepared for 
him ; and under the new name of Augustus, he continued to wield the 
sovereignty during the long period of forty-four years (b. c. 30 - A. D. 
14). During these forty-four years, the various races and nations which 
bo many centuries of conquest had connected together, became consolidat- 
ed into that historic entity — ' The Roman Empire.' 

CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE UNDER AUGUSTUS. 

The Roman Empire under Augustus consisted of Italy and the follow- 
ing countries governed as provinces : — In Europe, Sicily, Sardinia, and 
the other islands in the west of the Mediterranean, Gaul as far as the 
Rhine, Spain, Illyricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, 
and the islands of the iEgean ; in Asia, all the countries between the 
Caspian Sea, the Parthian Empire, the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, the 
Mediterranean, and the Caucasus ; and in Africa, Mauritania, Numidia, 
the ancient territory of Carthage, Cyrene, and Egypt. Within these lim- 
its there may have been included, in all, about 100,000,000 of human 
beings, of different races, complexions, languages, and degrees of civiliza- 
tion. Not less than one-half of the whole number must have been in a 
condition of slavery, and of the rest, only that small proportion who, un- 
der the envied name of Roman citizens, inhabited Italy, or were distribut- 
ed, in official or other capacities, through the cities of the Empire, enjoyed 
political independence. These 'citizens,' diffused through the conquered 
countries, constituted the ingredient by which the whole was kept in union. 
Working backwards and forwards in the midst of the various populations 
in which they were thus planted, the Romans assimilated them gradually 
to each other, till Celts, Spaniards, Asiatics, etc., became more or less 
Romanized. This process of assimilation was much facilitated by the cir- 
cumstance that, with the exception of Judea and other portions of the 
East, all the nations of the Roman Empire were polytheistic in their beliefs, 
so that there was no fundamental repugnance in this respect between the 
modes of thought of one nation and those of another. In fact, the Ro- 
man Empire may be defined as a compulsory assemblage of polytheistic na- 
tions, in order that Christianity might operate over a large surface at once 
of that polytheism which it was to destroy and supersede. In the twenty- 
fifth year of the reign of Augustus, and while that prince was ruling with 
undisturbed sway over 100,000,000 of fellow-polytheists, there took place 
in that small monotheistic corner of his dominions which lay on the south- 
ern border of the Levant, an event, the importance of which the wisest 
of the Romans could not have foreseen. This was the birth, in an obscure 
Jewish town, of Jesus Christ. From that town, and from that obscure 
corner of the vast Roman Empire, was to proceed an influence which was 
to overspread the polytheistic nations, eat out or dissolve into itself all ex- 
isting creeds and philosophies, and renovate the thoughts, the habits, the 
whole constitution of mankind. Waiting for this influence, the various 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 109 

nations — Celts, Greeks, Spaniards, etc., — were submitted to the prelim- 
inary pressure of Roman institutions, modifying, and in some cases chang 
ing, their native characters. The eastern half of the Empire, however, 
had been too thoroughly impregnated with the Greek element to yield easi- 
ly to the new pressure ; and accordingly while the Latin language spread 
among the barbarians of the west, Greek still continued to be the language 
of the East. This demarcation between the western or Latin-speaking 
and the eastern or Greek-speaking portions of the Empire became exceed- 
ingly important afterwards. 

Of this vast empire Rome was the metropolis, now a city of innumera- 
ble streets and buildings, and containing, it is calculated, a population of 
about two millions and a half. From Rome roads branched out in all direc- 
tions leading to the other towns of Italy, and passing through the villa- 
studded estates of the rich Roman citizens. From the coasts of Italy, 
the Mediterranean afforded an easy access to the various provinces, by 
whose industry the metropolis and Italy itself were in a great measure 
supported. The provinces themselves were traversed by roads connecting 
town with town, and laying all parts of the Empire open to the civil and 
military functionaries of government. Usually residing at Rome, the will 
of the emperor vibrated through a hierarchy of intermediate functionaries, 
so as to be felt throughout the whole of his vast dominions. In effect, 
this will was absolute. In Augustus, as in Julius Caesar, all the great 
offices of state, which had so long subsisted as mutual checks upon each 
other, were united, so as to confer on him power of the most unlimited de- 
scription. The senate still met, but only as a judicial body in cases of 
treason, or legislatively to pass the decrees which Augustus had previously 
matured with a few private counselors ; and the comitia were still held, 
but only to elect candidates already nominated by the emperor. In this 
system of absolute dominion in the hands of a single individual, the Ro- 
mans cheerfully acquiesced, partly from experience of the superior nature 
of the government thus exercised to the wretched anarchy from which they 
had escaped, and partly in consequence of the hopelessness of revolt 
against a man who had the entire military force of the Empire at his dis- 
posal. In Rome and Italy, the public peace was preserved by the prceto- 
rian cohorts — bodies of soldiers of tried valor, to whom Augustus gave 
double pay. Throughout the provinces, the people were kept in check by 
the regular troops, who were accumulated, however, principally in the 
frontier provinces of the Empire, where they might both maintain tran- 
quillity among the recently-conquered populations, and resist the attacks 
of the barbarian races beyond. The provinces where military force was 
required, Augustus retained in his own hands, administering them through 
legates appointed by himself, usually for several years ; the others he in- 
trusted to the senate, who named governors for a single year. 

The cities of the Empire were the centres of Roman influence. It was 
in them that the Roman citizens were congregated, that schools were es- 
tablished, and that the various agencies of civilization operated most uni- 
formly. In the rustic populations of the provinces, the national individu- 
ality was preserved with the national language. It was part of the policy 
of Augustus to found cities in the choicest situations in the provinces ; and 
so rapid was the spread of the Roman civilization during his reign, that 
Roman writers and orators of note began to be produced even in remote 



110 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



parts of the Empire. The Greek language and literature began also to 
penetrate the provinces of the west, and to find students among the Celts 
and Spaniards 

THE SUCCESS OF AUGUSTUS — DISSEMINATION OF CHRISTIANITY — 
DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE. 

During a period of nearly three centuries after the death of Augustus, 
the Empire remained, so far as political arrangements were concerned, 
pretty nearly as he had left it ; and the history of Rome during these cen- 
turies is little more than an account of the personal characters of the suc- 
cessive emperors. Some of these seem to have been specimens of the ut- 
most depravity to which human nature could attain ; others were men of 
great mind, and worthy of their station. At first, the Empire was inher- 
ited as a birthright by those who could claim descent from Augustus ; • but 
in the end, the real patrons of the sovereign dignity were the armies, and 
especially the praetorian cohorts. To raise favorite generals to the pur- 
ple, and afterwards to murder them for the sake of the donations which it 
was customary to receive in the case of a new accession, became the pas- 
time of the various armies ; and sometimes it happened that there were sev- 
eral emperors at the same time, different armies throughout the Empire 
having each appointed one. The effect of these military appointments 
was to raise to the highest dignity of the state men born at a distance from 
Rome, and who, spending their lives in the camp, entertained no affection 
for the city of the Caesars. Meanwhile, under all the emperors alike, 
the great family of nations incorporated under the Roman rule were daily 
advancing towards that condition out of which modern society was to arise. 
The reader, however, must imagine for himself the toil and bustle of the 
successive generations of Celts, Spaniards, Greeks, Africans, and Asiatics, 
who were born and buried during these three important centuries in which 
modern civilization was cradled ; all that we can give here is a chronolog 
ical list of the emperors during that period : — 



Augustus, - - 
Tiberius, - - - 
Caligula, - • - 
Claudius, - - - 
Nero, - - - - 
Galba, Otho, Vitellius, 
Vespasian, - - - 
Titus, - - - - 
Doroitian, - - - 
Nerva, - - - - 
Trajan, - - - - 
Hadrian, - - - 
Antonius Pius, - ' 
Marcus Antoninus, ' 
Com modus, - - ' 
Pertinax, - - - ' 
Septimius Severus, ' 



14 A.D 


to 37 " 


38 " 


41 " 


41 " 


54 " 


54 " 


68 " 


G8 " 


70 " 


70 " 


* 79 " 


79 " 


81 " 


81 " 


96 " 


96 " 


98 " 


98 " 


• 117 " 


117 " 


138 " 


138 " 


161 " 


161 " 


180 " 


180 " 


192 " 


193 





.d., Caracalla, - - 

' Heliogabalus, - 

' Alexander Severus, " 

' Julius Maximinus, " 

' Gordian, - - - - " 

' Philip, " 

' ' Decius, .... " 

' ' Gallus, --- - " 

' Valerian and Gallienus, " 

' Gallienus, - - - " 

' Aurelius, - . - - " 

' Aurelianus, - - - " 

1 Tacitus, .... " 

1 Florian, - - - - " 

' Probus, ---- " 

Cams. " 



from 211 a.d. to 217 a.d 
" 218 " 222 " 
" 222 " 
" 235 " 
" 238 " 
" 243 " 
" 249 " 
" 251 " 
253 " 



193 



261 
268 
270 
275 
276 
276 
282 



211 " Diocletian & Maximian," 284 



235 
238 
243 
249 
251 
253 
260 
268 
270 
275 
276 

282 
284 
305 



The only facts connected with the reigns of these emperors which need 
be noticed here are, that in the reign of Claudius, Britain was added to the 
Roman dominion ; that under the great Trajan, the Empire was still farther 
extended ; and that under Caracalla, the Roman franchise was extended to 
all the free inhabitants of the Empire, The vices of such emperors a3 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. Ill 

Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus, may pass unno- 
ticed, as may also the military achievements of some of the later emperors. 
The reign of Diocletian, however (a. d. 248-305), constitutes an epoch 
in the history of the Empire. Finding the unwieldy mass too great for 
the administration of a single individual, he divided it between himself 
and his colleague Maximian, assigning to Maximian the western or Latin- 
speaking nations, and retaining the East in his own hands. Under each 
emperor there was to be a royal personage called Caesar, who was to gov- 
ern part of that emperor's section of the Empire, and afterwards succeed 
him in the chief dignity. This arrangement did not last long ; and after 
various subdivisions of the Empire, and struggles between emperors and 
Caesars, the whole was reunited under Constantine the Great (a. d. 306- 
337). Under this remarkable man Christianity was established as the re 
ligion of the Empire. 

During the three centuries which had elapsed between the crucifixion 
of Christ — which took place in the nineteenth year of the reign of Tibe- 
rius — and the accession of Constantine to the supreme government of the 
whole Empire, the new religion had been silently but surely spreading it- 
self ; first among the Jews, then among the Greek or eastern, and lastly 
among the Latin or western Gentiles. It had been subjected to numerous 
persecutions, some local, and others general, over the whole Empire ; but 
had, nevertheless, made such progress, that it is calculated that in Constan- 
tine's reign about a twentieth part of the whole population of the Empire 
were professed Christians, while even over the nineteen-twentieths who 
continued in polytheism, the indirect influence of Christianity had been 
immense. Led to embrace Christianity himself, although with a consid- 
erable tincture of polytheistic superstition, Constantine gave his imperial 
recognition to the already fully-organized ecclesiastical system of the Chris- 
tians, with its churches, presbyters, bishops, metropolitans. The civil ban 
having thus been removed from the profession of Christianity, it began to 
prevail in form, as it already did in fact, over the heterogeneous polythe- 
ism of the Empire. 

Another important act of Constantine's reign, besides his proclamation 
of toleration for Christianity (a. d. 321), was his removal of the seat of 
empire from Rome to Constantinople. Not long after this was effected, 
Constantine died at the age of sixty, leaving the Empire divided among 
his three sons. One of them, Constantius, ultimately acquired the whole, 
and transmitted it to his successors ; but in the year 395, Theodosius, one 
of these successors, effected a permanent separation between the East 
and the West. From that date, the history of Rome divides itself into 
two distinct histories — that of the Western or Latin and that of the Eas- 
tern or Greek empire. The latter protracted its existence till a. d. 1453, 
when Constantinople was taken by the Turks : the former crumbled to 
pieces much earlier, before the attacks of the northern barbarians, who 
finally destroyed it in 476. 

DOWNFALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 

From an early period, the Empire had been assailed on its northern 
frontier by the German and Sclavonian races living east of the Rhine and 
north of the Danube. Partly by force, and partly by negotiation, the au- 



112 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

thorities of the Empire had been able to keep these barbarian populations in 
check ; but towards the end of the fourth century, the growing decrepi- 
tude of the Empire tempted invasion, and hordes of barbarians from Scan- 
dinavia, Russia, and Tartary, rolled themselves toward the Danube. At 
first, it seemed as if the eastern empire would be the first to fall before 
them ; but the tide of invasion was at length decisively diverted towards 
the west. Province after province was torn away by Goths, Alans, Huns, 
Vandals, and others : Italy itself was ravaged several times ; and at length, 
A. D. 476, Romulus Augustus, the last sovereign, was dethroned, and Italy 
became a prey to the Germans. The various steps in this gradual disin- 
tegration of the Empire, the heroic deeds of the two chief agents in the 
dismemberment — Alaric, king of the Goths, and Atfila, king of the Huns 
— and the gradual formation of Romano-Germanic kingdoms out of frag- 
ments of the shattered Roman society, cannot here be detailed. 



HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 

Under the title of the Middle Ages is comprehended that period of 
history which succeeded the destruction of the Roman western empire and 
extended to the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century, 
when learning was revived in Europe. This period of about eight hundred 
years may be said to divide ancient from modern times. The early portion 
of the middle ages is sometimes styled the Dark Ages ; for during this 
time the ancient civilization of Rome, a bequest from Egypt and Greece, 
disappeared, and ancient institutions perished, without anything better being 
substituted. The middle ages altogether differ from any other period in 
history. They may be generally described as an era of universal disorder, in 
which was maintained a struggle between force and reason. Old govern- 
ments were broken up, and new ones took their place, only to be dismem- 
bered in turn. Literature sunk into obscurity, and was confined to the 
cells of monks. Slavery was universal, and was modified alone by the be- 
nign influence of Christianity. Gradually, as it will be seen, nations as- 
sumed a settled character, arts were discovered, and for military turbulence 
were substituted peaceful institutions. Much, therefore, as there is to 
deplore in the history of the middle ages, there is not a little to commend 
and be grateful for. We must view these ages as being the cradle of mod- 
ern civilization, the era whence sprung much that we venerate in our insti- 
tutions, much that distinguishes modern from ancient manners. 

THE EASTERN EMPIRE TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY. 

It is necessary to begin a history of the middle ages with reference to 
the decline of the Roman Empire. This decline was caused by various cir- 
cumstances, but chiefly by the weakened condition of society. Instead of 
rearing a respectable lower and middle class, the Roman aristocracy kept 
the mass of the people in slavery, so that at length society consisted of 
but a comparatively small number of privileged persons, including the mili • 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 118 

tary, and vast numbers of serfs or slaves — the hangers-on of great men 
— and in effect paupers. ' The freedom of the ancient world expired in 
the course of ages,' says Alison, ' from the small number of those who 
enjoyed its benefits. The ruling citizens became corrupted from the influ- 
ence of prosperity, or by the seduction of wealth ; and no infusion of en- 
ergy took place from the lower ranks to renovate their strength or supply 
their place.' Besides this general, there was a special cause. In 821 , 
Constantine transferred the imperial abode from Rome to Byzantium, a city 
situated on the Bosphorus, and afterwards called Constantinople. In his 
endeavoi'S to make this city the seat of government, Constantine only par- 
tially succeeded ; for it generally happened after his day that there was 
one emperor in the East and another in the West, and not unfrequently 
two or three different individuals in the provinces, at the head of consid- 
erable military forces, claiming partial and even universal empire. Rome 
itself, and the countries of western Europe, were soon taken posession of 
by barbarous intruders, and lost all the characteristics and individuality of 
empire ; but Constantinople continued for a thousand years the abode of men 
who had still the name of emperors, reckoning themselves the descendants 
of the Caesars, although they had long ceased to wield anything but the 
shadow of power. Constantine was himself instrumental in dismembering 
his empire, having before his death divided it among no fewer than five 
individuals — namely, his three sons, Constantine, Constans, Constantius, 
and his two nephews, Dalmatius and Annipalianus, both of whom bore in 
addition the surname of Caesar — a name still popular among a people who 
wished themselves to be considered Roman. 

Constantine II soon fell a sacrifice to the cruelty and ambition of his 
brother Constans, who in his turn lost his life in attempting to quell a re- 
volt among his subjects ; and Constantius, the youngest of the sons, having 
found means to destroy the two Caesars, and five other cousins, and two 
uncles, found himself at an early period of life the undisputed master of 
the empire. He reigned twenty-four years, but left no monuments of 
goodness or of greatness, having wasted his time in the practice of vice, 
or in the equally unprofitable, if more innocent, employment of disputing 
with bishops on the abstrusest points of doctrinal theology ; while a host of 
enemies, apparently from every side of his dominions, were engaged in 
undermining and laying waste the empire. It was in the West that these 
attacks were first made, though perhaps it was in the East that they were 
fiercest. Numberless and powerful barbarians now began to pour unceas- 
ingly upon Gaul, Spain, and latterly upon Italy itself, from the forests of 
the north, and in particular from those of Germany — a country whose 
inhabitants have been remarkable in the history of the world, both as hav- 
ing originated many of the greatest movements in society, and as having 
laid open more of the sources of human thought than any people that could 
be named. The Franks, Saxons, Goths, and Alemanni, devastated the fine 
countries watered by the Rhine, and so effectually severed them from the 
Empire, that from this period their history becomes wholly separate. At 
the same time the Sarmatians, Persians, Scythians, and others, made dread- 
ful incursions in the East. All that Constantius could do to stem this pow- 
erful tide was to raise his kinsman Julian, whom he surnamed Caesar, to 
command in the army. 

Julian had been early instructed in the Christian religion, but he is not 
8* 



114 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

known to have ever given it any credit, although he has been often called 
apostate. He had imbibed the philosophy of Plato in the schools of Ath- 
ens ; and with this learning, with the elements of a great character in his 
mind, and with the models of Caesar, of Trajan, and of Marcus Antonius in 
his eye, he formed the design, and seemed to have the ability, to raise up 
and consolidate the glories of a falling Empire. His victories over the 
Alemanni in Gaul, although they preserved the Empire, excited only the 
en»vy of the emperor, and Constantius was about to depose him from his 
command, when his own death saved him from the ignominy to which the 
soldiery would certainly have subjected him for any attempt to degiade 
their favorite commander. Julian was himself declared emperor by the 
army, and the people had lost both the power and the will to resist. Un 
fortunately for his fame, Julian perished in battle with the Persians only 
three years after his accession. In that short period he had reformed many 
abuses in the state ; and though personally hostile to the Christian religion, 
and though he used both arguments and ridicule against it, he not only ad- 
vocated, but practiced universal toleration. It is creditable also to Julian, 
that in establishing the ancient orders of Roman priesthood, he was at paina 
to enforce a strict morality in all the relations of life. He was succeeded, 
after the fall of several candidates, by Valentinian, whose father had been 
a soldier from the Danube. This emperor took for colleague his brother 
Valens, to whom he assigned Constantinople and the government of the 
East. The reign of Valens was signalized by the irruption into Europe of 
an enemy till then unknown to the Romans ; these were the Huns, a con- 
federation of Tartar tribes, some of whom had obtained the ascendancy 
and control over the rest, and led them on to invade the nations of Europe. 
Their numbers and ferocity led the ancient writers to describe them in 
terms of consternation, which to moderns, who are no strangers to Calmucs, 
Cossacks, Tartars, and other tribes of similar origin, appear sufficiently lu- 
dicrous. They never lived in houses, slept under trees, ate raw flesh, and 
were altogether superior in war even to the Goths, who were now in alli- 
ance with the Romans, and had begun to relish the comforts of a settled 
life. They were, therefore, driven away before the Huns, and were 
forced, in search of a home, to invade the Roman territory. Here they 
were opposed by the Emperor Valens ; but they defeated his army, and 
made his own life a sacrifice. He was succeeded by his nephew Gratian, 
who chose for his colleague Theodosius, a general of talents and celebrity. 
This emperor restored the confidence of his own army, and broke the 
power of the Goths, by his skill and caution ; and was the first of the em- 
perors who practiced the mode of dividing the barbarians against one an- 
other, by giving money to such of their tribes as he imagined would make 
useful auxiliaries. This system, which the wealth of the emperors (from 
their possession of all the maritime and trading cities) enabled them long 
to use against their poorer enemies, often saved the Empire at the expense 
of its dignity ; for though the money was given at first as a gratuity, it was 
sometimes demanded in times of weakness as a tribute. This Theodosius 
(commonly called the Great) was the first who made Christianity the es- 
tablished religion of the Empire (890). He procured a senatorial edict 
in favor of the Christians and their religion, sanctioned the destruction of 
the heathen temples, and forbade the performance of sacrifices either in 
public or private. The Empire under this prince still preserved its origin- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 115 

al extent; but he divided it between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius 
(394), and its parts were never afterwards reunited. 

From the death of Theodosius II (449) to the reign of Justinian (527), 
the Eastern Empire continued without any considerable alteration, though 
there were many changes and intrigues in the court and army. The reign 
of the latter prince is memorable on several accounts : it was under his aus- 
pices that a knowledge of the silk manufacture was first brought to Europe, 
where it gave employment to much ingenious industry (900). Justinian 
also caused certain eminent lawyers to prepare a code of laws, and an 
abridgement of law decisions, etc. called the Pandects, which were used by 
all his successors, and have been adopted as the basis of their laws by sev- 
eral countries of Europe. With the single exception of the Code de Napo- 
leon, these form the only complete and perfect abstract of national law 
which any government has given to its people. Whatever may have been 
Justinian's errors in other respects, his having projected this work, and pro- 
cured so many able ministers to execute it, must redound forever to his 
honor. The talents and virtues of his general Belisarius regained to the 
Empire Africa and a great part of Italy, from the Vandals and Ostrp^oths ; 
this conquest, however, only prevented the latter region from being uuitod 
under one government, and has been the cause of its remaining a feeble and 
divided country ever since. In the reign of Tiberius shortly after (580), 
the people of Rome, though they entreated with great earnestness the aid 
and pity of the emperor, who now claimed to rule over them, were unable 
to obtain any relief, and remained distracted between their attachment to 
the ancient head of the Empire, and the claims of his enemies who occupied 
the rest of Italy. 

The next emperor who merits attention is Heraclius (610), a native of 
Africa. The Eastern Empire had till now preserved its ancient boundaries 
in their full extent, and was mistress of Carthage, Egypt, Syria, and Asia 
Minor, besides Greece, and the countries on the Danube. The Roman ar 
mies on the eastern frontier had, however, been lately driven in by Chos- 
roes, king of Persia, who now occupied all the north of Africa and Syria. 
This was the first great violation of their territory sustained by the emper- 
ors of Constantinople ; and Heraclius avenged it with a celerity and eifect 
which made the Persians tremble. His triumph, however, was short, for 
the latter part of his reign was disturbed by the rise and victories of Mo- 
hammed. The successors of this signal impostor, after breaking the power 
of Persia (already weakened by the victories of Heraclius), immediately 
attacked the Roman Empire ; then defeated its armies in two battles, oc- 
cupied all Syria, and obliged the emperor (now an old man) to retire to 
Constantinople. He died in 641. 

The continued victories of the followers of Mohammed (called Arabs or 
Saracens) soon deprived the Empire of Egypt, Africa, and Syria ; and in 
668 they followed up their success by attacking Constantinople itself. The 
city sustained two sieges, in the first of which the Saracens were encamped 
in its neighborhood, and carried on the operations of a siege at intervals, 
for seven years ; and in the second, for nearly two. In both the Saracens 
wasted immense resources ineffectually. 

The Empire had now lost all its provinces eastward of Mount Taurus, 
and the cities of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch, were in the hands of 
the Mohammedans. There was little further change in its condition till the 



116 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

year 867, under the Emperor Basil, who gave new vigor both to the internal 
administration and to the military resources of the government. This 
prince, and his immediate predecessor Zimisces, made the Roman arms — 
for they still wished to be called Romans — respected on the Euphrates, 
and Tigris, and asserted the ancient warlike reputation and boundaries of 
the Empire. They were now, however, deprived of the resources they had 
enjoyed in the secure possession of the great commercial cities of the Medi- 
terranean — Alexandria, Carthage, Caesarea, etc. ; and the trade and reve- 
nues of those which remained were crippled and diminished, from the want 
of that free general intercourse which had existed when they were all under 
one government. Hence the armies were maintained with greater diffi- 
culty, and any victories that were gained could not be followed up with 
effect. The early enemies of the Empire — the Goths, Vandals, and Huns 
— had now settled into civilized communities, and were no longer formida- 
ble. The foes with whom it contended latterly were the Bulgarians and 
Seljukian Turks ; the former of whom were rather troublesome than danger 
ous, but the latter, who had succeeded the Saracens in the dominion of 
Asia, aimed at nothing short of the destruction of the Roman name. They 
succeeded at last by defeating and taking prisoner the Emperor Romanus 
Diogenes, in tearing away almost the whole province of Asia Minor (1099) ; 
so that the emperors were now confined to the dominions in Europe, which, 
however, still formed a monarchy not much smaller than France or Spain. 

The manners of the court of Constantinople during much of this period 
were dissolute and corrupt. We are told of one emperor who ordered a 
plate of human noses to be brought to his table ; another was accustomed 
to seize the deputies of cities whose tribute was in arrear, and suspend them 
with their heads downwards over a slow fire ; a third got up farces in mock- 
ery of the ceremonies of religion ; and, in general, the appointment of offi- 
cers, and even the succession to the Empire (where it was not seized by 
some successful general), were in the hands of the women and eunuchs of the 
palace. The cities and provinces generally acquiesced as to the choice of 
an emperor in the decision of the capital or army ; this circumstance shows 
that the laws were attended to, and that there was a regular system of 
government, which were not much disturbed by the personal character of 
the reigning prince. The countries of Greece, however, which had form- 
erly been the seat of knowledge and the arts, were now sunk in ignorance ; 
and the little learning that was cultivated in Athens was only scholastic 
divinity, or the pedantry of law and grammar. There is no scholar, or phi- 
losopher, or poet, of the empire of Constantinople who is generally known 
to posterity. 

A great change took place in the relations of the Empire after the 
eleventh century. It was still pressed by the Turks on the East, who 
now occupied Asia Minor, and were only separated from Constantinople 
by the Hellespont ; while in Europe its territories were disturbed by the 
incursions of certain Norman adventurers who had settled in Sicily. 
Against these enemies the Emperor Claudius Comnenus, an active prince, 
and full of resources, made all the resistance which his diminished revenues 
allowed. He applied to the Christian sovereigns of Europe to aid him in 
expelling the Mohammedans from the territories of the Empire, but above 
all, to drive out the Turks from the land of Judea, which they occupied 
and profaned, and where they harassed the Christian pilgrims who desired 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 117 

to visit the scenes of Scripture history. His appeal was received in Eu- 
rope at a time when many concurring causes had brought the mass of the 
people to a state of uneasiness which at once foreboded and rendered 
necessary some extensive change in their condition. Countrymen of their 
own, pilgrims from the shrine of the tomb of Chist, had returned and filled 
them with horror by a recital of indignities which Turkish infidels were 
casting on those scenes and subjects with which their own most sacred 
feelings were associated ; and the result was that extraordinary outpouring 
of the inhabitants of Europe upon Asia, which has been termed the Cru- 
sades, and to which we shall afterwards advert. 

ARABIA — MOHAMMED — EMPIRE OF THE SARACENS. 

It was not before the sixth century that Arabia became peculiarly re- 
markable in the history of the world. The wild Arabs, as they have been 
generally called, had already signalized themselves by incursions on the 
Empire of the East, when Mohammed was born, in the year 569 (some 
say, 571) of the Christian era, at Mecca, the principal city of their country. 
He is said to have been descended from some great families ; but it is cer- 
tain that his immediate progenitors were poor, and he had little education 
but what his own means and his own mind could give him. Yet this man 
became the founder of a great empire, and the fabricator of a religion 
which has continued to our own day to affect greater numbers of mankind 
than Christianity itself. At an early period of life, we are told, ' he re- 
tired to the desert, and pretended to hold conferences with the Angel Ga- 
briel, who delivered to him, from time to time, portions of a sacred book or 
Koran, containing revelations of the will of the Supreme Being, and of 
the doctrines which he required his prophet (that is, Mohammed himself) 
to communicate to the world.' The Mohammedan religion, as the so-called 
revelations of this great imposter have since been designated, was a strange 
mixture of the superstitions of Arabia, the morality of Christ, and the rites 
of Judaism. It was to this happy mixture of tenets, usages, and traditions 
already existing among his countrymen, and to the applicability of the 
precepts of the Koran to all legal transactions and all the business of life, 
that Mohammed seems to have owed his extraordinary success. Others, 
indeed, have attributed this to certain indulgences allowed in the Koran ; 
but in reality these indulgences existed before, and the book breathes 
upon the whole an austere spirit. This extraordinary work inculcated ele- 
vated notions of the Divine nature and of moral duties : it taught that 
God's will and power were constantly exerted towards the happiness of 
His creatures, and that the duty of man was to love his neighbors, assist 
the poor, protect the injured, to be humane to inferior animals, and to pray 
seven times a day. It taught that, to revive the impression of those laws 
which God had engraven originally in the hearts of men, He had sent his 
prophets upon earth — Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed 
— the last, the greatest, to whom all the world should owe its conversion 
to the true -religion. By producing the Koran in detached parcels, Mo- 
hammed had it in his power to solve all objections by new revelations. 
It was only after he was well advanced in years that his doctrines began 
to be received. At first, indeed, they were so violently opposed by his 
fellow-citizens of Mecca, that the prophet was obliged to flee from the city 



118 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to save his life. This event is called by his followers Hegira, or the 
Flight : it occurred in the 622d year of the Christian era ; and they reckon 
dates from it as we do from the birth of Christ. Mohammed took refuge 
in the city of Medina, and by the aid of his disciples there, he was soon 
able to return to Mecca at the head of an armed force. This enabled 
him to subdue those who would not be convinced ; and henceforward he 
proceeded to make proselytes and subjects together, till at length, being 
master of all Arabia and of Syria, his numerous followers saluted him king 
(627). This extraordinary man died suddenly, and in the midst of suc- 
cesses, at the age of sixty-one (632). Abubeker, his father-in-law and 
successor, united and published the books of the Koran, and continued 
and extended the empire which Mohammed had left him. 

A more powerful caliph (such was the title given to this series of mon- 
archs) was Omar, the successor of Abubeker (6C5). Barbarity, ferocity, 
and superstition seem to have been mingled and to have reached their 
height in the person of Omar. It was by his order that the most magnifi- 
cent library of antiquity, that of Alexandria, consisting of 700,000 vol- 
umes, was burned to ashes. The reason which he gave for this act is 
worth preserving : — ' If these writings,' he said, ' agree with the Koran, 
they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are 
pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.' By himself and his generals this 
ferocious conqueror added Syria, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, Egypt, 
Lybia, and Numidia, to his empire. Next came Otman, and then Ali, 
the son-in-law of Mohammed himself. The name of Ali is still revered by 
Mussulmans. His reign was short, but glorious. ' After some internal 
troubles,' says Hallam, ' the Saracens won their way along the coast of 
Africa, as far as the pillars of Hercules, and a third province was irre- 
trievably torn from the Greek empire. These Western conquests intro- 
duced them to fresh enemies, and ushered in more splendid successes. 
Encouraged by the disunion of the Visigoths [ in Spain] , and invited by 
treachery, Muza, the general of a master who sat beyond the opposite ex- 
tremity of the Mediterranean Sea, passed over into Spain, and within 
about two years the name of Mohammed was invoked under the Pyrenees.' 

Nineteen caliphs of the race of Omar succeeded Ali, and after these 
came the dynasty of the Abassydee, descended by the male line from Mo- 
hammed. The second caliph of this race, named Almanzor, removed the 
seat of empire to Bagdad (762), and introduced learning and the culture 
of the sciences, which his successors -continued to promote with zeal and 
liberality. This was some recompense for those indignities which had been 
cast upon literature by the brutal Omar. Perhaps the obligations of mod- 
ern Europe to Arabia at this time have been overstated ; but it is not to be 
denied that learning, almost totally excluded and extinct in Europe during 
the eight and ninth centuries, found an asylum here. It has been matter 
of dispute how the tastes of these fierce Arabians became thus first direc- 
ted. They probably owed it to the Greeks ; but it is certain that what 
they got they returned with interest. We are said to derive our present 
arithmetical figures from this strange people ; and geometry,- astronomy, 
and alchemy were their favorite pursuits. The graces of light literature 
were not neglected, as is shown by the One Thousand and One Nights ' 
Entertainments, a production of this period, which still continues to solace 
the hours of childhood and old age among ourselves, and attests the extent 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 119 

of fancy and the variety of genius among those that gave it birth. Haroun 
al Raschid, who flourished in the beginning of the ninth century, is cele- 
brated as a second Augustus. He was cotemporary with Charlemagne, 
and communications of a friendly nature are said to have passed between 
them. 

Within fifty years from the death of Mohammed, the Saracens had rais- 
ed an empire, not only temporal, but also spiritual, more extensive and 
more powerful than what remained of the empire of Constantinople ; and 
within a hundred, they had subdued not only Persia, Syria, Asia Minor, 
and Arabia, but also Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. It seemed, indeed, 
in the course of the eight century, as if Asia and Europe both should 
yield o their victorious arms, and become one great Mohammedan domin- 
ion. But the mighty fabric, of mushroom growth, crumbled into dust with 
equal speed. After the first extension of their conquests, they ceased to 
acknowledge any one head of their empire, and the successful generals of 
the provinces contented themselves by paying a religious respect to the 
caliphs of Bagdad, as the successors of the prophet, while they retained 
the power of conquerors for themselves. In the year 732 they sustained 
a great defeat in France from Charles Martel, who became the father of 
an illustrious race of kings. No fewer than 375,000 Saracens are said to 
have been left dead on the field of this battle, and it is certain that they 
never after cherished the hope of subduing Europe. About the middle of 
the ninth century (848), they projected the conquest of Italy, and even 
laid siege to Rome itself. But they were entirely repulsed by Pope Leo 
IV ; their ships were dispersed by a storm, and their army cut to pieces. 
Spain was the only European country in which they were able to obtain a 
permanent footing, and in it alone have they left traces of their existence. 

FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF ROME TO THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE — 
ORIGIN OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 

The Empire of the Caesars fell in the West only by degrees, and the 
changes introduced by the northern tribes were gradual, though they proved 
great. Province after province yielded to the invaders ; and before the 
end of the fifth century, every country in Europe had undergone extensive 
changes, and received fresh accessions to the number of its inhabitants. 
The Visigoths had seated themselves in Spain, the Franks in Gaul, the 
Saxons in the Roman provinces of South Britain, the Huns in Pannonia, 
and the Ostrogoths in Italy and the adjacent provinces. And not only had 
they been enabled to take up their abode, but in general they became mas- 
ters, and changed the face of all that they touched : ' new governments, 
laws, languages ; new manners, customs, dresses ; new names of men and 
of countries, prevailed ; and an almost total change took place in the state 
of Europe.' That change has been called a change from light to dark- 
ness, and it assuredly led to the extinction of that taste for literature and 
that regular administration of government which were the relieving fea- 
tures of the Roman despotism. But if it thus produced an immediate evil, 
it led to an ultimate good. The population was reinvigorated by the ad- 
mixture of the new races, and from the fresh elements it had acquired 
there sprung institutions which might be considered as in many respects 
an improvement upon those that formerly prevailed. 



120 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

It was out of these new circumstances that what has been called the 
Feudal System took its rise. This was a feature in society unknown in 
former ages. Hitherto men had been the slaves of individual masters, 
or, as in the more celebrated states of antiquity, they were bound together 
by the common tie of citizenship, and owed allegiance to none. Patriot- 
ism was their highest virtue, and all looked upon the state as a parent, to 
which, having got support from it, they were bound to give support in their 
turn. But in these times the rude inhabitants of the north had formed 
little or no conception of what a state was, and at first they were not pre- 
pared to relinquish their much-cherished individual freedom in exchange 
for rights which they thought they did not need. Changes at length came 
over them ; and society gradually took new forms. Those who had led 
them on to battle, began to be looked upon as their guardians in peace. 
Victorious armies, cantoned out into the countries which they had seized, 
continued arranged under their officers, each of whom had a separate ter- 
ritory allotted to him, on which he could retain and support his immediate 
followers, while the principal leader had the largest ; and in this way all 
were bound in allegiance, both to their immediate superiors and to their 
chief, and all were in readiness to be called out to arms whenever their ser- 
vices were thought to be required. This ' military chieftainship,' infusing 
itself as an element in the barbarian societies, was the first advance to any- 
thing like civil or social government since the extinction of the Roman 
power. Nations, indeed, were still far from having the advantage of a 
regular government. The method of conducting judicial proceedings, and 
of administering justice, was still peculiarly unsettled and uncertain. The 
authority of the magistrate was so limited, and the independence assumed 
by individuals so great, that they seldom admitted any umpire but the sword. 
It was then that trial by ordeal became universal, and men's guilt or inno- 
cence was thought to be proved by the capacity of their bodies to with- 
stand the influences of red-hot iron or boiling water applied to them, or by 
their overcoming their accuser in single combat. 

These observations are applicable, with scarcely any variation, to all the 
nations which settled in Europe during the fifth and sixth centuries. Speak- 
ing of this subject, Dr. Robertson says — 'Though the barbarous nations 
which framed it [the Feudal System], settled in their new territories at 
different times, came from different countries, spoke various languages, and 
were under the command of separate leaders, the feudal policy and laws 
were established, with little variation, in every kingdom of Europe. This 
amazing uniformity hath induced some authors to believe that all these na- 
tions, notwithstanding so many apparent circumstances of distinction, were 
originally the same people. But it may be ascribed, with greater proba- 
bility, to the similar state of society and of manners to which they were 
accustomed in their native countries, and to the similar situation in which 
they found themselves on taking possession of their new domains.' We 
shall now offer a few remarks respecting them individually. 

No people at this period exhibited a more energetic character than the 
Franks, a Teutonic race originally settled on the Lower Rhine and Weser, 
and who had acquired their name (freemen) while successfully resisting 
the Roman power in an earlier age. About the year 486, they were un- 
der the rule of Clovis, who achieved the conquest of Gaul by the defeat 
of the Roman governor, and afterwards added Burgundy and Aquitaine to 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 121 

his dominions — the former by marriage, and the latter by the forcible ex- 
pulsion of the Visigoths. This may be considered as the foundation of 
the French monarchy. Clovis adopted the Christian faith, and caused his 
people to follow his example. It is remarkable that while in war he exer- 
cised unlimited power over his subjects, they shared with him the legisla- 
tive authority, meeting annually in the Champs de Mars to suggest and 
deliberate upon public measures, in the settlement of which the meanest 
soldier had equally a voice with his sovereign. 

At the death of Clovis in 511, his four sons divided the kingdom, which 
was afterwards reunited, divided again, and again united, amidst scenes of 
tumult and bloodshed. The line of kings proceeding from Clovis (called 
Merovignian from his grandsire Meroveus) dwindled in time into utter in- 
significance, while the chief power was wielded by an important officer, 
called the Mayor of the Palace. Among the most remarkable of these was 
Pepin Heristal, Duke of Austrasia, who ruled France for thirty years 
with great wisdom and good policy. His son, Charles Martel, who suc- 
ceeded to his power, distinguish himself by that great victory over the Sar- 
acens (a. d. 732), which checked their career in Europe. 

An appeal by Pepin le Bref, the son of Charles Martel, to the pope of 
Rome, whose authority had by this time become great, ruled that he who 
had the power should also have the title of king, and this put an end to 
the reign of the descendants of Clovis (752). Pepin remunerated the 
pope for this service by turning his arms against the Lombards in Italy, 
some of whose dominions he conferred upon the Holy See ; and these, 
it is said, were the first of the temporal possessions of the church. Pepin 
died (768), leaving two sons, Carloman and Charles, who succeeded him 
in the empire. Carloman died at an early period of life, but Charles (sub- 
sequently Charlemagne) survived to achieve for himself a fame far greater 
than that of any other individual during the middle ages, with perhaps the 
single exception of Mohammed. We shall proceed to speak of "him and of 
his times, after making one or two observations on some other European 
countries. 

Spain was among the earliest countries lost to the Roman Empire. 
From about the year 406, this country, in whole or in part, had been suc- 
cessively invaded and subdued by Suevi, Alans, Vandals, and Visigoths. 
The last-named people were in possession of the greater part of the coun- 
try before the year 585, and erected a monarchy which existed till 712, 
when they were subdued by the Saracens or Moors. The Saracens made 
their descent on Spain from Africa, where Nuza, a viceroy of the caliph 
of Bagdad, had already made extensive conquests. They easily overran 
Spain and vanquished Don Rodrigo, or Roderic, the last of the Gothic 
kings. Abdallah, son of Muza, married the widow of Roderic, and the 
two nations entered into union. Before the conclusion of the eighth cen- 
tury, Abdalrahman, one of the Moorish generals, had laid aside all tem- 
poral subjection to the caliph of Bagdad, and formed Spain into an inde- 
pendent kingdom. His residence was at Cordova, and this city became 
renowned as one .of the most enlightened in Europe under several succeed- 
ing reigns. Those parts of Spain which were under the Moorish kings 
embraced also their religion. The northern provinces never owned their 
dominion. 

Towards the conclusion of the sixth century, Italy was in the possession 



122 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of the Longobeards, or Lombards, who continued master of the greater 
part of it for two centuries. Of their rule, history has recorded little be- 
sides murders and confusion. 

It was during this period that the Saxon Heptarchy was formed in 
Britain. 

CHARLEMAGNE — THE NEW WESTERN EMPIRE. 

By far the greatest character who appeared in Europe at this period 
was Charles, the son of Pepin le Bref, and known in history by the name 
of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great. 'In the course of a reign of forty- 
five years,' says Mr. Tytler, f Charlemagne extended the limits of his em- 
pire beyond the Danube, subdued Dacia, Dalmatia, and Istria, conquered 
and subjected all the barbarous tribes to the banks of the Vistula, made 
himself master of a great portion of Italy, and successfully encountered 
the arms of the Saracens, the Huns, the Bulgarians, and the Saxons. 
His war with the Saxons was of thirty years ' duration ; and their final 
conquest was not achieved without an inhuman waste of blood. At the re- 
quest of the pope, and to discharge the obligations of his father Pepin to 
the holy see, Charlemagne, though allied by marriage to Desiderius, king 
of the Lombards, dispossessed that prince of all his dominions, and put a 
final period to the Lombard dominion in Italy (774). 

When Charlemagne made his first entry into Rome, he was crowned 
king of France and of the Lombards by Pope Adrian I ; and afterwards, 
on a second visit, he was consecrated Emperor of the West by the hands 
of Pope Leo III (800). He probably attached some importance to these 
rites, but it is to be remarked that, as yet, the pontiff was not in the en- 
joyment of that high influence by which he afterwards could confer or with- 
draw sovereignty at his pleasure. 

' It is probable,' continues the authority above quoted, ' that had Charle- 
magne chosen Rome for his residence and seat of government, and at his 
death transmitted to his successor an undivided dominion, that great but 
fallen empire might have once more been restored to lustre and respect ; 
but Charlemagne had no fixed capital, and he divided, even in his lifetime, 
his dominion among his children (806).' Charlemagne died in the year 
814, aged seventy-two. His last days were employed in consolidating, 
rather than extending, his empire, by the making of laws which have ren- 
dered his name famous, and his memory even blessed. ' Though engaged 
in so many wars,' says Dr. Russell, ' Charlemagne was far from neglecting 
the arts of peace, the happiness of his subjects, or the cultivation of his own 
mind. Government, manners, religion, and letters, were his constant pur- 
suits. He frequently convened the national assemblies for regulating the 
affairs both of church and state. In these assemblies he proposed such laws 
as he considered to be of public benefit, and allowed the same liberty to 
others ; but of this liberty, indeed, it would have been difficult to deprive 
the French nobles, who had been accustomed, from the foundation of the 
monarchy, to share the legislation with their sovereign. His attention ex- 
tended even to the most distant corners of his empire, and to all ranks of 
men. He manifested a particular regard for the common people, and stud- 
ied their ease and advantage. The same love of mankind led him to re- 
pair and form public roads ; to build bridges where necessary ; to make 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 123 

rivers navigable for the purposes of commerce ; and to project that grand 
canal which would have opened a communication between the German 
Ocean and the Black Sea, by uniting the Danube and the Rhine.' Amidst 
all his greatness, his personal habits were simple ; his dress was of the plain- 
est sort, and such even as to shame his own courtiers ; his hours of study 
set apart, and seldom omitted even in the busiest times of his life ; his 
daughters were taught spinning and housewifery, and his sons trained by 
himself in all the accomplishments of the age. Charlemagne was fond of 
the company of learned men, and greatly encouraged their residence in his 
dominions. In this respect he resembled his cotemporary Haroun Ras- 
chid, so famous in Arabian history, and Alfred the Great, who appeared in 
England shortly after this period. Superior to all national prejudice, he 
elevated an Englishman named Alcuin to the head of his royal academy. 
He was zealous for the extension of Christianity ; and one of the few blots 
upon his name arises from his having, in the spirit of his age, caused 4000 
Saxon prisoners to be beheaded in one day, because they would not submit 
to be baptized. Charlemagne established schools in the cathedrals and 
principal abbeys, for the teaching of writing, arithmetic, grammar, logic, 
and music. 

Of the sons of Charlemagne, Louis, the youngest, surnamed the Debon- 
naire, or gentle, was the only one who survived. He succeeded to all his 
father's dominions, except Italy, which fell into the hands of Bernard, a 
grandson of Charlemagne. Louis, deficient in vigor of character, was un- 
able to hold together the great empire left to him by his father. Having, 
among the first acts of his reign, given large portions of it to his children, 
the remainder of his life was spent in disgraceful quarrels with them ; and 
after his death (840), the empire was formally divided — Lothaire, his eld- 
est son, obtaining Lorraine and Provence ; while Charles the Bald, a young- 
er son, continued sovereign of the western parts of France ; and Louis be- 
came king of Germany. Thus abruptly terminates the history of the sec- 
ond western empire. 

FRANCE FROM THE TIME OF CHARLES THE BALD TO THE ELEVENTH 

CENTURY. 

During the reign of Charles the Bald, France first suffered from the at- 
tacks of the Normans, a race of bold and needy adventurers from the north 
of Europe. Their plundering invasions were continued for upwards of 
seventy years ; till at length (912) the French king was compelled to pur- 
chase their amity by yielding to Rollo their leader the country afterwards 
from them called Normandy, of which Rouen was the capital. The first 
successor of Charles the Bald with whose name history has associated any- 
thing worth remembering, was Charles, surnamed the Fat (885). He was 
the son of that Louis to whom Germany had been before assigned, and was 
thus enabled to bring that country and France for a short time once more 
under a single ruler. In the turbulence of the times Charles was soon de- 
posed ; and during the century which followed, France, so lately the cen- 
tre of an empire little less than that of Rome in the days of its Caesars, was 
split up into a multitude of independencies, by nobles who would own only 
a very slender subjection to the kings. Out of these nobles at last sprang 
Hugh Capet (987), who was enabled, on the death of Louis V, to place 



124 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

himself on the throne. He was already possessed of great property, and 
proved to be also a prince of much ability and penetration. He established 
the royal residence at Paris, which his predecessors had deserted, and be- 
came the founder of a family which, in one of its branches, occupied the 
throne of France till the overthrow of monarchy in 1848. He deserves to 
be mentioned with honor, as being among the first of European kings who 
trusted to prudence, counsel, and moderation, rather than force of arms, in 
effecting his purposes. On his death (996), in the fifty-seventh year of 
his age and the tenth of his reign, he was succeeded by his son Robert, who 
had all his father's equitable disposition without his vigor of character. He 
was subjected to a degree of tyranny on the part of the church of which 
perhaps the history of the world does not afford such another example. 
Robert had been guilty of marrying a cousin in the fourth degree without a 
dispensation from the Holy See — that is, without paying a fine for what 
was only an imaginary offense. Gregory V, who then occupied the pon- 
tifical chair, threatened to excommunicate Robert if he should not dismiss 
his wife, and, on Robert's refusal, actually did so, and laid all his domin- 
ions under an interdict. This punishment proved tremendous in its effects ; 
for though the king himself showed sense and courage enough to despise 
the wrath of the pontiff, yet his subjects deserted him in terror. The 
priests, in consequence of the interdict, refused sacrament to the sick all 
over the country, and the dead were everywhere left unburied. when mass 
was no longer said. In these circumstances the unfortunate king submit- 
ted. A second marriage, contracted with the consent of the church, 
proved very unhappy. The new queen, Constantia, or Constance, made 
many efforts to embroil her husband and his family, and in the midst of 
these Robert died (1031). His son Henry succeeded, and it was during 
his reign that those pilgrimages to the Holy Land, which were so soon to 
end in the Crusades, took their rise. Of these we shall speak by them- 
selves. In the meantime we take leave of France by mentioning that Hen- 
ry's successor was Philip (1060), whose reign is remarkable as having 
witnessed the beginning of those contests with England which continued at 
intervals till the early part of the nineteenth century. 

At this period (1066) the Norman3 invaded and conquered England, 
where their leader, William, Duke of Normandy, became the founder of 
an important dynasty. 

THE GERMAN EMPIRE BEFORE THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. 

Germany had no political existence until the time of Charlemagne, when 
it was formed by him into part of the western empire. Towards the con- 
clusion of the ninth century it became an empire of itself. In the year 
887, Arnold, a natural son of Charloman, and nephew of Charles the Fat, 
was declared emperor by an assembly of bishops and nobles. These as- 
semblies in Germany always retained a voice in the election of their em- 
perors ; and though they often made their choice from the line of success- 
ion, they never acknowledged any hereditary rights whatever. After the 
death of Arnold's son, called Louis III, their choice fell upon Conrad, 
Duke of Franconia (912). Conrad's successor was Henry I, surnamed 
the Fowler. He was a prince of great abilities, and introduced order and 
good government into the empire. 'He united the grandees and curbed 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 125 

their usurpations ; built, embellished, and fortified cities ; and enforced 
with great rigor the execution of the laws in the repression of all enor- 
mities. He had been consecrated by his own bishops, and maintained no 
correspondence with the see of Rome. His son, Otho the Great, who suc- 
ceeded him (938), united Italy to the Empire, and kept the popedom in 
complete subjection. He made Denmark tributary to the imperial crown, 
annexed the crown of Bohemia to his own dominions, and seemed to aim 
at a paramount authority over all the sovereigns of Europe.' 

In these times the papacy was much disordered. 'Formosus, twice ex 
communicated by Pope John VIII, had himself arrived at the triple 
crown. On his death, his rival, Pope Stephen VII, caused his body to be 
dug out of the grave, and after trial for his crimes, condemned it to be 
flung into the Tiber. The friends of Formosus fished up the corpse, and 
had interest to procure the deposition of Stephen, who was strangled in 
prison. A succeeding pope, Sergius III, again dug up the ill-fated car- 
case, and once more threw it into the river. Two infamous women, Ma- 
rosia and Theodora, managed the popedom for many years, and filled the 
chair of St Peter with their own gallants or their adulterous offspring.' — 
Tytler. It was amidst this confusion and these disturbances that Otho was 
induced to turn his arms on Italy. He shortly became master of it all, 
and had himself declared emperor by the Holy See, with all the pomp that 
had attended the same ceremony to Charlemagne (962). Pope John 
XII, whom Otho had been the means of raising to the pontifical chair, 
rebelled soon after. Otho returned to Rome in fury, had John deposed, 
hanged one-half of the senate before he left the city, and wrung a solemn 
acknowledgement from an assembly of reluctant bishops, that the emperor 
had a right not only to nominate to vacant bishoprics, but also to elect the 
pope himself. Otho died (972), and was followed in succession by Otho 
II, Otho III, St. Henry, Conrad II, and Henry III, the history of 
whose reigns exhibits nothing instructive, or upon which the mind can rest 
with pleasure. Henry IV (1056) was a distinguished victim of papal 
tyranny. The celebrated Hildebrand, known as Gregory VII, was in this 
age the means of raising the power of the church to a height which it had 
never reached before. During Henry's contest with this daring and ambi- 
tious pontiff, he made him twice his prisoner, and twice did the thunders 
of the Vatican excommunicate and depose him in consequence. As a 
specimen of the power and insolence of this pope, we may mention that 
Henry, dispirited by the effect which his excommunication had upon his 
friends and followers, having resolved to go to Rome and ask absolution 
from Gregory in person, did so ; and presenting himself as a humble peni- 
tent at the palace of St Peter, was there stripped of his robes, and obliged 
to remain in that condition, in an outer court, in the month of January 
(1077), barefooted, among snow, and fasting, for three successive days, 
before he was allowed to implore forgiveness for his offences ! On the 
fourth day he was permitted to kiss the toe of his holiness, and then receiv 
ed absolution ! Henry died in 1106. 

FROM THE NINTH TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. 

Italy. The state of Italy during this period has been already partially 
noticed in the preceding section. From the time of Lothaire, to whom it 



tel 




128 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA 

was nominally assigned as a separate kingdom (843), to that of Otho the 
Great (964), the country was raraged by contending tyrants. Between 
the invasions of the Normans on the one hand, and the claims of the Ger- 
man emperors on the other, it became much distracted, and was ultimately 
split up into several independent states. Some of these, particularly 
Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, became afterwards independent and 
powerful republics. It was during this period that the foundation of the 
temporal power of the popes was laid. 

Spain. During the period of which we have been treating, Spain 
seemed less a part of Europe than any other country in it. The greater 
part of it still continued under the dominion of the Moors, and apparently 
with advantage. ' This period,' says Mr. Tytler, ' from the middle of the 
eight to the middle of the tenth century, is a most brilliant era of Arabian 
magnificence. Whilst Haroun al Raschid made Bagdad illustrious by the 
splendor of the arts and sciences, the Moors of Cordova vied with their 
brethren of Asia in the same honorable pursuits, and were undoubtly at 
this period the most enlightened of the states in Europe. Under a series 
of able princes, they gained the highest reputation, both in arts and arms, 
of all the nations of the West.' And yet these Eastern conquerors seem 
to have had their troubles as well as others. A race of powerful nobles 
among them, as in the other countries of Europe, distracted the country, 
and made effective government impossible. The Christian part of the pop- 
ulation, still possessed of several provinces in the north, might have taken 
advantage of such a state of things for repossessing themselves of their 
lost country ; but civil dissension was still greater among themselves ; and 
Christian princes readily formed alliances with the Moors, if they saw a 
prospect of weakening an immediate enemy by that means, forgetting that 
the common foe still remained to harass them. But the detail of these nu- 
merous and petty contentions need not detain us longer ; nor does the his- 
tory of Spain assume any importance till towards the conclusion of the 
fifteenth century, when the united arms of Ferdinand and Isabella expel- 
led the Moors for ever from the country. 

GENERAL STATE OF EUROPE IN THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. 

Before the end of the tenth century, Europe had reached a point of 
darkness and degradation beyond which it seemed impossible to go. Though 
long nominally converted to the Christian religion, the nations of Europe 
may be said to have scarcely exhibited, up to this period, a single distinc- 
tive mark of what men understand by Christian civilization. ' The barbar- 
ous nations,' says Dr. Robertson, ' when converted to Christianity, changed 
the object, not the spirit of their religious worship. They endeavored to 
conciliate the favor of the true God by means not unlike to those which 
they had employed in order to appease their false deities. Instead of as- 
piring to sanctity and virtue, which alone can render men acceptable to the 
great Author of order and of excellence, they imagined that they satisfied 
every obligation of duty by a scrupulous observance of external ceremo- 
nies. Religion, according to their conception of it, comprehended nothing 
else ; and the rites by which they persuaded themselves that they should 
gain the favor of Heaven, were of such a nature as might have been ex- 
pected from the rude ideas of the ages which devised and introduced them. 



DEPARTMENT OF IIISTORY. 129 

They were either so unmeaning as to be altogether unworthy of the Being 
to whose honor they were consecrated, or so absurd as to be a disgrace to 
reason and humanity. Charlemagne in France, and Alfred the Great in 
England, endeavored to dispel this darkness, and gave their subjects a slight 
glimpse of light and knowledge. But the ignorance of the age was too 
powerful for their efforts and institutions. The darkness returned, and 
settled over Europe more thick and heavy than before.' The clergy were 
the only body of men among whom any knowledge or learning now remain- 
ed ; and this superiority they employed to continue, if not to deepen, the 
degradation into which society had fallen. The superstitious belief that 
moral crimes could be expiated by presents to the Deity, if not originated 
by them, at least found them its strenuous defenders, for the reason that a 
gift to God meant, in plainer language, a solatium to the church. The 
priests would have made men believe that avarice was the first attribute of 
the Deity, and that the saints made a traffic of their influence with Heaven. 
Hence Clovis is said to have jocularly remarked, that ' though St. Martin 
served his friends very well, he also made them pay well for his trouble.' 

Persons in the highest ranks and most exalted stations could neither read 
nor write. Of the clergy themselves, many of them did not understand 
the Breviary which it was their duty to recite ; and some of them, it is as- 
serted, could scarcely read it. Those among the laity who had to express 
their assent in writing, did so by a sign of the cross attached to the docu- 
ment (sometimes also by a seal) ; and to this day, in consequence, we 
speak of signing a document when we subscribe our names. 

The evils of the feudal system, too, had by this time become excessive 
and insupportable. Every petty chief was a king in his own dominions, 
and his vassals were his subjects, if indeed they should not be called slaves. 
These barons made laws of their own, held courts of their own, coined 
money in their own names, and levied war at their own pleasure against 
their enemies ; and these enemies were not unfrequently their kings. In- 
deed the kings of these times can be looked upon in no other light than as 
superior lords, receiving a nominal and empty homage for lands which, in 
the fictitious language of feudal law, were said to be held of the crown. 
In these circumstances, what might we expect to be the condition of the 
great body of the people ? They were either actual slaves, or exposed to 
so many miseries, arising from pillage and oppression, that many of them 
made a voluntary surrender of their liberty in exchange for bread and 
protection from the feudal lords. There was no people, as that term is now 
understood. ' There was nothing morally in common,' says Guizot, ' be- 
tween the lord and the serfs ; they formed part of his domains, and were 
his property ; under which designation were comprised all the rights that 
we at present call rights of public sovereignty, as well as the privileges of 
private property ; he having the right of giving laws, of imposing taxes, 
and of inflicting punishment, as well as that of disposing and selling. In 
fact, as between the lord and the laborers on his domain, there were no 
recognized laws, no guarantees, no society, at least so far as may be pred- 
icated of any state in which men are brought into contact.' In what way 
society rose above so many accumulated evils, and light sprang from so 
much darkness, we shall now endeavor to show. The most remarkable and 
the most lasting influence, beyond all question, was that exerted by the 

Crusades. 

y * 



130 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



THE CRUSADES. 

' It is natural to the human mind,' says Dr. Robertson, ' to view tnose 
places which have been distinguished by being the residence of any cele- 
brated personage, or the scene of any great transaction, with some degree 
of delight and veneration. To this principle must be ascribed the super- 
stitious devotion with which Christians, from the earliest ages of the 
church, were accustomed to visit that country which the Almighty had se 
lected as the inheritance of his favorite people, and in which the Son of 
God had accomplished the redemption of mankind. As this distant pil- 
grimage could not be performed without considerable expense, fatigue, 
and danger, it appeared the more meritorious, and came to be considered 
as an expiation for almost every crime. An opinion which spread with 
rapidity over Europe about the close of the tenth and beginning of the 
eleventh century, and which gained universal credit, wonderfully augment- 
ed the number of credulous pilgrims, and increased the ardor with which 
they undertook this useless voyage. The thousand years mentioned by 
St. John [Rev. xx. 2, 3, 4] were supposed to be accomplished, and the 
end of the world to be at hand. A general consternation seized mankind ; 
many relinquished their possessions, and, abandoning their friends and 
families, hurried with precipitation to the Holy Land, where they imagined 
that Christ would quickly appear to judge the world. 

While Palestine continued subject to the caliphs, they had encouraged 
the resort of pilgrims to Jerusalem, and considered this as a beneficial spe- 
cies of commerce, which brought into their dominions gold and silver, and 
carried nothing out of them but relics and consecrated trinkets. But the 
Turks having conquered Syria about the middle of the eleventh century, 
pilgrims were exposed to outrages of every kind from these fierce barba- 
rians. This change happening precisely at the juncture when the panic 
terror which I have mentioned rendered pilgrimages most frequent, filled 
Europe with alarm and indignation. Every person who returned from 
Palestine related the dangers he had encountered in visiting the holy city, 
and described with exaggeration the cruelty and vexations of the infidel 
Turks. 

Among the most notorious of those who had returned with these accounts, 
was a monk known by the name of Peter the Hermit. By all accounts 
this individual seems to have been a weak-minded and contemptible being. 
He is represented as running from city to city, and from kingdom to king- 
dom, bareheaded, with naked arms and legs, and bearing aloft a ponderous 
crucifix in his hand, imploring and preaching with an enthusiastic madness 
on the necessity of wresting the Holy Land from the hands of the infidels. 
In a more enlightened age, Peter the Hermit would probably have been 
confined as a troublesome lunatic ; in this, however, he was not only al- 
lowed to go on, but was encouraged and abetted in his career. The ambi- 
tious Hildebrande had expressed a strong desire to send armed forces from 
Europe to exterminate the Mohammedans from Palestine, in order that an- 
other country might be brought under his spiritual subjection ; and Urban 
II, who at this time occupied the chair of St. Peter, warmly seconded the 
efforts of the enthusiastic monk. Nor was Peter's success small. Vast 
multitudes proclaimed themselves ready to engage in the undertaking. Two 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 131 

great councils of the church, one of them held at Placentia, and the other 
at Clermont, in Auvergne, attended by prelates, princes, and immense mul 
titudesof the common people, declared enthusiastically for the war (1095). 
The pope himself attended at the last, and Peter and he having both ad- 
dressed the multitude, they all exclaimed, as if impelled by an immediate 
inspiration, 'It is the will of God! it is the will of God!' These words 
were thought so remarkable, that they were afterwards employed as the 
motto on the sacred standard, and came to be looked upon as the signal of 
battle and rendezvous in all the future exploits of the champions of the 
cross. Persons of all ranks now flew to arms with the utmost ardor. The 
remission of penance, the dispensation of those practices which supersti- 
tion imposed or suspended at pleasure, the absolution of all sins, and the 
assurance, of eternal felicity, were the rewards held out by the church to 
all who joined the enterprise ; and ' to the more vulgar class,' says Mr. 
Hallam, ' were held out inducements which, though absorbed in the over- 
ruling fanaticism of the first Crusade, might be exceedingly efficacious when 
it began to flag. During the time that a Crusader bore the cross, he was 
free from suits for his debts, and the interest of them was entirely abolished ; 
he was exempted, in some instances at least, from taxes, and placed under 
the protection of the church, so that he could not be impleaded in any civil 
court, except in criminal charges or questions relating to land.' 

It was in the spring of the year 1096, that Peter set out for Judea, at 
the head of a promiscuous assemblage of 80,000 men, with sandals on his 
feet, a rope about his waist, and every other mark of monkish austerity. 
Soon after, a more numerous and better disciplined force of 200,000 fol- 
lowed, including some able and experienced leaders. Godfrey of Bouillon, 
Robert, Duke of Normandy (son of William the Conqueror of England), 
the Counts of Vermendois, Toulouse, and Blois, are a few of the more il- 
lustrious. The progress of this immense mass of human beings on their 
journey was marked by misery and famine. They had vainly trusted to 
Heaven for a supernatural supply of their wants, and in their disappoint- 
ment they had plundered all that came in their way. ' So many crimes 
and so much misery,' says Mr. Hallam, ' have seldom been accumulated in 
so short a space, as in the three years of the first expedition ;' and another 
historian says that a 'fresh supply of German and Italian vagabonds,' re- 
ceived on the way, were even guilty of pillaging the churches. It is cer- 
tain that before the hermit reached Constantinople, the number of his forces 
had dwindled down to 20,000. Alexis Comnenus, then emperor of Con- 
stantinople, who had applied to the states of Europe for assistance, without 
much hope of obtaining it, in order that he might be enabled to resist a 
threatened attack by the Turks upon himself, was surprised and terrified 
at the motley group of adventurers who had now reached the shore of his 
dominions. He readily afforded them the means for transporting them- 
selves across the Bosphorus, and performed the same friendly office to the 
larger force which followed under Godfrey and others ; glad, apparently, 
to have the barbarians of the north, as his subjects called them, out of his do- 
minions. The Sultan Solyman met the army of the hermit, if army it 
could be called, and cut the greater part of it to pieces on the plains of 
Nicea. The second host proved more successful. In spite of their want 
of discipline, their ignorance of the country, the scarcity of provisions, and 
the excess of fatigue, their zeal, their bravery, and their irresistible force, 



332 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

enabled them twice to overthrow old Solyman, to take his capital Nice, and 
after an obstinate resistance, the citjof Antioch also (1098). At length 
(1099) they reached Jerusalem, much diminished in numbers, and broken 
in spirit ; but with persevering assiduity they proceeded to lay siege to the 
city, and in six weeks they became its masters. Their cruel conduct to 
the inhabitants attests the barbarous feelings of their hearts. ' Neither 
arms defended the valiant, nor submission the timorous ; no age nor sex 
was spared ; infants on the breast were pierced by the same blow with 
their mothers, who implored for mercy ; even a multitude of ten thousand 
persons who surrendered themselves prisoners and who were promised quar- 
ters, were butchered in cold blood by these ferocious conquerers. The streets 
of Jerusalem were covered with dead bodies. The triumphant war- 
riors, after every enemy was subdued and slaughtered, turned themselves, 
with sentiments of humiliation and contrition, towards the holy sepulchre. 
They threw aside their arms, still streaming with blood; they advanced 
with reclined bodies and naked feet and heads to that sacred monument ; 
they sung anthems to Him who had purchased their salvation by His death 
and agony ; and their devotion, enlivened by the presence of the place where 
He had suffered, so overcame their fury, that they dissolved in tears, and 
bore the appearance of every soft and tender sentiment. So inconsistent 
is human nature with itself, and so easily does the most effeminate super- 
stition ally both with the most heroic courage and with the fiercest barbarity !' 

With a becoming foresight, the Crusaders established a Christian king 
dom in the heart of Palestine ; and at the head of it, by universal consent 
was placed Godfrey, whose goodness and justice had signalized him, and 
gained him respect in the midst of the general wickedness. The pope, 
however, was too eager to enjoy the triumph to which he had looked forward, 
and sending an ignorant and obtruding ecclesiastic to assume this command, 
Godfrey retired ; and thus was lost undoubtedly the best chance that Euro- 
peans ever had of really posessing the Holy Land. The Turks had now 
time to recover their strength and renew their attacks : they did so : many 
of the Crusaders had in the meantime returned home, and those of them 
who remained, surrounded and menaced by such foes, at last implored aid 
from Christendom. There the spirit which had been raised by Peter the 
Hermit was far from being extinguished ; and another, more eloquent and 
more learned than Peter — namely, St. Bernard — had arisen to keep alive 
the flame of devotion. Roused by his preachings, Europe sent forth a sec- 
ond Crusade (1147). It consisted of 200,000 French, Germans, and 
English, in two divisions, the first led on by Conrad III of Germany, and 
the second by Louis VII of France. Strangely enough, both these lea- 
ders permitted themselves to be drawn into a snare by false guides, fur- 
nished by the Greek emperor ; and both armies, one after another, were 
withdrawn amidst the rocks of Laodicea, and after being nearly starved 
by famine, they were cut to pieces by the Sultan of Iconium. This Cru- 
sade proved the most disastrous of them all. ' Thousands of ruined fami 
lies,' says Russell, ' exclaimed against St. Bernard for his deluding prophe- 
cies : he excused himself by the example of Moses, who, like him, he said, 
had promised to conduct the Israelites into a happy country, and yet saw 
the first generation perish in the desert.' 

Itwas shortly after this period that the illustrious Saladin appeared (1180). 
Born among an obscure Turkish tribe, this individual fixed himself by his 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 183 

bravery and conduct on the throne of Egypt and began to extend his con- 
quest in the East. The still existing, though wretchedly-supported king- 
dom of the Christians in Palestine, proving an obstacle to the progress of 
his arms, Saladin directed his power against it, and assisted by the treach 
ery of the Count of Tripoli, he completely overcame the Christians in battle 
(1187). The holy city itself fell into his hands after a feeble resistance; 
and except some cities on the coast, noching remained to the Christians of 
all that a century before, it cost Europe so much to acquire. The followers 
of the cross, however, were not yet wholly disheartened ; and a third great 
Crusade was entered into before the end of the twelfth century. 

The three greatest sovereigns of Europe — Fredrick Barbarossa of Ger- 
many, Philip Augustus of France, and Richard Coeur de Lion of England 
— all took part in the scheme. The forces of Fredrick were earliest in the 
field. He had passed through the unfriendly territories of the Greek em- 
pire, crossed the Hellespont, and defeated the infidels in several battles, 
before Richard or Philip had stirred from home. The Christians of the 
East were beginning to look with hope and pride on so great assistance ; 
but they seemed fated to be unfortunate. Fredrick died (1190) from 
having thrown his body, heated by exertion, into the cold river of Cydnus ; 
and his army, like the others that had gone before it, dwindled into noth- 
ing. The united armies of Richard and Philip followed. In their progress, 
the feelings of envy and national hatred rose above the object which had 
brought them together. Philip returned, disgusted or dismayed, shortly 
after they reached their destination ; and Richard was thus left alone to 
uphold the glory of European arms. He did it nobly. With a mixed army 
of French, German, and English soldiers, amounting in all to 30,000, 
Richard performed feats of valor which have not been surpassed in the 
history of any time or nation. On the plains of Ascalon, a tremendous 
battle was fought with Saladin, and that brave and great man was defeated, 
and 40,000 of his soldiers are said to have been left dead upon the field of 
battle. But this conquest was unavailing, and the followers of Richard 
began to fear that there would be no end to their struggles. The zeal which 
had brought so many of them from their homes, and sustained them so long 
in absence, at last abated. Saladin readily concluded a treaty by which 
Christians might still be permitted to visit the tomb of Christ unmolested, 
and Richard left the Holy Land for ever. It is due to the memory of 
Saladin (who did not long survive this period) to state that, after he made 
himself master of Jerusalem, he never molested the Christians in their de- 
votions — a circumstance which, by contrast, reflects infinite disgrace on 
the cruel barbarities of the first Crusaders. In his last will he ordered 
alms to be distributed among the poor, without distinction of Jew, Christian, 
or Mohammedan ; intending by this bequest to intimate that all men are 
brethren, and that when we would assist them, we ought not to inquire 
what they believe, but what they feel — an admirable lesson to Christians, 
though from a Mohammedan. But the advantages in science, in moderation, 
and humanity, seem at this period to have been all on the side of the 
Saracens. 

There were no more great Crusades. Considerable bands of private ad- 
venturers still continued to move eastward ; but disaster and disgrace atten- 
ded every effort, and Europe at last became disheartened when the bones 
of two millions of her sons lay whitened on the plains of Asia, and so little 



134 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

had been accomplished. Nevertheless, in the year 1202, Baldwin, Count 
of Flanders, was able to raise another considerable army for the rescue of 
the Holy Sepulchre ; but having reached Constantinople at a time when 
there was a dispute in the succession to the throne, he readily laid aside 
the project of the Crusade, took part in the quarrel, and in the course of 
five months he was himself the emperor. The citizens of Venice in Italy, 
who had lent their vessels for this enterprise, shared in the triumphs of the 
piratical Crusaders : they obtained the Isle of Candia, or Crete. Baldwin, 
however, was soon driven from the throne, and murdered ; though the Lat- 
ins, as his successors from the West were called, kept possession of Con- 
stantinople for fifty-seven years. 

At this period (1227) a great revolution took place in Asia. Ghenghis 
Khan, at the head of a body of Tartars, broke down from the north upon 
Persia and Syria, and massacred indiscriminately Turks, Jews, and Chris- 
tians, who opposed them. The European settlements in Palestine must 
soon have yielded to these invaders, had not their fate been for a while re- 
tarded by the last attempt at a Crusade under Louis IX of France. This 
prince, summoned, as he believed, by Heaven, after four years' preparation 
set out for the Holy Land with his queen, his three brothers, and all the 
knights of France (1248). His army began their enterprise, and we 
may say ended it also, by an unsuccessful attack on Egypt. The king 
went home, and reigned prosperously and wisely for thirteen years ; but 
the same frenzy again taking possession of him, he embarked on a Crusade 
against the Moors in Africa, where his army was destroyed by a pestilence, 
and he himself became its victim (1270). 

Before the end of the thirteenth century (1291) the Christians were 
driven out of all their Asiatic possessions. ' The only common enterprise,' 
says Robertson, ' in which the European nations were engaged, and which 
they all undertook with equal ardor, remains a singular monument of hu 
man folly.' 

INSTITUTION OF CHIVALRY, ETC. 

Among the most remarkable institutions of the middle ages was that of 
Chivalry. The institution was certainly not the result of caprice, nor a 
source of unmixed extravagance, as it has been represented, but an effort 
of human nature to express its feelings of love, honor and benevolence, at 
a time when the spirit of liberty was extinguished, and religion had become 
debased. The feudal state was a state of perpetual war, rapine, and an- 
archy, during which the weak and unarmed were often exposed to injuries. 
Public protective law scarcely had an existence ; and in these circumstan- 
ces assistance came oftenest and most effectually from the arms of private 
friends. It was the same feeling of courage, united to a strong sense of 
duty, which both gave rise to chivalry, and led such multitudes to join the 
Crusades. Chivalry existed before them, and it survived them. Those 
whose devoted themselves to a life of chivalry were called knights, end 
sometimes knight-errants, in allusion to their habits of wandering from c ne 
country to another in search of helpless objects, which their generosity 
might find a pleasure in relieving and defending. Admission to the order 
of knighthood was long reckoned an honor of the highest sort : and to ful- 
fill the vows which entrants took upon them might well be considered so. 
They were bound, ' by God, by St. Michael, and St. George,' to be loyal, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 135 

brave, and hardy ; to protect the innocent, to redress the injuries of tho 
wronged ; and, above all, to uphold and defend the characters of women. 
The institution of chivalry is sometimes thought to have thrown an air of 
ridiculousness upon everything connected with the softer sex, and some of 
the vagaries of knight-errantry gave sufficient countenance to such a sup- 
position ; but on the whole we are bound to rate its beneficial influences in 
elevating the female character high indeed, when we contrast the gross 
and groveling situation held by the sex in former times with the high and 
virtuous emotions that we have learned to associate in modern times with 
the name of woman. If the whole of this effect is not to be ascribed to 
chivalry, not a little of it must certainly be so ; nor do its beneficial effects 
end here. The feelings of honor, courtesy, and humanity, which distin- 
guished it, spread themselves into other parts of conduct. War, in partic- 
ular, was conducted with less ferocity, and humanity came to be deemed 
as necessary to an accomplished soldier as courage. The idea of a gentler- 
man is wholly the production of chivalry ; and during the twelfth, thir- 
teenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, a sense of honor and a refinement 
of manners towards enemies sprung up, which have extended to modern 
times, and form a distinguishing feature of them. 

The history of the Crusades has carried us over nearly two centuries of 
the history of Europe. But Europe might be said, almost without exag- 
geration, to have been then in Asia. It was certainly not the scene of any 
transaction of importance during all that period. The numerous quarrels, 
both public and private, which had before agitated the several countries, 
and had constituted all their history, gave way, by mutual consent, as well 
as by the orders of the church, to the one idea which then reigned supreme 
among them. Society was thus unconsciously the means of permitting 
some of those powerful and pacific principles to come into play, which were 
soon to give it a new destiny. The absence of so many great barons du- 
ring the time of the Crusades, was a means of enabling the common peo- 
ple, who have hitherto lived as their slaves, to raise themselves in public 
standing and estimation; while the possessions of many of these barons, 
by sale or the death of their owners without heirs, reverted to the sover- 
eigns. In this way the power of the people and of royalty advanced to- 
gether, and both at the expense of the class of nobility. The people were 
not unwilling to exchange the mastery of inferiors for that of a superior ; 
and the kings, on their part, looked on this rising power of the people with 
pleasure, as it offered a shield to protect them from the insolence of tho 
nobles. In these circumstances boroughs began to flourish. This was a 
new element in the progress of civilization. Men who had hitherto skulk- 
ed in castles, and had sacrificed their liberties and their lives for bread 
and protection from isolated chiefs, now found that, by a union among them 
selves, they might secure bread by industry, and protection and liberty by 
mutual aid. Multitudes, therefore, forsook their feudal subservience to 
enjoy independent citizenship. Villeins, or laborers, joyfully escaped, to 
take their place on a footing of equality with freemen ; and sovereigns 
found means to pass a law that if a slave should take refuge, in any of the 
new cities, and be allowed to remain there unclaimed for a twelvemonth, 
he had thereby become free, and was henceforth a member of the commu- 
nity. Another improvement which kings were able to introduce about 
this time was the gradual abolition of minor courts of justice, which barons 



136 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

had previously held in their several domains, and their getting public and 
universal law administered by judges of their own appointment. Even 
single combat, the practice most inveterately adhered to of any among the 
ancient nobles, became less frequent and less honorable. The more revolt 
ing and absurd features of it were wholly abolished, though the great 
absurdity, and indeed the great crime itself, cannot be said to have become 
totally extinct, even up to our own day, when we recollect that the bar- 
barous practice of duelling is still permitted to exist. 

The effect, however, produced by the Crusades, which proved greatest in 
its consequences, though perhaps it was the most unlooked for at the time, 
was the rise of commerce. The first of these expeditions had journeyed to 
Constantinople by land ; but the sufferings were so great, that all the rest 
were induced to go by sea. The Italian cities of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, 
furnished the vessels which conveyed them ; and the sums of money ob- 
tained by the freight of so many and so great armies were immense. This, 
however, was but a small part of what the Italian citizens gained by 
the expeditions to the Holy Land. The Crusaders contracted with them 
for military stores and provisions ; and any of the Asiatic possessions of 
value, which came temporarily into the hands of the Christians, became 
emporiums of commerce for them. The sweet reward of labor was thus 
first felt for ages in Europe. New arts were brought from the East, and 
many of those natural productions of the warmer climates were first intro- 
duced into the West, which have since afforded the materials of a lucrative 
and extended commerce. We will allude in a separate section to the bril 
liant career of several of the Italian Republics. 

In these views we represent the fairest side of the picture. There were 
yet many obstacles in the way of a complete and harmonious* evolution of 
the principles of civilization. But the elements all seemed now to have ac- 
quired existence, and time only was required to consolidate and strengthen 
them. 

FROM THE CRUSADES TO THE MIDDLE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY- 
RISE OF SOME NEW POWERS. 

The most remarkable general feature of European society about the 
time of the Crusades was the papal influence. Between the pontiffs and 
the German emperors there was kept up a perpetual struggle for power ; 
but for a long time the advantage was almost always with the popes. The 
treatment which some of the emperors received from them was extremely 
humiliating. Frederick Barbarossa was compelled to kiss the feet of his ho- 
liness, Alexander III, and to appease him by a large cession of territory, after 
having indignantly denied his supremacy, and refused the customary homage. 
Henry VI, while doing homage on his knees, had his imperial crown kicked 
off by Pope Celestinus, who, however, made some amends for this indigni- 
ty by the gift of Naples and Sicily. Henry had expelled the Normans 
from these territories, which now became appendages of the German em- 
pire (1194). In the beginning of the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent 
HI was imagined to have permanently established the powers of the Holy 
See, and its right to confer the imperial crown ; but this proved far from 
being the case. In the time of Frederick II, who succeeded Otho IV 
(1212), the old contentions rose to more than the usual height, and two 



DEPAKTMENT OF HISTORY. 137 

factions sprung up in Italy, known by the names of Guelphs and Ghibel- 
lines, the former maintaining the supremacy of the popes, and the latter 
that of the emperors. Frederick maintained the contest which now arose 
between himself and the popes with much spirit ; but on his death (1250) 
the splendor of the empire was for a considerable time obscured. At length 
Rodolph of Hapsbourg, a Swiss baron, was elected emperor (1274). Ro- 
dolph became the founder of the House of Austria, and ruled with both 
vigor and moderation. His son Albert I was the means of causing the in- 
habitants of Switzerland to assert and obtain their liberty, by his attempt- 
ing to bind them in subjection to one of his children, and then using force 
to compel them. In the pass of Morgarten, a small army of four or five 
hundred of these brave mountaineers defeated an immense host of Austri- 
ans (1315). Sixty pitched battles, it is said, were fought between the 
contending parties ; but the spirit of William Tell, who appeared at this 
time, and of his patriot countrymen, rose above all attempts to enslave 
them ; and the Swiss cantons secured a freedom which their descendants 
enjoy to this day. The further history of Germany, for nearly a century, 
is not politically important. Disputes between the emperors and the papa- 
cy still continued, though the balance of advantage was now oftener against 
the church. 

About the beginning of the fifteenth century, the great papal schism, as 
it has been called, took place. It arose from there being no fewer than 
three different claimants for the chair of St. Peter — Gregory XII, who was 
owned pope by the Italian states ; Benedict XIII, by France ; and Alex- 
ander V, a native of Candia, by a number of the cardinals. This schism 
proved very hurtful to the authority of the church, though in that respect 
it benefited the interests of society, and contributed to open men's eyes. 
The appearance of John Huss at this time aided in producing that effect. 
Huss proclaimed the same opinions as the great English reformer Wick- 
liffe. He was branded of course by the clergy as a heretic and propa- 
gator of sedition. The general council of the church, held at Constance 
(1414), concocted no fewer than thirty-nine articles in which Huss is said 
to have erred. Some of the points he denied having professed, and others 
he offered to support by argument ; but his voice was drowned by the clam- 
ors of bigotry. His hair was cut in the form of a cross ; upon his headwas 
put a paper mitre, painted with the representation of three devils ; and he 
was delivered over to the secular judge, who condemned both him and his 
writings to the flames. A similar fate shortly after befell his disciple, Je- 
rome of Prague, who is said to have exhibited the eloquence of an apostle 
and the constancy of a martyr at the stake (1416). In revenge for these 
cruelties, the Hussites of Bohemia kept up a war with the empire for twen- 
ty years ; and it was only after having their right to express their opinions 
acknowledged that they desisted. The great schism lasted for many years. 
A Neapolitan archbishop, named Bari, was elected and deposed by the 
resident cardinals at Rome within a few months. Boniface IX and Inno- 
cent VI were each temporarily his successors. The result of the length- 
ened dispute may be stated to be, that papal authority was greatly weak- 
ened ; the government of the church was brought down among a class of 
ecclesiastics that had never before tasted the sweets of power ; and future 
popes were obliged to resort to such questionable practices for the mainten- 
ance of their dignity, that men in general began to lose respect for their 



138 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

sanctity, and a foundation was laid for changes which it fell to the lo^ cf 
Luther and others to effect. 

The period which witnessed these transactions was remarkable for the 
continued wars between France and England. In the beginning of the 
twelfth century, the famous dispute for supremacy arose between Thomas- 
a-Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry II, which ended in the 
death of the prelate (1171), but in the triumph of his principles. The be- 
ginning of the thirteenth century is memorable in English history, as hav- 
ing witnessed the granting of the Magna Charta by King John ; and to- 
wards the conclusion of it appeared Edward I, whose name is associated 
with the first great attempts to subdue the Scots on the part of England. 
The bravery of Wallace and of others averted that calamity for ever. 
Wales was not so fortunate ; and Ireland had already become a conquered 
province. 

During this period, several of those countries in the north of Europe, 
which have made a considerable figure in modern history, for the first time 
attracted attention. The greatest of these was Russia. In the middle of 
the thirteenth century, the tribes of Tartary made a complete conquest of 
this country, and for about a hundred years they maintained their suprem- 
acy. At length Ivan ascended the throne of Moscow (1462), and over- 
coming the Tartars, established a kingdom of his own, and was able to 
form an alliance with the Emperor Maximilian of Germany, who did not 
hesitate to style him brother. This was the first entrance of Russia into 
European politics. 

Before the end of the fourteenth century, the Christian religion had pen- 
etrated into Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, and Poland ; but it failed in pro- 
ducing any immediate beneficial effect. The political events which took 
place in these countries, however, were very various at this period, but 
proved too unimportant in their results to admit of being even outlined 
here. 

THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS— COMMERCE IN GENERAL. 

Among the Italian cities, Venice, at the extremity of the Adriatic, Ra- 
venna, at the south of the mouth of the Po, Genoa, at the foot of the Ligu- 
rian mountains, Pisa, towards the mouths of the Arno, Rome, Gaeta, Na- 
ples, Amalphi, and Bari, were either never conquered by the Lombards, or 
were in subjection too short a time to have lost many of their ancient hab- 
its and customs. In this way these cities naturally became the refuge of 
Roman civilization, at a time when other parts of Europe were wading 
through barbarian darkness. The feudal system never prevailed among 
them with any force ; and several of these and other cities had important 
privileges conferred upon them by the German emperors at a very early 
period. Sismondi, the historian of Italy, asserts that Otho I (936) erect- 
ed some of them into municipal communities, and permitted them the elec- 
tion of their own magistrates. It is certain that, in 991, the citizens of 
Milan rose in tumult, expelled an archbishop from their city, and were able 
to establish a qualified right to interfere in future elections. The after- 
history of Milan is eventful and tragical ; but we can only give a short ac- 
count of it here. In the middle of the twelfth century, Frederick Barbar- 
ossa became engaged with the cities of Lombardy, and particularly with it, 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 139 

in extensive and destructive wars. In the year 1162 Milan was finally 
overcome ; the walls and houses were razed from their foundation, and the 
suffering inhabitants dispersed over other cities, obtaining sympathy in their 
distress, and communicating their enthusiastic love of freedom in return. 
The republican form of government was adopted in every considerable 
town ; and before the end of the thirteenth century, there was a knowledge, 
a power, and an enterprise, among these apparently insignificant republics 
which all Europe could not match. 

The beneficial though unlooked-for effect of the Crusades upon commerce 
has already been mentioned. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
the commerce of Europe was almost entirely in the hands of the Italians, 
more commonly known in those ages by the name of Lombards. The re- 
public of Pisa was one of the first to make known to the world the riches 
and power which a small state might acquire by the aid of commerce and 
liberty. Pisa had astonished the shores of the Mediterranean by the num- 
ber of vessels and galleys that sailed under her flag, by the succor she had 
given the Crusaders, by the fear she had inspired at Constantinople, and by 
the conquest of Sardinia and the Balearic Isles. Immediately preceding 
this period, those great structures which still delight the eye of the travel- 
er — the Dome, the Baptistry, the Leaning Tower, and the Campo Santo 
of Pisa had all been raised ; and the great architects that spread over Eu- 
rope in the thirteenth century, had mostly their education here. But un- 
fortunately, the ruin of this glorious little republic was soon to be accom- 
plished. A gi-owing envy had subsisted between it and Genoa during the 
last two centuries, and a new war broke out in 1282. It is difficult to com- 
prehend how two simple cities could put to sea two such prodigious fleets 
as those of Pisa and Genoa. Fleets of thirty, sixty-four, twenty-four, and 
one hundred and three galleys, were successively put to sea by Pisa, under 
the most skillful commanders ; but on every occasion the Genoese were 
able to oppose them with superior fleets. In August, 1284, the Pisans 
were defeated in a naval engagement before the Isle of Meloria ; thirty- 
five of their vessels were lost, five thousand persons perished in battle, and 
eleven thousand became prisoners of the Genoese. After a few further in- 
effectual struggles, Pisa lost its standing. 

The greatest commercial, and altogether the most remarkable city of 
the Italian republics, was Venice. Secluded from the world, on a cluster 
of islands in the Adriatic, the inhabitants of this city had taken up their 
abode in the course of the fifth century, and they boasted themselves to 
have been independent of ail the revolutions which Europe had been un- 
dergoing since the fall of the Roman Empire. This might be true to a 
great extent, though for long it was certainly more the result of their ob- 
scurity than their power. By the tenth century, however, the desendants 
of those fishermen that had first taken refuge here, were able to send 
fleets abroad which could encounter and overawe both Saracens and Nor- 
mans. The Venetians had all along kept up a correspondence with Constan- 
tinople during the darkest periods of the middle ages. This was greatly 
renewed and extended about the time of the Crusades. When Constan- 
tinople was taken by the Latins (1204), the Venetians, under their doge, 
or chief magistrate, Henry Dandalo, became possessed of three-eighths of 
that great city and of the provinces, and Dandalo assumed the singularly 
accurate title of Duke of Three-Eighths of the Roman Empire. The 



140 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Venetians greatly increased their share of the spoil by making advanta 
geous purchases from the more needy of the Crusaders. Among the most 
important of these was the Isle of Candia, which they retained till the 
middle of the seventeenth century. The idea of a bank took its rise in 
this city, and an establishment of that nature, simply for the receipt of de- 
posits, is said to have existed in it as soon as the year 1157. But it was 
not till about a century later that banking, as the term is now understood, 
began at all to be practised. The merchants of Lombardy and of the 
south of France began at that time to remit money by bills of exckange^ 
and to make profit upon loans. The Italian clergy who had benefices 
beyond the Alps, found the new method of transmitting money exceeding- 
ly convenient ; and the system of exacting usury or interest, after experi- 
encing every obstruction from ignorance and bigotry, became a legal part 
of commerce. In the thirteenth century the government of Venice was 
entirely republican ; but continued wars with Genoa reduced both cities. 
These wars were all conducted on the seas, and the display of naval 
strength on both sides seems prodigious, when we reflect on the poor 
condition of Italy at the present day. Besides these wars for objects of 
ambition, there were continual jealousies which rose above enlightened 
views of self-interest, and led to the most disgraceful broils. At the mid- 
dle of the fourteenth century a battle took place between the rival citizens, 
in which the Genoese were defeated. Their loss was immense, and in dis- 
tress and in revenge they gave themselves up to John Visconti, Lord of 
Milan, then the richest and among the most ambitious of the petty tyrants 
of Italy, hoping that he would give them the means to reestablish their 
fleet and continue the war with the Venetians. He did so, and in another 
naval engagement, fought in 1354, in the Gulf of Sapienza, the Venetians 
were entirely defeated. But the Genoese had sacrificed their liberty in 
their thirst for revenge. Visconti became their master instead of friend. 
Venice was able to rise above its temporary discomfiture, and during the 
fifteenth century its fame and power became greater than they had ever 
been before. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the Venetians cap- 
tured the town of Padua, and gradually lost their empire of the sea while 
they acquired possessions on the continent. 

Among the most famous of the Italian states at this period was Florence ; 
and its fame was founded, not on arms, but on literature. Like the other 
Italian cities, however, it owed its first elevation to the commercial indus- 
try of its inhabitants. There was a curious division of the Florentine 
citizens, subsisting about the beginning of the thirteenth century, into 
companies or arts. These were at first twelve — seven called the greater 
arts, and five the lesser ; but the latter were gradually increased to four- 
teen. The seven greater arts were those of lawyers and notaries, of 
dealers in foreign cloth (called sometimes calimala), of bankers or money- 
changers, of woolen-drapers, of physicians and druggists, or dealers in 
silk, and of furriers. The inferior arts were those of retailers of cloth, 
butchers, smiths, shoemakers, and builders. It was in the thirteenth cen- 
tury that Florence became a republic, and it maintained its independence 
for two hundred years. In the beginning of the fifteenth century it be- 
came peculiarly distinguished by the revival of Grecian literature and the 
cultivation of the fine arts. Cosmo de Medici, who lived a citizen of 
Florence at this time, and was known by the name of the Grand Duke of 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 141 

Tuscany — descended from a long line of ancestors, whose wealth had 
been honorably acquired in the prosecution of the greater arts — possessed 
more riches than any king in Europe, and laid out more money on works of 
learning, taste, and charity, than all the princes of his age. The same 
liberality and munificence distinguished his family for several generations. 
The commercial success of the states of Italy induced the inhabitants of 
northern Europe to attempt similar enterprises. In the thirteenth cen- 
tury the seaports on the Baltic were trading with France and Britain, and 
with the Mediterranean. The commercial laws of Oleron and Wisbuy 
(on the Baltic) regulated for many ages the trade of Europe. To pro- 
tect their trade from piracy, Lubec, Hamburg, and most of the northern 
seaports, joined in a confederacy, under certain general regulations, term- 
ed the League of the Hanse Toivns ; a union so beneficial in its nature, 
and so formidable in point of strength, as to have its alliance courted by 
the predominant powers of Europe. 'For the trade of the Hanse Towns 
with the southern kingdoms, Bruges on the coast of Flanders was found 
a convenient entrepot, and thither the Mediterranean merchants brought 
the commodities of India and the Levant, to exchange for the produce and 
manufactures of the north. The Flemings now began to encourage trade 
and manufactures, which thence spread to the Brabanters ; but their 
growth being checked by the impolitic sovereigns of those provinces, they 
found a more favorable field in England, which was destined thence to 
derive the great source of its national opulence.' 

THE TURKS — FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

We have already seen the weakness of the empire of Constantinople at 
the time of the Crusades ; we have seen the city sacked and the govern- 
ment seized by the champions of the cross. The Greeks regained their em- 
pire in the year 1261, but in a mangled and impoverished condition. 
For nearly two centuries it continued in a similar state. Andronicus, 
son of Michael Palseologus, who had restored the Greek empire, allowed 
himself to be persuaded that as God was his protector, all military force 
was unnecessary ; and the superstitious Greeks, regardless of danger, em- 
ployed themselves in disputing about the transfiguration of Jesus Christ, 
when their unfortunate situation made it necessary that they should have 
been studying the art of war, and training themselves to military disci- 
pline. 

In the meantime, the Turks had become a powerful people. They 
had embraced the Mohammedan religion long before the time of the Cru- 
sades, and proved powerful obstacles to the success of those expeditions. 
About the beginning of the fourteenth century they established an empire 
of their own in Asia Minor, under Othman or Ottoman, and to this day 
the Ottoman Empire is a name given to the dominions of their descendants. 
By degrees they encroached on the borders of the empire of Constantino- 
ple, and they were only prevented from subverting it at a much earlier 
period than they did, by being called upon to defend themselves from the 
arms of an Eastern conqueror who arose at this time. Tamerlane, other- 
wise called Timerbek, was a prince of the Usbek Tartars, and a descend- 
ant from Ghenghis Khan. After having overrun Persia, and a great 
part of India and Syria, this great conqueror was invited by some of the 



142 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

minor princes of Asia, who were suffering under the Ottoman tyranny, 
to come and protect them. Tamerlane was flattered by the request, and 
having brought a great army into Phrygia, he was there met by Bajazet, 
the Ottoman emperor, who readily gave battle, but was defeated and 
made prisoner (1402). Tamerlane made Samarcand the capital of his 
empire, and there received the homage of all the princes of the East. 
Illiterate himself, he was solicitous for the cultivation of literature and 
science in his dominions ; and Samarcand became for a while the seat of 
learning, politeness, and the arts, but was destined to relapse after a short 
period into its ancient barbarism. The Turks, after the death of Tamer- 
lane, resumed their purpose of destroying the empire of the East. The 
honor, or disgrace, as it may be thought, of effecting this, fell to the lot 
of Mohammed II, commonly surnamed the Great. At the early age 
of twenty-one, Mohammed projected this conquest. His countrymen had 
already passed into Europe ; they had possessed themselves of the city of 
Adrianople, and indeed had left nothing of all the empire of the East to 
the Greeks but the city of Constantinople itself. The preparations made 
for defense were not such as became the descendants of Romans, and the 
powers of Europe now looked upon the East with the most supine indiffer- 
ence. The Turks assailed the city both on the land side and on that of 
the sea ; and battering down its walls with their cannon, entered sword 
in hand, and massacred all who opposed them (1453). Mohammed, like 
many other ambitious conquerors, showed himself unwilling to destroy un- 
necessarily. The imperial edifices were preserved, and the churches were 
converted into mosques ; the exercise of their religion was freely allowed 
to the Christians, and this privilege they have never been deprived of. 
Constantine (for that was the name of the last, as well as the first emper- 
or of the East) was slain in battle. From the time that it was founded 
by Constantine the Great, the city had subsisted 1123 years. Mohammed 
liberally patronized the arts and sciences. He was himself not only a 
politician, but a scholar, and he invited both artists and men of letters to 
his capital from the kingdoms of Europe. But "the taking of Constanti- 
nople had an effect contrary to his wishes : it dispersed the learned 
Greeks, or Greeks who were called learned, all over Europe ; and this, 
among other things, may be looked upon as a help to the great revival of 
letters which the fifteenth century witnessed. The taking of Constanti- 
nople was followed by the conquest of Greece and Epirus ; and Italy 
might probably have met with a similar fate, but for the fleet of the Ven- 
etians, who opposed the arms of Mohammed with considerable success, 
and even attacked him in Geece ; but the contending powers soon after 
put an end to hostilities by a treaty. By this time Europe was trembling 
at Mohammed's success, and was afraid, not without reason, that he might 
pursue his conquests westward. It was relieved from fear by his death, 
which took place in 1481. His descendants have continued to our own 
day to occupy one of the finest countries in Europe ; and it was only in 
the present age that Greece was liberated from their dominion. 

RISE OF CIVIL FREEDOM AND SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 

Civil freedom, as we have seen, dawned first in the great commercial 
cities of Italy, whence it spread to Germany, Flanders, and Britain. 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 143 

This important change in society may be traced to the institution of free 
communities of traders, or guilds of merchants ; and such confederacies 
were a necessary consequence of the usurpation and tyranny of the nobles 
and feudal possessors of the soil. In the eleventh and twelfth centu- 
ries the usurpations of the nobility became intolerable ; they had reduced 
the great body of the people to a state of actual servitude. Nor was 
such oppression the portion of those alone who dwelt in the country, and 
were employed in cultivating the estates of their masters. Cities and 
villages found it necessary to hold of some great lord, on whom they 
might depend for protection, and became no less subject to his arbitrary 
jurisdiction. The inhabitants were deprived of those rights which, in 
social life, are deemed most natural and inalienable. They could not dis- 
pose of the effects which their own industry had acquired, either by a 
later will, or by any deed executed during their lives. Neither could 
they marry, nor carry on lawsuits, without the consent of their lord. 
But as soon as the cities of Italy began to turn their attention towards 
commerce, and to conceive some idea of the advantages which they might 
derive from it, they became impatient to shake off the yoke of their inso- 
lent lords, and to establish among themselves such a free and equal gov- 
ernment as would render property and industry secure. The Italian 
cities were the first to emancipate themselves, and their example was 
followed in other great seats of population, the king of the country in 
general countenancing the establishment of free communities, in order to 
gain support against the encroachments of the overgrown power of the 
barons. The first community of this description formed in Scotland is 
understood to have been that of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which received its 
charter from William the Lion. Towns, upon acquiring the right of com- 
munity, became so many little republics, governed by known and equal 
laws. The inhabitants being trained to arms, and being surrounded by 
walls, they soon began to hold the neighboring barons in contempt, and to 
withstand aggressions on their property and privileges. Another great 
good, of fully more importance, was produced. These free communities 
were speedily admitted, by their representatives, into the great council 
of the nation, whether distinguished by the name of a Parliament, a Diet, 
the Cortes, or the States-General. This is justly esteemed the greatest 
event in the history of mankind in modern times. Representatives from 
the English boroughs were first admitted into the great national council 
by the barons who took up arms against Henry III in the year 1265 ; 
being summoned to add to the greater popularity of their party, and to 
strengthen the barrier against the encroachments of regal power. Read- 
ers may draw their own conclusions from an event which ultimately 
had the effect of revolutionising the framework of society, and of rear- 
ing that great body of the people commonly styled ' the middle class.' 

The enfranchising of burghal communities led to the manumission of 
slaves. Hitherto the tillers of the ground, all the inferior classes of the 
country, were the bondsmen of the barons. The monarchs of France, 
in order to reduce the power of the nobles, set the example, by ordering 
(1315 - 1318) all serfs to be set at liberty on just and reasonable condi- 
tions. The edicts were carried into immediate execution within the royal 
domain. The example of their sovereigns, together with the expectation 
of considerable sums which they might raise by this expedient, led many 



144 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of the nobles to set their dependents at liberty ; and servitude was thus 
gradually abolished in almost every province of the kingdom. This bene- 
ficial practice similarly spread over the rest of Europe ; and in England, 
as the spirit of liberty gained ground, the very name and idea of person- 
al servitude, without any formal interposition of the legislature to prohibit 
it, was totally banished. 

While society was assuming the semblance of the form it now bears, 
the progress of improvement was accelerated by various collateral circum- 
stances, the first of which worth noticing was 

The Revival of Letters. The first restorers of learning in Europe 
were the Arabians, who, in the course of their Asiatic conquests, became 
acquainted with some of the ancient Greek authors, discovered their 
merits, and had them translated into Arabic, esteeming those principally 
which treated of mathematics, physics, and metaphysics. They dissemi 
nated their knowledge in the course of their conquests, and founded 
schools and colleges in all the countries which they subdued. The western 
kingdoms of Europe became first acquainted with the learning of the an- 
cients through the medium of those Arabian translations. Charlemagne 
caused them to be retranslated into Latin ; and, after the example of the 
caliphs, founded universities at Bonona, Pavia, Osnaburg, and Paris. Sim- 
ilar efforts were made in England by Alfred ; and to him we owe the es- 
tablishment, or at least the elevation, of the university of Oxford. The 
first efforts, however, at literary improvement were marred by the sub- 
tleties of scholastic divinity. Perhaps the greatest and wisest literary 
character of the middle ages Avas an English friar, named Roger Bacon. 
This extraordinary individual was not only learned, but, what was more 
uncommon in those times, he was scientific. Hallam asserts that he was 
acquainted with the nature of gunpowder, though he deemed it prudent to 
conceal his knowledge, fie saw the insufficiency of school philosophy, 
and was the first to insist on experiment and the observation of nature as 
the fittest instruments by which to acquire knowledge. He reformed the 
calendar, and made discoveries in astronomy, optics, chemistry, medicine, 
and mechanics. 

It is to Italy, however, that we owe the first and greatest exertions in the 
revival of letters. The spirit of liberty which had arisen among its re- 
publics was favorable to the cultivation of literature and accordingly we 
find that not only did they produce many individuals who were most active 
and successful in bringing to light the relics of classical lore, but that there 
also arose among them men possessed of the highest order of original ge- 
nius. Florence produced Dante so early as 1265. Dante was associated 
with the magistracy of his native city in his earlier years ; but having given 
dissatisfaction in that capacity, he was banished, and in his exile produced 
his great poem entitled the ' Divine Comedy.' It is a representation of the 
three supposed kingdoms of futurity — Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise — 
divided into one hundred cantos, and containing about 14,000 lines. The 
poem has been much praised. Petrarch, born in the year 1304, was like- 
wise a Florentine by birth. The misfortunes of his father had impover- 
ished the family, and Petrarch was too proud to take the usual method of 
retrieving his affairs. His genius, however, earned for him the friendship 
of many Italian princes, and even of more popes than one, although he had 
exerted his talents to expose the vices of their courts. Petrarch's personal 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 145 

character seems to have exhibited some unamiable traits ; but he has sung 
of love, friendship, glory, patriotism, and religion, in language of such sweet- 
ness and power as to have made him the admiration of every succeeding 
age. Boccaccio, like the two great poets named, was a Florentine. He 
was born in 1313, and his name has descended to posterity less associated 
with his poetry than the light, elegant, and easy prose of his novels. 

The discovery of Justinian's Laws, as detailed in the Pandects, was 
another event which powerfully tended to modify the barbarism that pre- 
vailed during the middle ages in Europe. 

The invention of the Mariner 's Compass must be reckoned of still greater 
importance, and yet it is absolutely unknown to whom we owe it. That 
honor has been often bestowed on Gioia, a citizen of Amalphi, who lived 
about the commencement of the fourteenth century. But the polarity of 
the magnet at least was known to the Saracens two hundred years before 
that time ; though even after the time of Gioia, it was long before the 
magnet was made use of as a guide in navigation. ' It is a singular cir- 
cumstance,' says Mr. Hallam,' and only to be explained by the obstinacy 
with which men are apt to reject improvement, that the magnetic needle 
was not generally adopted in navigation till very long after the discovery 
of its properties, and even after their peculiar importance had been per- 
ceived. The writers of the thirteenth century, who mentioned the polarity 
of the needle, mention also its use in navigation ; yet Campany has found 
no distinct proof of its employment till 1403, and does not believe that 
it was frequently on board Mediterranean ships at the latter part of the 
preceding age.' The Genoese, however, are known in the fourteenth cen- 
tury to have come out of that inland sea, and steered for Flanders and 
England. But by far the greatest sailors of the age were the Spaniards and 
Portuguese. This latter nation had little or no existence during the greater 
part of the middle ages, but in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth cen- 
turies, they were able to expel the Moors from a great part of their country ; 
and in the beginning of the fifteenth, John, surnamed the Bastard, who 
was then their king, was the first European prince who exhibited a respect- 
able navy. It was in 1486 that this adventurous people first doubled the 
Cape of Good Hope. 

The discovery of America (1493) may be mentioned supplementary 
to the invention of the mariner's compass, as an event which, without it, 
could never have taken place. The immortal honor of that discovery rests 
with Christopher Columbus, a sailor of Genoa. After unsuccessful appli- 
cations at almost every court in Europe, and braving obloquy and contempt, 
Columbus at last obtained a miserable force from Ferdinand and Isabella of 
Spain ; and with no landmark but the heavens, nor any guide but his com- 
pass, he launched boldly into the sea, and at last conducted Europeans to 
the great western hemisphere. 

In the course of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries, 
various discoveries in the arts were made, which powerfully tended to the 
advancement of society ; among these the more important were the inven- 
tion of gunpowder and firearms, clocks and watches, paper-making and 
printing. This last, the greatest of all, prepared the way for the Refor- 
mation in religion, in the sixteenth century, by which religious was added 
to civil freedom, and a great spur given to individual activity. 

10* 



146 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



CONQUEST BY THE ROMANS. 

Previously to the year 55 before Christ, the British Islands, in com- 
mon with the whole of northern and western Europe, were occupied by 
barbarous tribes, who bore nearly the same relation to the civilized nations 
of Greece and Italy, which the North American Indians of the present day 
bear to the inhabitants of Great Britain and the United States. The Ro- 
mans, who for ages had been extending their power over their rude neigh- 
bors, had concluded the conquest of Gaul, now called France, when, in the 
year just mentioned, their celebrated commander, Julius Caesar, learning 
from the merchants of that country that there was another fertile land on 
the opposite side of the narrow sea now termed the British Channel, re- 
solved to proceed thither, and subject it also to the Roman arms. Disem- 
barking at the place since called Deal, he soon overawed the savage na- 
tives, though they were naturally warlike, and averse to a foreign yoke. 
He did not, however, gain a firm footing in Britain till the succeeding year, 
when he employed no fewer than 800 vessels to convey his troops from 
Gaul. Except along the coasts, where some tillage prevailed, the British 
tribes lived exactly as the Indians now do, upon animals caught in hunting, 
and fruits which grew spontaneously. They stained and tattooed their bod- 
ies, and had no religion but a bloody idolatry called Druidism. The peo- 
ple of Ireland were in much the same condition. 

Little was done on this occasion to establish the Roman power in Britain ; 
but about a century afterwards — namely, in the year of Christ 43, when 
the emperor Claudius was reigning at Rome — another large army invaded 
the island, and reduced a considerable part of it. A -British prince called 
Caradoc, or Caractacus, who had made a noble defense against their arms, 
was finally taken and sent prisoner to Rome, where he was regarded with 
the same wonder as we should bestow upon a North American chief who 
had greatly obstructed the progress of settlements in this quarter of the 
world. In the year 61, an officer named Suetonius did much to reduee the 
Britons, by destroying the numerous Druidical temples in the Isle of An- 
glesea ; religion having in this case, as in many others since, been a great 
support to the patriotic cause. He soon after overthrew the celebrated 
British princess Boadic^a, who had raised an almost general insurrection 
against the Roman power. 

In the year 79, Agricola, a still greater general, extended the influence 
of Rome to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, which he formed into a frontier, 
by connecting them with a chain of forts. It was his policy, after he had 
subdued part of the country, to render it permanently attached to Rome, 
by introducing the pleasures and luxuries of the Capital. He was the first 
to sail round the island. In the year 84, having gone beyond the Forth, 
he was opposed by a great concourse of the rude inhabitants of the north, 
under a chief name Galgacus, whom he completely overthrew at Mons 
Grampius, or the Grampian Mountain ; a spot about which there are many 
disputes, but which was probably at Ardoch in Perthshire, where there are 
still magnificent remains of a Roman camp. Tacitus, a writer related to 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 147 

Agricola, gives a very impressive account of this great conflict, and exhib- 
its the bravery of the native forces as very remarkable ; but the correct- 
ness of his details cannot be much relied on. 

It appears that Agricola, while on the western coast of Scotland, was de- 
sirous of making the conquest of Ireland, which he thought would be use- 
ful, both as a medium of communication with Spain, and as a position whence 
he could overawe Britain. He formed an acquaintance with an Irish chief, 
who, having been driven from his country by civil commotions, was ready 
to join in invading it. By him Agricola was informed that the island might 
be conquered by one legion and a few auxiliaries. The inhabitants, ac- 
cording to Tacitus, bore a close resemblance to the Britons. 

It is generally allowed that the Romans experienced an unusual degree 
of difficulty in subduing the Britons ; and it is certain that they were baf- 
fled in all their attempts upon the northern part of Scotland, which was 
then called Caledonia. The utmost they could do with the inhabitants of 
that country, was to build walls across the island to keep them by them- 
selves. The first wall was built in the year 121, by the Emperor Hadrian, 
between Newcastle and the Solway Firth. The second was built by the 
Emperor Antoninus, about the year 140, as a connection of the line of forts 
which Agricola had formed between the Firths of Forth and Clyde. This 
boundary was not long kept, for in 210 we find the Emperor Severus for- 
tifying the rampart between the Tyne and Solway. Roman armies, how- 
ever, probably under the command of Lollius Urbicus, had penetrated far 
beyond the more northerly wall, although, unfortunately, no accounts of 
their reception are preserved. From comparing Roman remains lately dis- 
covered with ancient geographies, it is held as established that the Romans 
reached the north-east end of Loch Ness, near the modern town of Inver- 
ness. The number of roads and camps which they made, and the regular- 
ity with which the country was divided into stations, prove their desire to 
preserve these conquests. When the conquest was thus so far completed, 
the country was governed in the usual manner of a Roman province ; and 
towns began to rise in the course of time — being generally those whose 
names are found to end in Chester, a termination derived from eastra, the 
Latin word for camp. The Christian religion was also introduced, and 
Roman literature made some progress in the country. 

CONQUEST BY THE SAXONS. 

At length a time came when the Romans could no longer defend their 
own native country against the nations in the north of Europe. The sold- 
iers were then withdrawn from Britain (about the year 440), and the peo- 
ple left to govern themselves. The Caledonians, who did not like to be so 
much straitened in the north, took advantage of the unprotected state of 
the Britons to pour in upon them from the other side of the wall, and des- 
poil them of their lives and goods. The British had no resource but to call 
in another set of protectors, the Saxons, a warlike people who lived in the 
north of Germany, and the Jutes and Angles, who inhabited Denmark. 
The remedy was found hardly any better than the disease. Having once 
acquired a footing in the island, these hardy strangers proceeded to make 
it a subject of conquest, as the Romans had done before, with this material 
difference, that they drove the British to the western parts of the island, 



148 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

particularly into Wales, and settled, with new hordes of their countrymen, 
over the better part of the land. So completely was the population changed, 
that, excepting in the names of some of the hills and rivers, the British lan- 
guage was extinguished, and even the name of the country itself was 
changed, from what it originally was to Angle-land or England, a term ta- 
ken from the Angles. The conquest required about two hundred and fifty 
years to be effected, and, like that of the Romans, it extended no farther 
north than the Firths of Forth and Clyde. Before the Britons were final- 
ly cooped up in Wales, many battles were fought ; but few of these are 
accurately recorded. The most distinguished of the British generals were 
the Princes Vortimer and Aurelius Ambrosius. It is probably on the 
achievements of the latter that the well-known fables of King Arthur and 
his knights are founded. 

England, exclusive of the western regions, was now divided into seven 
kingdoms, called Kent, Northumberland, East Anglia, Mercia, Essex, Sus- 
sex, and Wessex, each of which was governed by a race descended from 
the leader who had first subdued it ; and the whole have since been called 
by historians the Saxon Heptarchy, the latter word being composed of two 
Greek words, signifying seven kingdoms. To the north of the Forth dwelt 
a nation called the Picts, who also had a king, and were in all probability 
the people with whom Agricola had fought under the name of Caledonians. 
In the Western Highlands there was another nation, known by the name 
of the Scots, or Dalriads, who had gradually migrated thither from Ire- 
land, between the middle of the third century and the year 503, when they 
established, under a chief named Fergus, a monarchy destined in time to 
absorb all the rest. About the year 700 there were no fewer than fifteen 
kings, or chiefs, within the island, while Ireland was nearly in the same 
situation. In Britain, at the same time, five languages were in use, the 
Latin, Saxon, Welsh, the Pictish, and the Irish. The general power of 
the country has been found to increase as these nations and principalities 
were gradually amassed together. 

Although three of the Saxon kingdoms, Wessex, Mercia, and Northum- 
berland, became predominant, the Heptarchy prevailed from about the 
year 58.5 to 800, when Egbert, king of Wessex, acquired a paramount in- 
fluence over all the other states, though their kings still continued to reign. 
Alfred, so celebrated for his virtues, was the grandson of Egbert, and be- 
gan to reign in the year 871. At this time the Danes, who are now a qui- 
et, inoffensive people, were a nation of pirates, and at the same time hea- 
thens. They used to come in large fleets, and commit dreadful ravages on 
the shores of Britain. For some time they completely overturned the sov- 
ereignty of Alfred, and compelled him to live in obscurity in the centre of 
a marsh. But he at length fell upon them when they thought themselves 
in no danger, and regained the greater part of his kingdom. Alfred spent 
the rest of his life in literary study, of which he was very fond, and in 
forming laws and regulations for the good of his people. He was perhaps 
the most able, most virtuous, and most popular prince that ever reigned in 
Britain ; and all this is the more surprising, when we find that his prede- 
cessors and successors, for many ages, were extremely cruel and ignorant. 
He died in the year 901, in the fifty-third year of his age. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 149 



CONQUEST BY THE NORMANS. 

The Saxon line of princes continued to rule, with the exception of three 
Danish reigns, till the year 1066, when the crown was in the possession 
of a usurper named Harold. The country was then invaded by William, 
Duke of Normandy, a man of illegitimate birth, attended by a large and 
powerful army. Harold opposed him at Hastings (October 14), and after 
a well-contested battle, his army was defeated, and himself slain. Wil- 
liam then caused himself to be crowned king at Westminster ; and in the 
course of a few years he succeeded, by means of his warlike Norman fol- 
lowers, in completely subduing the Saxons. His chiefs were settled upon 
the lands of those who opposed him, and became the ancestors of most of 
the present noble families of England. 

Previously to this .period, the Church of Rome, which was the only sur- 
viving part of the power of that empire, had established its supremacy over 
England. The land was also subjected to what is called the feudal system 
(see History of the Middle Ages), by- which all proprietors of land 
were supposed to hold it from the king for military service, while the 
tenants were understood to owe them military service in turn for their use 
of the land. All orders of men were thus kept in a chain of servile obedi- 
ence, while some of the lower orders were actually slaves to their superiors. 

In the year 853, Kenneth, king of the Scots, had added the Pictish 
kingdom to his own, and his descendant Malcolm II, in 1020, extended 
his dominions over not only the south of Scotland, but a part of the north 
of England. Thus, putting aside Wales, which continued to be an inde- 
pendent country, under its own princes, the island was divided, at the time 
of the Norman Conquest, into two considerable kingdoms, England and 
Scotland, as they were for some centuries afterwards. Ireland, which had 
also been invaded by hordes from the north of Europe, was divided into a 
number of small kingdoms, like England under the Saxon Heptarchy. 

EARLY NORMAN KINGS. 

William, surnamed The Conqueror, reigned from 1066 to 1087, being 
chiefly engaged all that time in completing the subjugation of the Saxons. 
He is allowed to have been a man of much sagacity, and a firm ruler ; but 
his temper was violent,- and his disposition brutal. At the time of his 
death, which took place in Normandy, his eldest son Robert happening to 
be at a greater distance from London than William, who was the second 
son, the latter individual seized upon the crown, of which he could not af- 
terwards be dispossessed, till he was shot accidentally by an arrow in the 
New Forest, in the year 1100. Towards the close of this king's reign, 
the whole of Christian Europe was agitated by the first Crusade — an ex- 
pedition for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Saracens. Robert 
of Normandy had a high command in this enterprise, and gained much 
fame as a warrior ; but while he was in Italy, on his return, his youngest 
brother Henry usurped the throne left vacant by William, so that he was 
again disappointed of his birthright. Henry I — surnamed Beauclere, 
from his being a fine scholar — was a prince of some ability; but he dis- 
graced himself by putting out the eyes of his eldest brother, and keeping 



150 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

him nearly thirty years in confinement. Such barbarous conduct shows 
that in this age might was the only right, and that men hesitated at no ac- 
tions which might promise to advance their own interests. 

Cotemporary with William the Conqueror in England, was Malcolm III 
in Scotland, surnamed Canmore, from his having a large head. This 
prince, after overthrowing the celebrated usurper Macbeth, married Mar- 
garet, a fugitive Saxon princess, through whom his posterity became the 
heirs of that race of English sovereigns. He was a good prince, and by 
settling Saxon refugees upon his lowland territory, did much to improve 
the character of the Scottish nation, who are described as having been 
before this time a nation in which there was no admixture of civilization. 
At Malcolm's death, in 1093, the crown was contested for a while by a 
usurper called Donald Bane, and the elder sons of the late monarch, but 
finally fell to the peaceable possession of his youngest son David I, who 
was a prince of much superior character, apparently, to the Norman sover 
eigns who lived in the same age. The church of Rome having now gained 
an ascendancy in Scotland, David founded a considerable number of mon 
asteries and churches for the reception of the ministers of that religion. 
All the most celebrated abbacies in Scotland took their rise in his time. 

Henry Beauclerc of England, in order to strengthen his claim by a 
Saxon alliance, married Maud, the daughter of Malcolm Canmore and of 
Princess Margaret. By her he had an only daughter of the same name, 
whom he married first to the Emperor of Germany, and then to Geoffrey 
Plantagenet, eldest son of the Earl of Anjou, in France. This lady and 
her children by Plantagenet were properly the heirs of the English crown ; 
but on the death of Henry, in 1135, it was seized by a usurper named 
Stephen, a distant member of the Conqueror's family, who reigned for 
nineteen years, during which the country was rendered almost desolate by 
civil contests, in which David of Scotland occasionally joined. 

On the death of Stephen, in 1154, the crown fell peacefully to Henry 
II, who was the eldest son of Maud, and the first of the Plantagenet race 
of sovereigns. Henry was an acute and politic prince, though not in any 
respect more amiable than his predecessors. His reign was principally 
marked by a series of measures for reducing the power of the Romish cler- 
gy, in the course of which some of his courtiers, in 1171 thought they 
could not do him a better service than to murder Thomas-a-Becket, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, who had been the chief obstacle to his views, and 
was one of the ablest and most ambitious men ever produced in England. 
For his concern in this foul transaction, Henry had to perform a humilia- 
ting penance, receiving eighty lashes on his bare back from the monks of 
Canterbury. We are the less inclined to wonder at this circumstance, 
when we consider that about this time the Pope had power to cause two 
kings to perform the menial service of leading his horse. 
■ Henry was the most powerful king that had yet reigned in Britain. Be- 
sides the great hereditary domains which he possessed in France, and for 
which he did homage to the king of that country, he exacted a temporary 
homage from William of Scotland, the grand-son of David, a monarch of 
great valor, who took the surname of the lAon, and who reigned from 1166 
to 1214. Henry also added Ireland to his domininions. This island had 
previously been divided into five kingdoms — Munster, Leinster, Meath, 
Ulster, and Connaught. The people, being quite uncivilized, were perpet- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 151 

ually quarreling among themselves ; and this, with their heathen religion, 
furnished a flimsy pretext for invading them from England. Dermot Mac- 
morrough, king of Leinster, having been dethroned by his subjects, intro- 
duced an English warrior, Richard, Earl of Strigul, generally called 
Strongboiv, for the purpose of regaining his possessions. A body com- 
posed of 50 knights, 90 esquires, and 460 archers, in all 600 men, was 
enabled by its superior discipline to overthrow the whole warlike force 
that could be brought against them ; and the conquest was easily comple- 
ted by Henry in person, who went thither in 1172. The military leaders 
were left to rule over the country ; but they managed their trust so ill, 
that the Irish never became peaceable and improving subjects of the Nor- 
man king, as the English had gradually done. 

RICHARD CCEUR DE LION — JOHN — MAGNA CHARTA. 

Henry II was much troubled in his latter years by the disobedience of 
his children. At his death, in 1189, he was succeeded by his son Richard, 
styled Cceur de Lion, or the Lion-hearted, from his head strong courage, 
and who was much liked by his subjects on that account, though it does 
not appear that he possessed any other good qualities. At the coronation 
of Richard, the people were permitted to massacre many thousands of 
unoffending Jews throughout the kingdom. Almost immediately after his 
accession, he joined the king of France in a second Crusade ; landed in 
Palestine (1191) and fought with prodigious valor, but with no good result. 
On one occasion, being offended at a breach of truce by his opponent Sala- 
din, he beheaded 5000 prisoners ; whose deaths were immediately revenged 
by a similar massacre of Christian prisoners. In 1192, he returned with 
a small remnant of his gallant army, and being shipwrecked at Aquileia, 
wandered in disguise into the dominions of his mortal enemy the Duke of 
Austria, who, with the Emperor of Germany, detained him till he was re- 
deemed by a ransom, which impoverished nearly the whole of his subjects. 
This prince spent the rest of his life in unavailing wars with Philip of 
France, and was killed at the seige of a castle in Limousin, in 1199, after a 
reign of ten years, of which he had spent only about three months in 
England. 

John, the younger brother of Richard, succeeded, although Arthur, 
Duke of Bretagne, the son of an intermediate brother, was the proper heir. 
John, who was at once vain, cruel, and weak, alienated the affections of 
his subjects almost at the very first by the assassination of his nephew, which 
he is said to have performed with his own hands. The weakness of kings 
is often the means of giving increased liberties and privileges to the people. 
The paltry tyranny and wickedness of John caused his barons to rise against 
him, and the result was that, on the 19th June, 1215, he was compelled 
by them to sign what is called the Magna Oharta, or great Charter, grant- 
ing them many privileges and exemptions, and generally securing the per- 
sonal liberty of his subjects. The principal point concerning the nation at 
large was, that no tax or supply should be levied from them without their 
own consent in a great Council — the first idea of a Parliament. _ Some 
excellent provisions were also made regarding courts of law and justice, so 
as to secure all but the guilty. 

The Pope, it appears, regarded the Magna Charta as a shameful viola • 



152 AMERICAF ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

tion of the royal prerogative, and xecommunicated its authors, as being worse, 
in his estimation, than infidels. The opinion of a leading modern historian 
is very different. He, says, ' To have produced the Great Charter, to have 
preserved it, to have matured it, constitute the immortal claim of England 
on the esteem of mankind.' • 

HENRY in — ORIGIN OF PARLIAMENT. 

John, at his death in 1216, was succeeded by his son, Henry III, a 
weak and worthless prince, who ascended the throne in his boyhood, and 
reigned fifty six years, without having performed one worthy act of suffi- 
cient consequence to be detailed. In his reign was held the first assem- 
blage approaching to the character of a Parliament. It was first called in 
1225, in order to give supplies for carrying on a war against France. The 
money was only granted on condition that the Great Charter should be 
confirmed ; and thus the example was set at the very first, for rendering sup- 
plies a check upon the prerogative of the king, and gradually reducing that 
power to its present comparatively moderate level. Under the earlier Nor- 
man kings, and even, it is believed, under the Saxons, an assembly called 
the Great Council had shared with the sovereign the power of framing laws ; 
but it was only now that the body had any power to balance that of the sov- 
ereign, and it was not till 1265 that representatives from the inhabitants 
of towns were introduced. 

EDWARD I AND II — ATTEMPTED CONQUEST OF SCOTLAND. 

Henry III, at his death in 1272, was succeeded by his son Edward I, 
a prince as warlike and sagacious as his father was the reverse. He dis- 
tinguished himself by his attempts to add Wales to his kingdom, an object 
which he accomplished in 1282, by the overthrow and murder of Llewellen, 
the last prince of that country. In the meantime, from the death of Wil- 
liam the Lion in 1214, Scotland had been ruled by two princes, Alexander 
II, and III, under whom it advanced considerably in wealth, civilization, 
and comfort. On the death of Alexandria III, in 1285, the crown fell to 
his granddaughter Margaret, a young girl, whose father was Eric, king of 
Norway. Edward formed a treaty with the Estates of Scotland for a 
marriage between this princess and his son, whom he styled Prince of 
Wales. Unfortunately, the young lady died on her voyage to Scotland ; 
and the crown was left to be disputed by a multitude of distant relations, 
of whom John Baliol and Robert Bruce seem to have the best right. 
Edward, being resolved to make Scotland his own at all hazards, inter- 
fered in this dispute, and being appointed arbitrator among the competitors, 
persuaded them to own in the first place an ill-defined claim put forward by 
himself of the right of paramountcy or superior sovereignty over Scotland. 
When this was done, he appointed Baliol to be his vassal king, an honor 
which the unfortunate man was not long permitted to enjoy. Having driven 
Baliol to resistance, he invaded the country, overthrew his army, and strip- 
ping him of his sovereignty, assumed to himself the dominion of Scotland, 
as a right forfeited to him by the rebellion of his vassal. After he had re- 
tired, a brave Scottish gentleman, named William Wallace, raised an insur- 
rection against his officers, and defeating his army at Stirling in 1298, 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 153 

cleared the whole country of its southern invaders. But in the succeeding 
year, this noble patriot was defeated by Edward in person at Falkirk, and 
the English yoke was again imposed. It may be remarked, that this could 
have hardly taken place if the common people, who rose with Wallace, and 
who were wholly of Celtic and Saxon origin, had been led and encouraged 
by the nobility. The grandees of Scotland, and even the competitors for 
the crown, being recent Norman settlers, were disposed to render obedience 
to the English sovereign. 

Some time after the death of Wallace, while Edward was engrossed 
with the French wars, Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, grand son of him 
who had competed with Baliol, conceived the idea of putting himself at 
the head of the Scots, and endeavoring by their means at once to gain the 
crown, and to recover the independence of the kingdom. After a series 
of adventures, among which was the unpremeditated murder of a rival 
named Comyn, Bruce caused himself, in 1306, to be crowned at Scone. 
For some time after he had to skulk as a fugitive, being unable to maintain 
his ground against the English officers ; but at length he became so for- 
midable, that Edward found it necessary (1307) to lead a large army 
against him. The English monarch, worn out with fatigue and age, died 
on the coast of the Solway Firth, when just within sight of Scotland, 
leaving his sceptre to his son Edward II. That weak and foolish prince 
immediately returned to London, leaving Bruce to contest with his infe- 
rior officers. 

After several years of constant skirmishing, during which the Scottish 
king was able to maintain his ground, Edward resolved to make one de- 
cisive effort to reduce Scotland to subjection. In the summer of 1314, 
he invaded it with an army of 100,000 men. Bruce drew up his troops, 
which were only 30,000 in number, at Bannockburn, near Stirling. Partly 
by steady valor, and partly by the use of stratagems, the Scots were victori- 
ous, and Edward fled ignominiously from the field. The Scottish king 
gained an immense booty, besides securing his crown and the indepen- 
dence of his country. He soon after sent his brother Edward, with a body 
of troops, to Ireland, to assist the native chiefs in resisting the English. 
This bold young knight was crowned King of Ireland, and for some time 
held his ground against the English forces, but was at length defeated 
and slain. 

The weakness of Edward II was chiefly shown in a fondness for favor- 
ites, into whose hands he committed the whole interests of his people. 
The first was a low Frenchman, named Piers Gaveston, who soon fell a 
victim to the indignation of the barons. The second, Hugh Spencer, mis- 
governed the country for several years, till at length the Queen and prince 
of Wales raised an insurrection against the king, and caused him to be 
deposed, as quite unfit to reign. The Prince was then crowned as Edward 
III (1327), being as yet only about fourteen years of age ; and in the 
course of a few months the degraded sovereign was cruelly put to death 
in Berkeley Castle. 

During the minority of the young king, the reins of government were 
held by his mother and the Earl of March. Under their administration, 
a peace was concluded with King Robert of Scotland, of which one of the 
conditions was a full acknowledgement of the independence of the Scot- 
tish monarchy, which had been a matter of dispute for some ages. 



154 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



EDWARD III— RICHARD II. 

Edward III, who soon after assumed full power, was destined to make 
good the remark prevalent at this time, that the kings of England were 
alternately able and imbecile. He was a warlike and sagacious monarch, 
and inspired by all his grandfather's desire of conquest. In 1329, Robert 
Bruce died, and was succeeded by his infant son David II, to whom a 
young sister of the English king was married, in terms of the late treaty. 
Notwithstanding this connection, Edward aided a son of John Baliol in an 
attempt to gain the Scottish crown. Edward Baliol overthrew the Regent 
of Scotland at Duplin, September 1332, and for two months reigned as 
King of Scots, while David and his wife took refuge in France. Though 
now expelled, Baliol afterwards returned to renew his claims, and for many 
years the country was harassed by unceasing wars, in which the English 
took a leading part. 

But for his attention being diverted to France, Edward III would have 
made a more formidable effort to subdue Scotland, and might have suc- 
ceeded. He was led into a long course of warfare with France, in conse- 
quence of an absurd pretension which he had made to its crown. In the 
victories which he had gained at Cressy (August 26, 1346) and Poitiers 
(September 17, 1356), the national valor, his own, and that of his cele- 
brated son, the Black Prince, were shown conspicuously ; but this lavish 
expenditure of the resources of his kingdom, in which he was supported 
by his parliament, was of no permanent benefit, even to himself, for whom 
alone it was made. In those days, almost all men fought well, but very 
few had the art to improve their victories. John, king of France, who 
had been made captive at Poitiers, and David, king of Scotland, who had 
been taken in 1346, while conducting an invasion of England, were at one 
time prisoners in England ; but no permanent advantage was ever gained 
over either of the states thus deprived of their sovereigns. In 1361, af- 
ter about twenty years of active fighting, the English king left France 
with little more territory than he had previously enjoyed. Edward had 
invaded Scotland with a powerful army in 1356, but without making any 
impression. The Scots, under David's nephew, Robert Stuart, effectu- 
ally protected themselves, not only from his arms, but from a proposal which 
David himself basely undertook to make, that Lionel, the third son of the 
English king, should be acknowledged as his successor. Edward died in 
1377, a year after the decease of his son the Black Prince ; and notwith- 
standing all their brilliant exploits, the English territories in France were 
less than at the beginning of the reign. 

England was at this time affected more than at any other by the fash- 
ions of chivalry. This was a military enthusiasm, which for some centu- 
ries pervaded all Christian Europe. It prompted, as one of its first princi- 
ples, a heedless bravery in encountering all kinds of danger. Its votaries 
were expected to be particularly bold in behalf of the fair sex, insomuch 
that a young knight would sometimes challenge to mortal combat any one 
who denied his mistress to be the loveliest in the world. Tournaments 
were held, at which knights clad in complete armor would ride against 
each other at full speed with leveled lances, merely to try which had the 
greatest strength and skill ; and many were killed on these occasions. It 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 155 

was a system full of extravagance, and tending to bloodshed ; but never- 
theless it maintained a certain courtesy towards females, and a romantic 
principle of honor, which we may be glad to admire, considering how rude 
was almost every other feature of the age. 

Edward III, was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II, then a boy 
of eleven years of age, and who proved to be a person of weak and 
profligate character. The Commons took advantage of the irregularity of 
his government to strengthen their privileges, which they had with difficulty 
sustained during the more powerful rule of his predecessor. Early in 
this reign they assumed the right, not only of taxing the country, but of 
seeing how the money was spent. Indignant at the severity of a tax 
imposed upon all grown-up persons, the peasantry of the eastern parts 
of England rose, in 1381, under a person of their own order, named 
Wat Tyler, and advanced, to the number of 60,000, to London, where 
they put to death the chancellor and primate, as evil counselors of 
iheir sovereign. They demanded the abolition of bondage, the liberty 
of buying and selling in fairs and markets, a general pardon, and the re- 
duction of the rent of land to an equal rate. The king came to confer 
with them at Smithfield, where, on some slight pretense, Walworth, 
mayor of London, stabbed Wat Tyler with a dagger — a weapon which 
has since figured in the armorial bearings of the metropolis. The peas- 
ants were dismayed, and submitted, and no fewer than fifteen hundred 
of them were hanged. Wat Tyler's insurrection certainly proceeded 
upon a glimmering sense of those equal rights of mankind which have 
since been generally acknowledged ; and it is remarkable, that at the 
same time the doctrines of the reformer Wickliffe were first heard of. 
This learned ecclesiastic wrote against the power of the Pope, and some 
of the most important points of the Romish faith, and also executed a 
translation of the Bible into English. His writings are acknowledged 
to have been of material, though not immediate effect, in bringing about 
the reformation of religion. 

The country was misgoverned by Richard II till 1399, when he was 
deposed by his subjects under the leading of his cousin, Henry, Duke 
of Lancaster. This person, though some nearer the throne were alive, 
was crowned as Henry IV, and his predecessor, Richard, was soon after 
murdered. In the meantime, David of Scotland died in 1371, and was 
succeeded by Robert Stuart, who was the first monarch of that family. 
Robert I, dying in 1389, was succeeded by his son Robert II, who 
was a good and gentle prince. He had two sons, David and James ; the 
former was starved to death by his uncle, the Duke of Albany ; and the 
latter, when on his way to France for his education, was seized by Henry 
IV of England, and kept captive in that country for eighteen years. 
Robert II then died of a broken heart (1406), and the kingdom fell 
into the hands of the Duke of Albany, at whose death, in 1419, it was 
governed by his son Duke Murdoch, a very imbecile personage. 

HOUSE OF LANCASTER. 

Henry IV proved a prudent prince, and comparatively a good ruler. 
The settlement of the crown upon him by parliament was a good prece- 
dent, though perhaps only dictated under the influence of his successful 



156 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

arms. He was much troubled by insurrections, particularly a formidable 
one by Percy, Earl of Northumberland — and one still more difficult to 
put down in Wales, where Owen Glendower, a descendant of the British 
princes, kept his ground for several years. 

On the death of Henry IV in 1413, he was succeeded by his son, 
who was proclaimed under the title of Henry V. The young king at- 
tained high popularity, on account of his impartial administration of jus- 
tice, and his zeal to protect the poor from the oppressions of their superiors. 
His reign is less agreeably marked by the persecutions of the Lollards, a 
body of religious reformers, many of whom were condemned to the 
flames. Being determined to use every endeavor to gain the crown of 
France, which he considered his by right of birth, he landed in Norman- 
dy with 30,000 men (August 1415), and gave battle to a much superior 
force of the French at Agincourt. He gained a complete victory, which 
was sullied by his afterwards ordering a massacre of his prisoners, under 
the apprehension that an attempt was to be made to rescue them. The 
war was carried on for some years longer, and Henry would have proba- 
bly succeeded in making good his claim to the French crown, if he had 
not died prematurely of a dysentery (August 31, 1422), in the thirty- 
fourth year of his age, leaving the throne to an infant nine months old, 
who was proclaimed as Henry VI, King of France and England. 

Under Henry VI, whose power was for some time in the hands of his 
uncle the Duke of Bedford, the English maintained their footing in France 
for several years, and at the battle of Verneuil, in 1424, rivaled the 
glory of Cressy and Poitiers. At that conflict, a body of Scotch, 7000 
strong, who had proved of material service to the French, were nearly 
cut off. In 1428, when France seemed completely sunk beneath the 
English rule, the interests ot the native prince were suddenly revived by 
a simple maiden, named Joan of Arc, who pretended to have been com- 
missioned by Heaven to save her country ; and entering into the French 
army, was the cause of several signal reverses to the English. By her 
enthusiastic exertions, and the trust everywhere reposed in her supernatur 
al character, Charles VII was crowned at Rheims in 1430. Being soon 
after taken prisoner, the heroic maiden was, by the English, condemned 
for witchcraft, and burnt. Nevertheless, about the year 1453, the French 
monarch had retrieved the whole of his dominions from the English, with 
the exception :>f Calais. 

Henry VI was remarkable for the extreme weakness of his character. 
His cousin, Richard, Duke of York, descended from an elder son of 
Edward III, and therefore possessed of a superior title to the throne, 
conceived that Henry's imbecility afforded a good opportunity for assert- 
ing what he thought his birthright. Thus commenced the famous Wars 
of the Hoses, as they were called, from the badges of the families of 
York and Lancaster — the former of which was a white, while the latter 
was a red rose. In 1454, the duke gained a decisive victory over the 
forces of Henry, which were led by his spirited consort, Margaret of 
Anjou. In some succeeding engagements the friends of Henry were 
victorious ; and at length, in the battle of Wakefield (December 24, 
1460), the forces of the Duke of York were signally defeated, and him- 
self, with one of his sons, taken and put to death. His pretensions were 
then taken up by his eldest son Edward, who, with the assistance of the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 157 

Earl of "Warwick, gained such advantages next year, that he assumed 
the crown. Before this was accomplished, many thousands had fallen on 
both sides. Henry, who cared little for the pomp of sovereignty, was 
confined in the Tower. 

Scotland, in the meantime (1424), had redeemed her king from his 
captivity in England ; and that prince, styled James I, had proved a 
great legislator and reformer, not to speak of his personal accomplishments 
in music and literature, which surpassed thos3 of every cotemporary 
monarch. James did much to reduce the Highlands to an obedience 
under the Scottish government, and also to break up the enormous power 
of the nobles. By these proceedings, however, he excited a deep hatred 
in the bosoms of some of his subjects ; and in 1437 he fell a victim to 
assassination at Perth. He was succeeded by his infant son, James II, 
the greater part of whose reign was spent in a harassing contention with 
the powerful house of Douglas, and who was finally killed, in the flower 
of his age, by the bursting of a cannon before Roxburgh Castle. His 
successor, James III, was also a minor, and, on reaching man's estate, 
proved to be a weak, though not ill-meaning prince. He fell a victim, in 
1488, to a conspiracy formed by his subjects, and which was led by his 
eldest son. The morality of princes in this age seems to have been much 
upon a par with that ascribed to the Turkish sovereigns of a later period. 
They never scrupled to destroy life, either within the circle of their own 
family, or out of it, when it suited their interests or their ambition to 
do so. 

HOUSE OF YORK. 

Edward, of the House of York, styled Edward IV, who commenced 
his reign in the nineteenth year of his age, reigned ten years, perpetu- 
ally disturbed by renewed attempts of the Lancastrian party, of which he 
mercilessly sacrificed many thousands who fell into his hands. At length, 
having offended the Earl of Warwick, who had been chiefly instrumental 
in placing him upon the throne, that powerful nobleman raised an insur- 
rection against him, and in eleven days was master of the kingdom, while 
Edward had to take refuge on the continent. Henry VI was then re 
stored, and Warwick acquired the title of King-maker. Nine months af- 
ter (1471), Edward landed with a small body of followers, and having 
called his partisans arround him, overthrew and killed Warwick at St. 
Alban's. Margaret of Anjou, who had fought battles for her husband in 
almost every province of England, gathered a new army, and opposed 
Edward at Tewkesbury Park, where she was completely defeated. Her 
son and husband being taken, were murdered in cold blood, and she her- 
self spent the remainder of her singular life in France. Edward reigned, 
a profligate and a tyrant, till 1483, when he died in the forty-second 
year of his age. He had previously caused his brother, the equally prof- 
ligate Duke of Clarence, to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. 

During the reign of Edward IV, the plague frequently broke out in 
England, and carried off immense numbers of the people. It was par- 
ticularly fatal in London, and in all other places where many houses were 
huddled closely together, with imperfect means of cleaning and ventila- 
tion. It wa? calculated that the disease, on one occasion in this reign, 



158 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

destroyed as many lives as the fifteen years' war. The plague did not 
cease to occur in England, as well as in other European countries, until 
considerable improvements had taken place in the habits of the people, 
especially in point of cleanliness. 

Edward V, the eldest son of Edward IV, was a boy of eleven years 
when he succeeded to the crown. His uncle, Richard, Duke of Glou- 
cester, a wicked and deformed wretch, soon after contrived to obtain 
the chief power, and also to cause the murder of the young king and 
his still younger brother in the Tower. He then mounted the throne 
under the title of Richard III. For two years, this disgrace to human- 
ity continued to reign, though universally abhorred by his people. At 
length, in 1485, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, a connexion rather 
than a descendant of the Lancaster family, resolved to make an attempt 
upon the English crown. Having landed with about 2000 followers at 
Milford Haven, he advanced into the country, and speedily gained such 
accession of force as enabled him to meet and overthrow Richard at Bos- 
worth Field, where the tyrant was slain, and the victorious Richmond 
was immediately proclaimed king, under the title of Henry VII. The 
new monarch soon after sought to strengthen his title by marrying Eliza- 
beth, the daughter and heir of Edward IV, by which it was said the 
families of York and Lancaster were united. 

HOUSE OF TUDOR — HENRY VII. 

Under Henry VII the country revived from the evils of a long civil 
war, in the course of which the chief nobility had been broken down, and 
the industry and commerce of the land interrupted. It was remarkable, 
nevertheless, that, during the past period, England was upon the whole 
an improving country. The evils of war had fallen chiefly on those 
who made it ; the government, however disturbed by various claimants of 
the throne, was mild and equitable — at least as compared with that of 
other countries ; and the people at large throve under a system in which 
their own consent, by the voice of the House of Commons, was necessary 
to the making of every new law, and the laying on of every tax. The 
reign of Henry VII was much disturbed by insurrections, in conse- 
quence of his imperfect title. A baker's boy, named Lambert Symnel, 
and a Jew's son, named Perkin Warbeck, were successively set up by the 
York party — the one as a son of the late Duke of Clarence, and the 
other as the younger brother of Edward V, but were both defeated. 
Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn in 1499 ; and nearly about the same 
time, Henry procured, by forms of law, the death of the Earl of Warwick, 
the real son of the late Duke of Clarence, a poor idiot boy, whom he had 
kept fifteen years in confinement, and whose title to the throne, being 
superior to his own, rendered him uneasy. 

Henry though a cruel prince, as were most of the sovereigns of Lis 
age, was a sagacious and peaceful ruler. He paid great attention to all 
his affairs, and in some of his acts looked far beyond the present time. 
For example, by marrying his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland, 
he provided for the possibility of the future union of the two crowns. 
By a law allowing men of property to break entails, he insured the re- 
duction of the great lords, and the increase of the number of small pro- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 159 

prietors. His constant policy was to depress the chief nobles, and to el- 
evate the clergy, lawyers, and men of new families, as most likely to be 
dependent on him. The greatest fault of his character was his excessive 
love of money, of which he amassed an immense sum. During his reign, 
Ireland Avas made more dependent on the English crown by a statute 
prohibiting any parliament from being held in it until the king should give 
his cod sent. 

HENRY VIII. 

Henry VII died in April 1509, in the fifty-third year of his age. His 
eldest surviving son and successor, Henry VIII, was now in his eight- 
eenth year. Young, handsome, and supposed to be amiable, he enjoyed at 
first a high degree of popularity. Some years before, he had been affi- 
anced to Catharine, a Spanish princess, who had previously been the wife 
of his deceased brother Arthur : he was now married to this lady, the 
Pope having previously granted a dispensation for that purpose. For 
many years the reign of Henry was unmarked by any unusual incidents. 
The chief administration of affairs was committed to a low-born but proud 
churchman, the celebrated Cardinal Wolsey. The king became much 
engaged in continental politics ; and during a war which he carried on 
against France, his brother-in-law James IV, who sided with that state, 
made an unfortunate irruption into the north of England, and was over- 
thrown and slain, with the greater part of his nobility (September 9, 
1513), at Flodden. 

About this time some changes of great importance to European soci- 
ety took place. Almost ever since the destruction of the Roman Empire, 
the nations which arose out of it had remained in subjection to the Papal 
See, which might be said to have inherited the universal sway of that 
government, but altered from an authority over the bodies of men to an 
empire over their minds. In the opinion of many, this authority of the 
Roman Catholic religion had in the course of time become much abused, 
while the religion itself was corrupted by many superstitious observances. 
So long as men had continued to be the thoughtless warriors and unlet- 
tered peasants which they had been in the middle ages, it is not probable 
that they would ever have called in question either the authority of the 
Pope or the purity of the Catholic faith. But, with knowledge, and the 
rise of a commercial and manufacturing class, came a disposition to in- 
quire into the authority of this great religious empire. The art of print- 
ing, discovered about the middle of the preceding century, and which 
was now rendering literature accessible to most classes of the community, 
tended greatly to bring about this revolution in European intellect. The 
minds of men, indeed, seem at this time as if awaking from a long sleep ; 
and it might well have been a question with persons who had reflection, 
but no experience, whether the change was to turn to evil or to good. 

When men's minds are in a state of preparation for any great change, 
a very small matter is required to set them in motion. At Wittemberg, 
in Germany, there was an Augustine monk, named Martin Luther, who 
became incensed at the Roman see, in consequence of some injury which 
he conceived to have been done to his order by the Pope having granted 
the privilege of selling indulgences to the Dominican order of friars. Being 



160 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

a man of a bold and inquiring mind, he did not rest satisfied till he had 
convinced himself, and many others around him, that the indulgences were 
sinful, and that the Pope had no right to grant them. This happened 
about the year 1517. Controversy and persecution gradually extended the 
views of Luther, till he at length openly disavowed the authority of the 
Pope, and condemned some of the most important peculiarities of the Catho- 
lic system of worship. In these proceedings, Luther was countenanced 
by some of the states in Germany, and his doctrines were speedily estab- 
lished in the northern countries of Europe. 

THE REFORMATION. 

Henry VIII, as the second son of his father, had been originally educa- 
ted for the church, and still retained a taste for theological learning. He 
now distinguished himself by writing a book against the Lutheran doctrines ; 
and the Pope was so much pleased with it as to grant him the title of De- 
fender of the Faith. Henry was not destined, however, to continue long 
an adherent of the Roman pontiff. In the year 1527, he became enam- 
ored of a young gentlewoman named Anne Boleyn, who was one of his 
wife's attendants. He immediately conceived the design of annulinghis 
marriage with Catharine, and marrying this younger and more agreeable 
person. Finding a pretext for such an act in the previous marriage of 
Catharine to his brother, he attempted to obtain from the Pope a decree, 
declaring his own marriage unlawful, and that the dispensation upon which 
it had proceeded was beyond the powers of the former Pope to grant. 
The pontiff ( Clement VII ) was much perplexed by this request of King 
Henry, because he could not accede to it without offending Charles V, 
Emperor of Germany, one of his best supporters, and the nephew of Queen 
Catharine, and at the same time humbling the professed powers of the 
Papacy, which were now trembling under the attacks of Luther. 

Henry desired to employ the influence of his minister, Cardinal "VVolsey, 
who had now reached a degree of opulence and pride never before attained 
by a subject of England. But Wolsey, with all his greatness, could not 
venture to urge a matter disagreeable to the Pope, who was more his master 
than King Henry. The process went on for several years, and still his 
passion for Anne Boleyn continued unabated. Wolsey at length fell under 
the king's displeasure for refusing to serve him in this object, was stripped 
of all his places of power and wealth, and in November 1530, expired at 
Leicester Abbey, declaring that, if he had served his God as diligently as 
his king, he would not thus have been given over in his gray hairs. The 
uncontrollable desire of the king to possess Anne Boleyn, was destined to 
be the immediate cause of one of the most important changes that ever 
took place in England — no less than a total reformation of the national 
religion. In order to annul his marriage with Catharine, and enable him 
to marry Anne Boleyn, he found it necessary to shake off the authority of 
the Pope, and procure himself to be acknowledged in Parliament as the 
supreme head of the English church. His marriage with Anne took place 
in 1533, and in the same year was born his celebrated daughter Elizabeth. 

In 1536, Henry became as anxious to put away Queen Anne as he had 
ever been to rid himself of Queen Catharine. He had contracted a pas- 
sion for Jane Seymour, a young lady then of the queen's bedchamber, as 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 161 

Anne herself had been in that of Catharine. In order to gratify this new 
passion, he accused Anne of what appears to have been an imaginary frailty, 
and within a month from the time when she had been an honored queen, 
she was beheaded (May 19) in the Tower. On the very next day he 
married Jane Seymour, who soon after died in giving birth to a son ( after- 
wards Edward VI. ) His daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were declared 
illegitimate by act of Parliament, and therefore excluded from the suc- 
cession. 

Hitherto, though professing independence of Rome, Henry still main- 
tained, and even enforced, by severe and bloody laws, the most of its doc- 
trines. He now took measures for altering this system of worship to some- 
thing nearer the Lutheran model, and also for suppressing the numerous 
monasteries through the country. Being possessed of more despotic power, 
and, what is stranger still, of more popularity, than any former sovereign 
of England, he was able to encounter the dreadful risk of offending by 
these means a vastly powerful corporation, which seems moreover, to have 
been regarded with much sincere affection and respect in many parts of 
England. No fewer than 645 monasteries, 2374 chanteries and chapels, 
90 colleges, and 110 hospitals, enjoying altogether a revenue of <£161,000, 
were broken up by this powerful and unscrupulous monarch. He partly 
seized the revenues for his own use, and partly gave them away to the 
persons who most actively assisted him and who seemed most able to pro- 
tect his government from the effects of such a sweeping reform. By this 
act, which took place in 1537, the Reformation was completed in England. 
Yet for many years Henry vacillated so much in his opinions, and en- 
forced these with such severe enactments, that many persons of both reli- 
gions were burnt as heretics. It was in the southern and eastern parts 
of England, where the commercial class at this time chiefly resided, that 
the doctrines of the Reformation were most prevalent. In the western 
and northern parts of the country, Catholicism continued to flourish ; and 
in Ireland, which was remotest of all from the continent, the Protestant 
faith made little or no impression. 

After the death of Jane Seymour, Henry married Anne of Cleves, a 
German princess, with whose person, however, he was not pleased ; and he 
therefore divorced her by an act of Parliament. He next married Cathe- 
rine Howard, niece to the Duke of Norfolk ; but had not been long united 
to her when he discovered that she had committed a serious indiscretion 
before marriage. This was considered a sufficient reason for beheading the 
unfortunate queen, and attainting all her relations. Though Henry had 
thus murdered two wives, and divorced other two, and become, moreover, 
a monster in form as well as in his passions and mind, he succeeded in ob- 
taining for his sixth wife ( 1543 ) Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, 
who, it is certain, only contrived to escape destruction by her extraordinary 
prudence. Almost all who ever served Henry VIII as ministers, either to 
his authority or to his pleasures, were destroyed by him. Wolsey was either 
driven to suicide, or died of a broken heart . Thomas Cromwell, who suc- 
ceeded that minister, and chiefly aided the king in bringing about the Re- 
formation — Sir Thomas More, lord chancellor, the most virtuous, most 
able and most consistent man of his time — the Earl of Surrey, who was 
one of the most accomplished knights of the age, and the first poet who 

11* 



162 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

wrote the English language with perfect taste — all suffered the same fate 
with Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. 

When James IV died at Flodden,in 1513, the Scottish crown fell to his 
infant son James V, who struggled through a turbulent minority, and was 
now a gay, and, upon the whole, an amiable prince. His uncle, Henry 
VIII, endeavored to bring him into his views respecting religion ; but 
James, who was much in the power of the Catholic clergy, appears to have 
wished to become the head of the Popish party in England, in the hope 
of succeeding, by their means, to the throne of that country. A war lat- 
terly broke out between the two monarchs, and the Scottish army having 
refused to fight, from a dislike to the expedition, James died ( December 
1542 ) of a broken heart, leaving an only child, Mary, who was not above 
a week old. Henry immediately conceived the idea of marrying his son 
Edward to this infant queen, by which he calculated that two hostile na- 
tions should be united under one sovereignty, and the Protestant church 
in England be supported by a similar establishment in Scotland. This pro- 
ject, however, was resisted by the Scots, of whom very few as yet were 
inclined to the Protestant doctrines. Henry, enraged at their hesitation, 
sent a fleet and army, in 1544, to inflict vengeance upon them. The Scots 
endured with great patience the burning of their capital city, and many 
other devastations, but still refused the match. The government of Scot- 
land was now chiefly in the hands of Cardinal Beaton, a man of bold and 
decisive intellect, who zealously applied himself to suppress the reforming 
preachers, and regarded the English match as likely to bring about the 
destruction of the Catholic religion. 

EDWARD VI — QUEEN MARY. 

Henry died, January 28, 1547, leaving the throne to his only son, a boy 
of ten years of age, who was immediately proclaimed king under the title 
of Edavard VI. The Duke of Somerset, maternal uncle to the young 
king, became supreme ruler under the title of Protector, and continued to 
maintain the Protestant doctrines. Under this reign, the church of Eng- 
land assumed its present form, and the Book of Common Prayer was com- 
posed nearly as it now exists. Somerset being resolved to effect, if possible, 
the match between Edward VI and Mary of Scotland, invaded that coun- 
try in the autumn of 1547, and was met at Musselburgh by a large army 
under the governor, the Earl of Arran. Though the Scotch were anima- 
ted by bitter animosity against the English, against their religion, and 
against the object of their expedition, they did not fight with their usual 
resolution, but were defeated, and pursued with great slaughter. Finding 
them still obstinate in refusing to give up their queen, Somerset laid waste 
a great part of the country, and then retired. Previous to this period, 
Cardinal Beaton had been assassinated by private enemies ; but the Scotch 
were encouraged to persevere by the court of France, to which they now 
sent the young queen for protection. 

In the reign of Edward VI the government was conducted mildly, until 
the Protector Somerset was degraded from his authority by the rising in- 
fluence of Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who caused him soon after 
to be tried and executed. Northumberland, who was secretly a Roman 
Catholic, was not so mild or popular a ruler. Yet, throughout the whole 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 163 

reign of Edward VI which was terminated by his death on the 6th of July 
1553, at the early age of sixteen, no religious party was persecuted, ex- 
cept those who denied the fundamental doctrines of the Chi'istian religion. 
It would have been well for the honor of a church which has produced 
many great men, and to which the modern world is indebted for the very 
existence of Christianity, if it had not been tempted after this period to 
commence a very different course of action. The crown now belonged by 
birthright to Mary, the eldest daughter of Henry VIII, who was a zeal- 
ous Catholic. Northumberland, however, assuming the illegitimacy of that 
princess and her sister Elizabeth, set up as queen the Lady Jane Grey, 
who was descended from a younger sister of King Henry, and who had 
been married to a son of the Duke of Northumberland. Lady Jane was 
the most beautiful, most intelligent, and mogt amiable of, all the females 
who appear in the history of England. Though only seventeen, she was 
deeply learned, and yet preserved all the unaffected graces of character 
proper to her interesting age. Unfortunately, 'her father-in-law North- 
umberland was so much disliked, that the Catholics were enabled to dis- 
place her ^from the throne in eight days, and to set up in her stead the 
Princess Mary. Northumberland, Lady Jane, and her husband, Guildford, 
Lord Dudley, were all beheaded by that savage princess, who soon after 
took steps for restoring the Catholic religion, and married Philip II, king 
of Spain, in order to strengthen herself against the Protestant interest. 
Mary experienced some resistance from her Protestant subjects, and being 
under great suspicion of her sister Elizabeth, who professed the reformed 
faith, but took no part against her, was almost on the point of ordering 
her to execution also. As soon as she had replaced the Catholic system, 
and found herself in possession of sufficient power, she began that career 
of persecution which has rendered her name so infamous. Five out of 
fourteen Protestant bishops, including the revered names of Cranmer, Lat- 
imer, and Ridley, were committed to the flames as heretics ; and during 
the ensuing part of her reign, which was closed by her death, November 
17, 1558, nearly three hundred persons suffered in the same manner. 
These scenes did not take place without exciting horror in the minds of 
Englishmen in general, including even many Catholics ; but the royal au- 
thority was at all times too great under this line of princes to allow of ef- 
fectual resistance. Such a persecution, however, naturally fixed in the 
minds of the British Protestants a hereditary horror for the name of Cath- 
olic, which has in its turn been productive of many retaliatory persecutions, 
almost equally to be lamented. In the latter part of her reign, she was 
drawn by her husband into a war with France, of which the only effect 
was the loss of Calais, the last of the French possessions of the sovereigns 
of England. The natural sourness of Mary's temper was increased by 
this disgraceful event, as well as by her want of children, and she died in 
a state of great unhappiness. 

ELIZABETH — MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS — REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND. 

A more auspicious scene opened for England in the accession of Eliza- 
beth, a princess of great native vigor of mind, and who had been much 
improved by adversity, having been kept in prison during the whole reign 
of her sister. From the peculiar circumstances of Elizabeth's birth, her 



164 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

right of succession was denied by all the Catholics at home and abroad. 
This party considered Mary, Queen of Scots, who was descended from 
the eldest sister of Henry VIII, and had been brought up in the Catholic 
faith at the court of France, as their legitimate sovereign. Elizabeth had 
no support in any quarter, except among her Protestant subjects. The 
Pope issued a bull, which directly or indirectly, pronounced her a usurper, 
and gave permission to her subjects to remove her from the throne. The 
court of France professed to consider the Queen of Scots, who had recent- 
ly been married to the Dauphin, as the Queen of England. Under these 
circumstances, Elizabeth found no chance of safety except in restoring and 
maintaining the Protestant religion in her own country, and in seeking to 
support it in all others where the people were favorable to it. The Scot- 
tish nation being now engaged in a struggle with their regent, Mary of 
Guise, in behalf of Protestantism, Elizabeth gladly acceded to a proposal 
made by the nobles of that country, and sent a party of troops, by whose 
assistance the reformed religion was established (1560). In bringing 
about this change, the chief native leaders were James Stuart, a natural 
son of King James V, and John Knox, who had once been a friar, but 
was now a Protestant preacher. As a natural consequence of the obliga- 
tion which the English queen had conferred upon the Scottish reformers, 
she acquired an influence over the country which was never altogether 
lost. 

About the time when the Scottish Parliament was establishing the re- 
formed religion, Mary of Guise breathed her last, leaving the country to 
be managed by the reforming nobles. Her daughter, the Queen of Scots, 
now eighteen years of age, and the most beautiful woman of her time, had 
in 1559 become the queen-consort of France ; but in consequence of the 
death of her husband, she was next year left without any political interest 
in that country. She accordingly, in August 1561, returned to Scotland, 
and assumed the sovereignty of a country which was chiefly under the rule 
of fierce nobles, and where the people, from the difference of their reli- 
gious faiths, as well as their native barbarism, were little fitted to yield her 
the obedience of loyal and loving subjects. 

The change of religion in Scotland was of a more decisive kind than it 
had been in England. The English Reformation had been effected by 
sovereigns who, while they wished to throw off the supremacy of the 
Pope, and some of the Catholic rites, desired to give as little way as 
possible to popular principles. They therefore not only seized the su- 
premacy of the church to themselves, but, by bishops and other dignita- 
ries, made it an efficient instrument for supporting monarchical government. 
In Scotland, where the Reformation was effected by the nobles and the 
people, at a time when still bolder principles had sprung up, none of this 
machinery of power was retained. The clergy were placed on a footing 
of perfect equality ; they were all of them engaged in parochial duties, 
and only a small part of the ancient ecclesiastical revenues was allowed 
to them. In imitation of the system established at Geneva, their general 
affairs, instead of being intrusted to the hands of bishops, were confided 
to courts formed by themselves. These courts, being partly formed by 
lay elders, kept up a sympathy and attachment among the community, 
which has never existed in so great a degree in the English church. 
What was of perhaps still greater importance, while a large part of the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 165 

ancient revenues was absorbed by the nobles, a very considerable portion 
was devoted to the maintenance of parish schools, under the express 
control of the clergy. These at once formed regular nurseries of Prot- 
estant Christians, and disseminated the elements of learning more exten- 
sively over this small and remote country than it had ever been over any 
other part of the world. 

Queen Mary, having little power in her own country, was obliged 
to govern by means of her natural brother, James Stuart, whom she 
created Earl of Moray, and who was the leader of the Protestant in- 
terest in Scotland. Personally, however, she was intimately connected 
with the great Catholic powers of the continent, and became a party, in 
1564, to a coalition formed by them for the suppression of Protestantism 
all over Europe. She had never yet resigned her pretensions to the 
English throne, but lived in the hope that, when the Catholics succeeded 
in everywhere subduing the Protestants, she would attain that object. 
Elizabeth, who had only the support of the Protestant part of her own 
subjects, with a friendly feeling among the Scotch and other unimportant 
Protestant nations, had great reason to dread the confederacy formed 
against her. She nevertheless stood firm upon the Protestant faith, and 
the principles of a comparatively liberal and popular government, as the 
only safe position. 

A series of unfortunate events threw Mary into the hands of Elizabeth. 
The former queen, in 1565, married her cousin Lord Darnley, and by 
that means alienated the affections of her brother and chief minister, the 
Earl of Moray, as well as of other Protestant lords, who raised a rebel- 
lion against her, and were obliged to fly into England. Soon after, the 
jealousy of Darnley respecting an Italian musician named Rizzio, who 
acted as French secretary to the queen, united him in a conspiracy with 
the banished Protestant noblemen for the murder of that humble foreign- 
er, which was effected under very barbarous circumstances, March 9, 
1566. Mary, who was delivered in the succeeding June, of her son 
James, withdrew her affections entirely from her husband, and began to 
confide chiefly in the Earl of Bothwell, who some months afterwards 
caused Darnley to be blown up by gunpowder, while he lay in a state of 
sickness ; in which transaction it has always been suspected, but never 
proved, that the queen had a considerable share. Bothwell soon after 
forced her, in appearance, into a marriage, which excited so much indig- 
nation among her subjects, that the same Protestant lords who had effect- 
ed the Reformation, and were the friends of Elizabeth, easily obtained 
the possession of her person, and having deposed her, crowned her infant 
son as king, under the title of James VI, while the regency was vested 
in the Earl of Moray. In May 1568, Mary escaped from her prison in 
Lochleven, and put herself at the head of a body of her partisans, but 
was defeated by the regent at the battle of Langside, and was then com- 
pelled to seek refuge in England. By placing her rival under strict con- 
finement, and extending an effectual protection to the regents Moray, 
Lennox, Mar, and Morton, who successively governed Scotland, Elizabeth 
fortified herself in a great degree against the Catholic confederacy. 



166 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



GOVERNMENT OF ELIZABETH. 

It has already been seen that the liberties of the people were much 
favored by the frequent interruptions in the succession to the crown. 
Whenever one branch of the Plantagenet family displaced another, the 
new king, feeling himself weak, endeavored to strengthen his title by 
procuring a parliamentary enactment in support of it. It thus became 
established as a regular principle in the English government, that the 
people who were represented in parliament had something to say in the 
appointment of their king. A considerable change, however, had taken 
place since the accession of Henry VII. The great power acquired by 
that king, through his worldly wisdom and the destruction of the nobility 
during the civil wars, had been handed down through four successive 
princes, who inherited the crown by birthright, and did not require to 
cringe to the people for a confirmation of their title. The parliaments, 
therefore, were now a great deal more under the control of the sovereign 
than they had formerly been. From an early period of his reign, Henry 
VIII never permittedkhis parliament to oppose his will in the least. To 
the various changes of* religion under successive sovereigns, the parlia- 
ments presented no obstacle. An idea was now beginning to arise, very 
much through the supremacy which the sovereigns had acquired over the 
church, that the right of the crown was one derived from God, and that 
the people had nothing to do with it, except to obey what it dictated to 
them. Of this notion, no one took so much advantage, or was at so 
much pains to impress it, as Elizabeth. No doubt her arbitrary measures 
were generally of a popular nature, yet this does not excuse them in 
principle ; and their ultimate mischief is seen in the attempts of future 
sovereigns to pursue worse ends upon the same means. Elizabeth's 
government consisted entirely of herself and her ministers, who were, 
from the beginning to the end of her reign, the very spirit and essence of 
the enlightened men of England. Her prime minister was the celebrat- 
ed Lord Burleigh, by far the most sagacious man who ever acted as a 
minister in Britain ; and all her emissaries to foreign courts were of one 
complexion — circumspect and penetrating men, ardently devoted to their 
country, their mistress, and to the Protestant religion. 

On the acoession of Elizabeth, the two celebrated acts of Supremacy 
and Conformity were passed, for the purpose of crushing the political in- 
fluence of the Popish religion ; an end which they sufficiently accom- 
plished. By the act of supremacy, all beneficed clergymen, and all hold- 
ing offices under the crown, were compelled to take an oath adjuring the 
temporal and spiritual jurisdiction of any foreign prince or prelate, on 
pain of forfeiting their offices, while any one maintaining such suprema- 
cy was liable to heavy penalties. The other statute prohibited any one 
from following any clergyman who was not of the established religion, 
under pain of forfeiting his goods and chattels for the first offense, of a 
year's imprisonment for the second, and of imprisonment during life for 
the third ; while it imposed a fine of a shilling on any one absenting him- 
self from the established church on Sundays and holidays. By means 
of a court of ecclesiastical commission, which the queen erected, these 
laws, and others of a more trifling and vexatious nature, were enforced 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 16T 

with great severity. It may afford some idea of the barbarity of the age, 
and of the terror in which the church of Rome was now held, that, during 
the reign of Elizabeth, one hundred and eighty persons suffered death by 
the laws affecting Catholic priests and converts. 

WAR IN THE NETHERLANDS. 

For more than a century after the Reformation, religion was the real or 
apparent motive of the most remarkable transactions in European history. 
It is scarcely necessary to point out that this sentiment, though in gen- 
eral the purest by which human beings can be actuated, is, like all the 
other higher sentiments of our nature, when offended or shocked, capable 
of rousing the inferior sentiments into great activity. In the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries, European society was comparatively unenlight- 
ened and barbarous ; we therefore find the variances of opinion respecting 
religion were then productive of far fiercer feelings than they are in our 
own more humane age. The Protestant heresy, as it was termed by the 
Catholics, was also a novelty, the remote effects of which no man could 
foretell ; it was mingled with political questions, and by some princes was 
supposed to forebode a general revolt against momfrchical authority. We 
are not therefore to wonder that great cruelties were committed, either 
by the Catholics in seeking to support the church of Rome, or by the Pro- 
testants in endeavoring to insure themselves against a renewal of severities 
inflicted by the opposite party. Nor is it necessary, in the present age, 
that the adherents of either faith should retain any feeling of displeasure 
against the other, on account of barbarities which took their rise in the 
ignorance and rudeness of a former period, and of which the enlightened 
of both parties have long since disapproved. 

In the Netherlands, which formed part of the dominions of Philip II of 
Spain, the reformed faith had made considerable advances. Philip, like 
other Catholic princes, entertained the idea that this new creed, besides 
being condemnable as a heresy and an offense against the Deity, tended 
to make men independent of their rulers. Finding the people obstinate 
in their professions, he commenced a war with the Netherlanders, for the 
purpose of enforcing his authority over their consciences. This war las- 
ted about twenty years ; for the Netherlanders, though a nation of no 
great strength, fought like desperate men, and endured the most dreadful 
hardships rather than submit. The chief leader in this war of liberty was 
William, Prince of Orange, one of the purest and most courageous patriots 
that ever breathed. Elizabeth could not help wishing well to the Nether- 
landers, though for a long time her dread of Spain, then one of the great- 
est powers in Europe, prevented her from openly assisting them. At the 
same time, about two millions of the people of France were Protestants, 
or, as they were then called, Huguenots, who acted also for the general 
Protestant cause with as much energy as the great strength of the French 
government would permit. Elizabeth at length, in 1578, extended an 
open protection to the Netherlanders, excusing herself to Philip by stat- 
ing her fear that they would otherwise throw themselves into the arms of 
France. The northern provinces were thus enabled to assert their inde- 
pendence, and to constitute the country which has since been called 
Holland. 



168 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



DEATH OP MARY, QUEEN OP SCOTS 

The Catholic powers of the continent formed many schemes for annoy- 
ing or dethroning Elizabeth ; and the imprisoned Scottish queen, or her 
adherents, were generally concerned in them. The King of Spain, deter- 
mined at length to make a decisive effort, commenced the preparation of 
a vast fleet, which he termed the Invincible Armada, and with which he 
designed to invade the English shores. Elizabeth, her ministers, and peo- 
ple, beheld the preparations with much concern, and their fears were in- 
creased by the plots which were incessantly forming amongst her Catholic 
subjects in behalf of the Queen of Scots. An act was passed declaring" 
that any person, by or for whom any plot should be made against the 
Queen of England, should be guilty of treason. When, soon after, a gen- 
tleman named Babington formed a conspiracy for assassinating Elizabeth and 
placing Mary on the throne, the latter queen became of course liable to 
the punishment of treason, although herself innocent. She was subjected 
to a formal trial in her prison of Fotheringay Castle, and found guilty. 
Elizabeth hesitated for -some time to strike an unoffending and unfortunate 
person, related to her by blood, and her equal in rank. But at length 
fears for herself got the better of her sense of justice, and, it may be 
added, of her good sense, and she gave her sanction to an act which 
leaves an ineffaceable stain upon her memory. On the 7th of February 
1587, Mary Queen of Scots, was beheaded in the hall of the castle, 
after an embittered confinement of more than eighteen years. 

James VI was now, after a turbulent minority, in possession of the 
reins of government in Scotland, but with little real power, being a de- 
pendent and pensioner of Elizabeth, and at the same time much controll 
ed by the clergy, who asserted a total independence of all temporal au 
thority, and considered themselves as the subjects alone of the Divine 
founder of the Christian faith. James made many attempts to assert a 
control over the church like that enjoyed by the English monarch, and 
also to introduce an Episcopal hierarchy, but never could attain more 
than a mere shadow of his object. The chief influence he possessed 
arose in fact from his being regarded as heir presumptive to the English 
crown. 

SPANISH ARMADA — REBELLION LN IRELAND. 

In 1588, the Spanish Armada, consisting of 130 great vessels, with 
20,000 land forces on board, set sail against England, while 34,000 more 
land forces prepared to join from the Netherlands. Amidst the conster 
nation which prevailed in England, active measures were taken to de 
fend the country ; thirty vessels prepared to meet the Armada, and an- 
other fleet endeavored to block up the Netherlands forces in port. The 
command was taken by Lord Howard of Effingham. Troops were also 
mustered on land to repel the invaders. The English fleet attacked 
the Armada in the Channel, and was found to have a considerable ad- 
vantage in the lightness and manageableness of the vessels. As the Ar- 
mada sailed along, it was infested by the English in the rear, and by 
a series of desultory attacks, so damaged as to be obliged to take ref 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 169 

uge on the coast of Zealand. The Duke of Parma now declined to em- 
bark the Netherlands forces, and it was resolved by the admiral, that they 
should return to Spain by sailing round the Orkneys, as the winds were 
contrary to their passage directly back. Accordingly they proceeded 
northward, and were followed by the English fleet as far as Flamborough 
Head, where they were terribly shattered by a storm. Seventeen of the 
ships, having 5,000 men on board, were cast away on the Western Isles 
and the coast of Ireland. Of the whole Armada, fifty-three ships only 
returned to Spain, and these in a wretched condition. The seamen, as 
well as the soldiers who remained, were so overcome with hardships and 
fatigue, and so dispirited by their discomfiture, that they filled all Spain 
with accounts of the desperate valor of the English, and of the tempes- 
tuous violence of that ocean by which they were surrounded. 

Though the Protestant church had meanwhile been established in Ire- 
land, the great bulk of the people continued to be Roman Catholics. 
The native rudeness of the people and their chiefs, and the discontent oc- 
casioned by what was considered as a foreign church establishment, ren- 
dered the country turbulent and difficult to govern. Sir John Perrot, the 
deputy, proposed to improve the country by public works and English 
laws ; but it was thought injurious to England to improve the condition 
of Ireland. A series of rebellions under chiefs named O'Neill was the 
consequence, and the English government was maintained with great dif- 
ficulty, and at an enormous expense. The rebellion of Hugh O'Neill, 
Earl of Tyrone, was particularly formidable. The English officers were at 
first unsuccessful, and met with some serious defeats. In 1599, Tyrone 
gained so great a victory, that the whole province of Munster declared 
for him. He then invited the Spaniards to make a descent on Ireland, 
and join him. The queen sent over her favorite, the Earl of Essex, with 
20,000 men ; but he did not proceed with vigor, and soon after found it 
necessary to return to England to justify himself. Next year Tyrone 
broke the truce he had formed with Essex, overran the whole country, and 
acted as sovereign of Ireland. If Spain had at this time given him the 
support he asked, Ireland might have been dissevered from the English 
orown. 

Elizabeth now selected as her deputy for Ireland, Blount, Lord Mount- 
joy, who was in every respect better fitted than Essex to conduct such a 
warfare. As a preliminary step, this sagacious officer introduced jealousy 
and disunion among the Irish chiefs. The very celerity of his movements 
tended to dispirit the insurgents. In 1601, six thousand Spaniards lan- 
ded in Kinsale harbor, for the purpose of supporting the Irish. Mount- 
joy immediately invested the place, and prevented them from acting. 
Tyrone marched from the south of Ireland to their relief, and was met 
and overthrown by a much inferior English force, after which Kinsale 
was surrendered. About the time when Elizabeth died (1603), Tyrone 
submitted, and Ireland was once more reduced under the authority of the 
English crown. 

CONCLUSION OF THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 

It is remarkable, that while Elizabeth increased in power and resourc- 
es, she became more noted for feminine weaknesses. In her early years 



170 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

she had shown a stoicism, and superiority to natural affections, not usually 
observed in women. But in her old age, she became both volatile and 
susceptible to an extraordinary degree ; so that the hand which she had 
withheld in her younger days from the noblest princes of Europe, seemed 
likely to be bestowed in her old age upon some mere court minion. Her 
favorite in middle life was Robert, Earl of Leicester, a profligate and a tri- 
fler. In her latter days she listened to the addresses of the Earl of Essex, 
a young man of greater courage and better principle, but also headstrong 
and weak. Essex, who had acquired popularity by several brilliant mili- 
tary enterprises, began at length to assume an insolent superiority over 
the queen, who was on one occasion so much provoked by his rudeness as 
to give him a hearty box on the ear. Notwithstanding all his caprices, 
presumption, and insults, the queen still doatingly forgave him, until he at 
length attempted to raise an insurrection against her in the streets of Lon- 
don, when he w T as seized, condemned, and after much hesitation, executed 
(February 25, 1601). 

Elizabeth, in at last ordering the execution of Essex, had acted upon 
her usual principle of sacrificing her feelings to what was necessary for 
the public cause ; but in this effort, made in the sixty-eighth year of her 
age, she had miscalculated the real strength of her nature. She was ob- 
served from that time to decline gradually in health and spirits. 

About the close of 1601, she fell into a deep hypochondria or melan- 
choly. She could scarcely be induced to have herself dressed, and at 
length became so much absorbed by her sorrow as to refuse sustenance, and 
sat for days and nights on the floor, supported by a few cushions, brought 
to her by her attendants. On the 24th of March 1603, she expired, after 
a reign of nearly forty-five years, during which England advanced — po- 
litically and commercially — from the condition of a second-rate to that 
of a first rate power, and the Protestant religion was established on a basis 
from which it could never afterwards be shaken. 

The reign of Elizabeth saw the commencement of the naval glory of Eng- 
land. Down to the reign of Henry VII, there was no such thing as a 
navy belonging to the public, and the military genius of the people was de- 
voted exclusively to enterprises by land. The rise", however, of a com- 
mercial spirit in Europe, which in 1492 had caused the discovery of Amer- 
ica, and was again acted upon by the scope for adventure which that 
discovery opened up, had latterly caused great attention to be paid to 
nautical affairs in England. Englishmen of all ranks supported and entered 
into enterprises for discovering unknown territories ; and under Drake, Cav- 
endish, Raleigh, and Frobisher, various expeditions of more or less magni- 
tude were sent out. The colonies of North America were now commenced. 
Amongst the exertions of private merchants, our attention is chiefly attrac- 
ted by the commencement of the northern whale-fishery, the cod-fishery 
of Newfoundland, and the less laudable slave-trade in Africa. When hos- 
tilities with Spain became more open, the English commanders made many 
successful attacks upon her colonies in the West Indies, and also upon the 
fleets of merchant vessels which were employed to carry home the gold, 
and other almost equally valuable products of the New World, to the 
Spanish harbors. These attacks were now made in a more systematic 
manner, and with more effect, as a revenge for the affair of the Armada. It 
may be said that the dominion of Britain over the seas was perfected al- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 171 

most in a single reign ; a power which has been of such advantage to the 
country, both in protecting its commerce, and keeping it secure from foreign 
invasion, that its origin would have conferred everlasting lustre on this 
period of British history, even although it had not been characterised by 
any other glorious event. 

The chief articles exported from England to the continent were, wool, 
cloth, lead, and tin: formerly these had been sent in vessels belonging to 
the Hanse Towns — certain ports of the north of Europe, possessing great 
privileges — but now English vessels Avere substituted for this trade. Bir- 
mingham and Sheffield were already thriving seats of the hardware manu- 
facture, and Manchester was becoming distinguished for making cottons, 
rugs, and friezes. Stocking-weaving and the making of sailcloth, serge, 
and baize, took their rise in this reign. The progress of other arts was 
much favored by the bloody persecutions in the Netherlands, which drove 
into England great numbers of weavers, dyers, cloth-dressers, and silk- 
throwers. Amongst the wealthier classes, the wearing of handsome ap- 
parel and of gold ornaments and jewelery, made a great advance. Coach- 
es were introduced, but for a time thought only fit for the use of ladies. 
Great improvements were made in the building of houses. Theatrical 
amusements were begun, and attained great vogue, though only in London. 
The smoking of tobacco was introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh, who became 
acquainted with the plant in Virginia. At the end of Elizabeth's reign, the 
population of London was about 160,000, or a tenth of what it now is; 
and the whole kingdom probably contained about 5,000,000 of inhabitants. 

THE STUARTS — JAMES I. 

The successor of Elizabeth, by birthright, was James VI of Scotland 
(styled James I of England), who was now arrived at the prime of life, 
and had been married for some years to the Princess Anne of Denmark, 
by whom he had two sons, Henry and Charles, and one daughter named 
Elizabeth. James immediately removed to London, and assumed the gov- 
ernment of England, while his native kingdom, though thus united under 
the same sovereignty, still retained its own peculiar institutions. At the 
suggestion of the king, who wished to obliterate the distinction of the two 
countries, the common name of G-reat Britain was now conferred upon 
them. King James was an oddity in human character. His person was 
naturally feeble, particularly in his limbs, which were scarcely sufficient to 
support his weight. He had great capacity for learning, some acuteness, 
and a considerable share of wit; but was pedantic, vain and weak. He 
believed kings to be the deputies of God, and accountable to God alone for 
their actions. He was equally disposed with Elizabeth to govern despot- 
ically, or according to his own will ; but he wanted the vigor and the tact 
for securing popularity which enabled his predecessor to become so much 
the mistress of her subjects. 

Notwithstanding the energy of Elizabeth, the popular spirit had gradu- 
ally been acquiring force in her reign. It was chiefly seen in the acts of 
the Puritans, a religious party, who wished to make great reforms in the 
church, both in its government and its worship, and who, from the fervor 
of their devotions and the strictness of their manners, might be likened to 
the Presbyterians of Scotland. King James found considerable difficulty 



172 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

at the very first in controlling this party and evading their demands. He 
was no less troubled, on the other hand, by the Catholics, who, recollecting 
his mother Mary, conceived that he would be inclined to make matters 
more easy to them in England. Upon the whole, there were such difficul- 
ties in the way, as, to have steered successfully through them, would have 
required a wiser instead of a weaker ruler than Elizabeth. 

GUNPOWDER PLOT. 

The disappointment of the Catholics on finding that the severe laws 
against them were not to be relaxed, led to a conspiracy on the part of a 
few gentlemen of that persuasion, of whom the chief was William Catesby, 
a person of dissolute habits. It was arranged that, on the day of the 
meeting of Parliament, November 5, 1605, the House of Lords should be 
blown up by gunpowder, at the moment when the King, Lords, and Com- 
mons were assembled in it, thus destroying as they thought, all their chief 
enemies at one blow, and making way for a new government which should 
be more favorable to them. Accordingly, thirty-four barrels of powder 
were deposited in the cellars beneath the House, and a person named Guy 
Fawkes was prepared to kindle it at the proper time. The plot was dis- 
covered, in consequence of the receipt of a letter by Lord Monteagle, 
warning him not to attend the meeting of Parliament. An investigation 
took place during the night between the 4th and 5th of November, when 
the gunpowder was discovered, and Fawkes taken into custody. He con- 
fessed his intentions ; and the rest of the conspirators fled to the coun- 
try, where most of them were cut to pieces in endeavoring to defend them- 
selves. Notwithstanding the atrocious character of this plot, the king 
could never be induced to take advantage of it, as most of his subjects 
desired, for the purpose of increasing the persecution of the Catholic party. 
He probably feared that new severities might only give rise to other at- 
tempts against his life. 

PLANTATIONS IN IRELAND. 

The state in which the king found Ireland at his accession, afforded an 
opportunity for commencing a more generous policy in reference to that 
country, and introducing regulations favorable to internal improvement. 
Previously to this reign, the legislative authority of the English govern- 
ment was confined to the small district called the ' Pale,' while the rest 
was governed by native sovereigns or chiefs, whose connection with the 
king of England was merely that of feudal homage, which did not prevent 
them from making wars or alliances with each other. Subject to depreda- 
tions from these powerful barons, the native Irish, from a very early period, 
petitioned for the benefit of the English laws ; but the Irish Parliament, 
which was composed of the English barons, was never at a loss for the 
means of preventing this desirable measure from being effected. James 
was in reality the first king who extended the English law over the whole 
of Ireland, by making judicial appointments suited to the extent of the 
country. This he was enabled to do, by the recent wars having put the 
country more completely in his power than it had been in that of any former 
monarch. He began by extending favor to the Irish chiefs, not excepting 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 173 

Tyrone. He passed an act of oblivion and indemnity by which all persons 
who had committed offenses, coming to the judges of assize within a cer- 
tain day, might claim a full pardon. At the same time, toleration was vir- 
tually refused to the Catholic persuasion, and much discontent therefore 
still existed. Some of the chieftains having conspired against the crown, 
were attainted, and their lands were given to English settlers, with a view to 
improving the population of the country by an infusion of civilized persons. 
But this experiment, though well-meant, was managed in a partial spirit, 
and gave rise to much injustice. In 1613, the first Irish Parliament was 
held in which there were any representatives of places beyond the Pale. 

THE KING'S CHILDREN — THE SPANISH MATCH. 

In 1612, the king had the misfortune to lose his eldest son, Henry, a 
youth of nineteen, who was considered as one of the most promising and 
accomplished men of the age. The second son, Charles, then became the 
heir-apparent, and James was busied for several years in seeking him out 
a suitable consort. The Princess Mary of Spain was selected, a match 
which could not be popular, considering that the young lady was a Catholic 
and of a family who had long been enemies of England. The prince, at- 
tended by the Duke of Buckingham, made a romantic journey in disguise 
to Madrid to push the match ; but a quarrel between the British and Span- 
ish ministers led to its being broken off, and to a bloody war between the 
two nations. Elizabeth, the only remaining child of the king, was married 
in 1613, to Frederick, Prince Palatine of the Rhine, who was afterwards 
so unfortunate as to lose his dominions, in consequence of his placing him- 
self at the head of the Bohemians, in what was considered as a rebellion 
against his superior, the Emperor of Germany. This discrowned pair, by 
their youngest daughter Sophia, who married the Duke of Brunswick, were 
the ancestors of the family which now reigns in Britain. 

FEATURES OF THE GOVERNMENT OF JAMES I. 

The reign of James I was not marked by what are called great events. 
This was greatly owing to his timid character, which induced him to main- 
tain peace, at whatever sacrifice, throughout the greater part of his reign. 
The prime leaders of his government were youthful favorites, who posses- 
sed no merit but personal elegance. Experienced statesmen, brave soldiers, 
and learned divines, had to bow to these dissolute youths, if they wished to 
advance in royal favor. Even Bacon, the noblest intellect of the age, and 
who, by the result of his studies, has done more than almost any other 
man to promote the progress of knowledge, is found to have attached him- 
self to the minion Duke of Buckingham, for the purpose of improving 
his interest at court. In despotic countries, the vices of the court often 
corrupt all classes; but it was otherwise at that period in Britain. The 
country gentlemen, and the merchants in the incorporated towns, had priv- 
ileges which the court dared not too often violate, and a feeling of recti- 
tude and independence was encouraged among these classes, which the 
statesman of the age too much overlooked. The House of Commons gave 
frequent resistance to the court, and often compelled James to yield, at the 
very moment when he was preaching his doctrines of divine right. In hia 



174 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

first Parliament, they took into consideration several grievances, such as 
purveyance, a supposed right in the officers of the court to seize what pro- 
visions they pleased, at any price, or at no price ; another was the right of 
granting monopolies, which had become a source of revenue to the court 
by cheating the country, certain persons having the monopoly of certain 
manufactures and articles of domestic consumption, which they were allow- 
ed to furnish at their own prices. The Commons likewise remonstrated 
against all pluralities in the church, and against a new set of canons which 
the king and the church tried to force on the nation without their consent. 
In 1614 they threatened to postpone any supply till their grievances were 
redressed. The king, in his turn, threatened to dissolve them if they did 
not immediately grant a supply ; and they allowed him to take his course, 
which did not fill his coffers. These, and many other instances of bold re- 
sistance, should have given warning to the court. They were the shadows 
of coming events, and attention to them might have saved the bloodshed 
and confusion of the succeeding reign. 

English literature, which first made a decisive advance in the reign of 
Elizabeth, continued to be cultivated with great success in the reign of 
King James. The excellence of the language at this time as a medium 
for literature, is strikingly shown in the translation of the Bible now exe- 
cuted. It is also shown in the admirable dramatic writings of Shak- 
speare, and in the valuable philosophic works of Bacon. The inductive 
philosophy, made known by the last writer — namely, that mode of reason- 
ing which consists in first ascertaining facts, and then inferring conclusions 
from them — reflects peculiar lustre on this period of British history. 
Very great praise is also due to Napier of Merchiston, in Scotland, for 
the invention of logarithms, a mode of calculating intricate numbers, 
essential to the progress of mathematical science. 

CHARLES I— HIS CONTENTIONS WITH THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 

King James died in March 1625, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, 
and was succeeded by his son Charles, now twenty five years of age. 
One of the first acts of the young king was to marry the Princess Henri- 
etta Maria, daughter of Henry IV of France, and a Catholic. This was 
an unfortunate step for the House of Stuart, for the two eldest sons of 
the king and queen, though educated as Protestants, were influenced in 
some measure by the religious creed of their mother, so that they ulti- 
mately became Catholics ; and this, in the case of the second son, James 
II, led to the family being expelled from the British throne. 

After breaking off the proposed match with the Princess Mary of 
Spain, Britain eagerly threw itself into a war with that country, which 
was still continued. To supply the expenses of that contest, and of a 
still more unnecessary one into which he was driven with France, the 
king applied to Parliament, but was met there with so many complaints as 
to his government, and such a keen spirit of popular liberty, that he 
deemed it necessary to revive a practice followed by other sovereigns, 
and particularly Elizabeth, of compelling his subjects to grant him gifts, 
or, as they were called, benevolences, and also to furnish ships at their 
own charge, for carrying on the war. Such expedients, barely tolerated 
under the happy reign of Elizabeth, could not be endured in this age, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 175 

when the people and the Parliament were so much more alive to their 
rights. A general discontent spread over the nation. The Commons, 
seeing that if the king could support the state by self-raised taxes, he 
would soon become independent of all control from his Parliaments, resolv 
ed to take every measure in their power to check his proceedings. They 
also assailed him respecting a right which he assumed to imprison his sub- 
jects upon his own warrant, and to detain them as long as he pleased. 
Having made an inquiry into the ancient powers of the crown, before 
these powers had been vitiated by the tyrannical Tudors, they embodied 
the result in what was called a Petition of Right, which they presented 
to him as an ordinary bill, or rather as a second Magna Charta, for replac- 
ing the privileges of the people, and particularly their exemption from ar 
bitrary taxes and imprisonment, upon a fixed basis. With great difficulty 
Charles was prevailed upon to give his sanction to this bill (1628) ; but 
his disputes with Parliament soon after ran to such a height, that he dis- 
solved it in a fit of indignation, resolving never more to call it together. 
About the same time his favorite minister, the Duke of Buckingham, was 
assassinated at Portsmouth, and Charles resolved thenceforward to be in a 
great measure his own minister, and to trust chiefly for the support of 
his government to the English hierarchy, to whose faith he was a devoted 
adherent, and who were, in turn, the most loyal of his subjects. His 
chief counselor was Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, a man of narrow 
and bigoted spirit, and who made it his duty rather to increase than to 
diminish the ceremonies of the English church, although the tendency of 
the age was decidedly favorable to their diminution. For some years 
Charles governed the country entirely as an irresponsible despot, levying 
taxes by his own orders, and imprisoning such persons as were obnoxious 
to him, in utter defiance of the Petition of Right. The Puritans, or 
church reformers, suffered most severely under this system of things. 
They were dragged in great numbers before an arbitrary court called the 
Star-Chamber, which professed to take cognizance of offenses against the 
king's prerogative, and against religion; and sometimes men venerable 
for piety, learning, and worth, were scourged through the streets of 
London, and had their ears cut off, and their noses slit, for merely differ- 
ing in opinion, on the most speculative of all subjects, with the king and 
his clergy. The great body of the people beheld these proceedings with 
horror, and only a fitting occasion was wanted for giving expression and 
effect to the public feeling. 

THE LONG PARLIAMENT — THE IRISH REBELLION. 

The English Parliament met in November, and immediately commenc- 
ed a series of measures for effectually and permanently abridging the 
royal authority. There was even a party who, provoked by the late arbi- 
trary measures, contemplated the total abolition of the monarchy, and the 
establishment of a republic. The Earl of Strafford was impeached of 
treason against the liberties of the people, and executed (May 12, 1641), 
notwithstanding a solemn promise made to him by the king that he should 
never suffer in person or estate. Archbishop Laud was impeached and 
imprisoned, but reserved for future vengeance. The remaining ministers 
of the king only saved themselves by flight. Some of the judges were 



176 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

imprisoned and fined. The abolition of Episcopacy was taken into con- 
sideration. The Catholics fell under a severe persecution ; and even the 
person of the queen, who belonged to this faith, was not considered 
safe. 

The cruel policy by which large portions of Ireland were depopulated, 
and then planted with colonies of English and Scotch settlers had been 
continued during the reign of Charles. In addition to this and other 
local causes of complaint, the state of religion was one which pervaded 
nearly the whole country, and was always becoming more and more impor- 
tant. Though the reformed faith had been established for nearly a cen- 
tury, it had made little progress except among the English settlers. The 
greater part of the nobility, and also of the lower orders, were still at- 
tached to the ancient creed ; and a Catholic hierarchy, appointed by the 
Pope, and supported by the people, enjoyed as much respect and obedi- 
ance as when that religion was countenanced by the state. The refusal of 
the Catholics to take the oath of supremacy, which acknowledged the king 
to possess a right which their faith taught them to belong to the Pope, 
necessarily excluded them from all branches of the public service. There 
were also penal laws against the profession of Catholicism and a severe court 
of Star-Chamber to carry these into execution. Thus situated, the Irish 
Catholics had two powerful motives to mutiny — a confidence in their num- 
bers, and a constant sense of suffering under the government. 

In 1633, the Earl of Strafford was appointed viceroy of Ireland. His 
government was vigorous, and those institutions which he thought proper 
to patronize flourished under it ; but his great aim was to make the king 
absolute, and he rather subdued than conciliated the popular spirit. When 
summoned in 1640 to attend the king in England, he left the Irish gov- 
ernment in the hands of Sir William Parsons and Sir John Borlase, 
as lords justices. Immediately after his departure, the spirit which he 
thought he had quelled began to reappear, being encouraged both by his ab- 
sence and the success which the Scottish Covenanters had experienced in a 
war against religious restraint. A conspiracy, involving most of the country 
without the Pale, and including many persons within it, was formed chiefly 
under the direction of a gentleman named Roger Moore, who possessed 
many qualities calculated to endear him to the people. Some circum- 
stances excited the suspicion of the Protestants ; and among others, the 
return of several officers who had been in the service of the king of 
Spain, under pretense of recruiting for the Spanish army. But the appa- 
rent tranquillity of the country baffled all scrutiny. 

The 23d of October 1641, being a market-day, was fixed on for the 
capture of Dublin Castle. During the previous day, nothing had occurred 
to alarm the authorities. In the evening of the 22d, the conspiracy was 
accidentally discovered, and measures were taken to save Dublin ; but a 
civil war raged next morning in Ulster, and speedily spread over the 
country. 

The design of Sir Phelim O'Neill, and the other leaders of this insurrec- 
tion, was simply political. They conceived the time a good and opportune 
one for striking a blow against the government as the Scots had success- 
fully done ; and their conduct was in the outset characterized by lenity. 
But they could not allay the hatred with which the Catholics looked upon 
their adversaries ; and a spirit of revenge broke out among their followers, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 177 

which was aggravated to cruel outrage, when they heard that the conspi- 
racy was discovered in Dublin. The spirit of retaliation was let loose, and 
political wrongs, unfeelingly inflicted, were, as is often the case, ferociously 
avenged. The massacre of an immense number of Protestants held forth an 
awful lesson of the effects which oppressive Jaws produce on the human 
passions. The government rather aggravated than alleviated the evil, by 
offering the estates of all in rebellion to those who should aid in reducing 
them to obedience. This drove the insurgents to desperation, postponed 
the complete extinction of the war for several years. It is to be remark- 
ed, that though the Irish were struggling for both national and religious 
freedom, they gained no sympathy from the patriots of Britain, who, on 
the contrary, urged the king to suppress the rebellion, being afraid that a 
religious toleration in Ireland would be inconsistent with the same privilege 
in their own country. The Scottish Covenanters, themselves so recently 
emancipated from a restraint upon their consciences, contributed ten thou- 
sand troops to assist in restoring a similar restraint upon the Irish. 

THE CIVIL WAR. 

It was generally allowed by moderate people, that in the autumn of 
1641, at which time the labors of the Parliament had continued one year, 
the king had granted redress of all the abuses for which the earlier part 
of his reign, and the British constitution in general, were blameable. If 
he could have given a guarantee that he never would seek to restore any 
of these abuses, or attempt to revenge himself upon the men who had been 
chiefly concerned in causing him to give up, there would have been no 
further contention. Unfortunately, the character of the king for fidelity 
to his engagements was not sufficiently high to induce the leaders of the 
House of Commons to depend upon him : they feared that if they once 
permitted him to resume his authority there would be no longer any safety 
for them ; and they deemed it necessary that things should be prevented 
from falling into their usual current. They therefore prepared a paper call- 
ed Tlie Remonstrance, containing an elaborate view of all the grievances 
that had ever existed, or could now be supposed to exist ; and this they 
not only presented to the king but disseminated widely among the people, 
with whom it served to increase the prevailing disaffection. 

From this time it was seen that the sword could alone decide the quarrel 
between the king and the Parliament. Charles made an unsuccessful at- 
tempt (January 4, 1642) to seize six of the most refractory members, 
for the purpose of striking terror into the rest. This served to widen still 
further the breach. In the earlier part of 1642, the two parties severally 
employed themselves in preparing for war. Yet, even now, the king grant- 
ed some additional concessions to his opponents. It was at last, upon a 
demand of the Parliament for the command of the army — a privilege 
always before, and since, resting with the crown — that he finally broke off 
all amicable intercourse. He now retired with his family to York. 

The Parliament found its chief support in the mercantile classes of Lon- 
don and of the eastern coast of England, which was then more devoted to 
trade than the west, and in the Puritan party generally, who were allied 
intimately with the Presbyterians of Scotland, if not rapidly becoming 
assimilated with them. Charles on the other hand looked for aid to the 
12* 



178 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

nobility and gentry, who were able to bring a considerable number of de- 
pendents into the field. The Parliamentary party was by the other styled 
Roundheads, in consequence of their wearing short hair ; while the friends 
of the Parliament bestowed upon their opponents the epithet of Malig- 
nants. The Royalists were also, in the field, termed Cavaliers, from so 
many of them being horsemen. On the 25th of August 1642 the king 
erected his standard at Nottingham, and soon found himself at the head 
of an army of about ten thousand men. The Parliament had superior for- 
ces, and a better supply of arms ; but both parties were very ignorant of 
the art of war. The king commanded his own army in person, while the 
Parliamentary forces were put under the charge of the Earl of Essex. 

The first battle took place, October 23, at Edgehill, in Warwickshire, 
where the king had rather the advantage, though at the expense of a great 
number of men. He gained some further triumphs before the end of the 
campaign, but still could not muster so large an army as the Parliament. 
During the winter, the parties opened a negotiation at Oxford ; but the 
demands of the Parliament being still deemed too great by the king, it 
came to no successful issue. 

Early in the ensuing season, the king gained some considerable advan- 
tages ; he defeated a Parliamentary army under Sir William Waller at 
Stratton, and soon after took the city of Bristol. It only remained for 
him to take Gloucester, in order to confine the insurrection entirely to the 
eastern provinces. It was even thought at this time that he might have 
easily obtained possession of London, and thereby put an end to the war. 
Instead of making such an attempt, he caused siege to be laid to Glouces- 
ter, which the army of Essex relieved when it was just on the point of 
capitulating. As the Parliamentary army was returning to London, it wa3 
attacked by the royal forces at Newbury, and all but defeated. Another 
section of the royal army in the north, under the Marquis of Newcastle, 
gained some advantages ; and, upon the whole, at the close of the campaign 
of 1643, the Parliamentary cause was by no means in a flourishing condi 
tion. 

In this war there was hardly any respectable military quality exhibited 
besides courage. The Royalists used to rush upon the enemy opposed to 
them, without any other design than to cut down as many as possible, and 
when any part of the army was successful, it never returned to the field 
while a single enemy remained to be pursued ; the consequence of which 
was, that one wing was sometimes victorious, while the remainder was com- 
pletely beaten. The Parliamentary troops, though animated by an enthu- 
siastic feeling of religion, were somewhat steadier, but nevertheless had no 
extensive or combined plan of military operations. The first appearance 
of a superior kind of discipline was exhibited in a regiment of horse com- 
manded by Oliver Cromwell, a gentleman of small fortune, who had been 
a brewer, but was destined, by great talent, and address, joined to an un- 
relenting disposition, to rise to supreme authority. Cromwell, though him- 
self inexperienced in military affairs, showed from the very first a power 
of drilling and managing troops, which no other man in either army seemed 
to possess. Hence his regiment soon became famous for its exploits 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 179 



SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 

The Royal successes of 1643 distressed alike the English Parliament 
and the Scottish nation, who now began to fear the loss of all the political 
meliorations they had wrested from the king. The two Parliaments there- 
fore entered, in July, into a Solemn League and Covenant, for prosecu- 
ting the war in concert, with the view of ultimately settling both church 
and state in a manner consistent with the liberties of the people. In terms 
of this bond, the Scots raised an army of twenty-one thousand men, who 
entered England in January 1644 ; and on the 1st of July, in company 
with a large body of English forces, overthrew the king's northern army 
on Long Marston Moor. 

The defeat was severely felt by the king. He gained a victory over 
Waller at Copredy Bridge, and caused Essex's army to capitulate in Corn- 
wall (September 1) ; but in consequence of a second fight at Newbury 
(October 27), in which he suffered a defeat, he was left at the end of the 
campaign with greatly diminished resources. A new negotiation was com- 
menced at Uxbridge ; but the terms asked by the Parliament were so ex- 
orbitant, as to show no sincere desire of ending the war. 

In truth, though the Presbyterian party were perhaps anxious for peace, 
there was another party, now fast rising into importance, who were actua- 
ted by no such wishes. These were the Independents, a body of men 
who wished to see a republic established in the state, and all formalties 
whatever removed from the national religion. Among the leaders of the 
party was Oliver Cromwell, whose mind seems to have already become in- 
spired with lofty views of personal aggrandizement. This extraordinary 
man had sufficient address to carry a famous act called the Self -Denying 
Ordinance, which ostensibly aimed at depriving all members of the legis- 
lature of commands in the army, but had the effect only of displacing a 
few noblemen who were obnoxious to his designs. He also carried an act 
for modeling the army anew, in which process he took care that all who 
might be expected to oppose his views should be excluded. It was this 
party more particularly that prevented any accommodation taking place 
between the king and his subjects. 

CONCLUSION OF THE CIVIL WAR. 

The English campaign of 1645 ended in the complete overthrow of the 
king. Throughout the war, his enemies had been continually improving 
in discipline, in conduct, and in that enthusiasm which animated them so 
largely ; while the Royalists had become, out of a mere principle of oppo- 
sition, so extremely licentious, as to be rather a terror to their friends than 
to their enemies. The new-modeling of the Parliamentary army, which 
took place early in 1645, had also added much to the effectiveness of the 
troops, who were now nominally commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax, but 
in reality by Oliver Cromwell, who bore the rank of lieutenant-general. 
The consequence was that, in a pitched battle at Naseby (June 14), the 
king was so completely beaten, that he and his party could no longer keep 
the field. He had no resource but to retire into Oxford, a town zealously 
affected to his cause, and well fortified. 



180 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

He endeavored, from this forlorn position, to renew the negotiations for 
a peace ; but every attempt of that kind was frustrated by the Indepen- 
dents, who, though a minority in the House of Commons, possessed great 
power through the army, and, as already mentioned, were desirous of ef- 
fecting greater changes in church and state than those for which the war 
was originally undertaken. Dreading the influence of this body, Charles 
retired privately from Oxford (May 1646) on the approach of the Parlia- 
mentary forces, and put himself under the protection of the Scottish army 
at Newark. 

As the views of the Scotch throughout the war had been steadily con- 
fined to the security of the Presbyterian religion, along with the safety of 
the king's person and the establishment of a limited monarchy, they receiv- 
ed him with great respect at their camp, and entered into negotiations for 
effecting their grand object. If Charles would have acceded to their views, 
he might have immediately resumed a great part of his former power ; and 
the agitations of many subsequent years, as well as his own life, might 
have been spared. But this was forbidden, not only by his strong prepos- 
session in favor of the Episcopal forms of worship, but also by his convic- 
tion, that the Episcopal form of church government was alone compatible 
with the existence of monarchy. He therefore disagreed with the Presby- 
terians on the very point which they considered the most vital and impor- 
tant. 

From the time when Charles first threw himself into the Scottish camp, 
the English Parliament had made repeated and strenuous demands for the 
surrender of his person into their hands. The Scots, however, though 
acting partly as a mercenary army, asserted their right, as an independent 
nation under the authority of the king, to retain and protect him. At 
length, despairing of inducing him to sanction the Presbyterian forms, and 
tempted by the sum of £400,000, which was given to them as a compen- 
sation for their arrears of pay, they consented to deliver up their monarch, 
but certainly without any apprehension of his life being in danger, and, 
indeed, to a party quite different from that by which he afterwards suffer- 
ed. The Scottish army then retired (January 1647) to their native coun- 
try, and were there disbanded. 

The king was now placed in Holdenby Castle, and negotiations were 
opened for restoring him to power, under certain restrictions. While 
these were pending, the Parliament deemed it unnecessary to keep up the 
army, more especially as its spirit was plainly observed to be of a danger- 
ous character. On attempting, however, to dismiss this powerful force, the 
English Commons found that their late servants were become their masters. 
The troops began to hold something like a Parliament in their own camp ; 
a party of them, under Cornet Joyce, seized the king's person, and brought 
him to Hampton Court. Cromwell, who was at the bottom of their mach- 
inations, received from them the chief command ; and at his instigation 
they retorted upon the Parliament with a demand for the dismissal of the 
leaders of the Presbyterian party, and a general right of new-modeling 
the government and settling the nation. The House of Commons, sup- 
ported by the city of London, made a bold opposition to these demands, 
but was ultimately obliged to yield to a force which it had no means of 
resisting. From that time military violence exercised an almost uncon- 
trolled mastery over England. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 181 



TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE KE*G. 

The leaders of the army being anxious to fortify themselves by all possi- 
ble means against the Presbyterians, opened a negotiation with the king, 
whose influence, such as it now was, they proposed to purchase, by allow- 
ing Episcopacy to be the state religion, and leaving him in command of 
the militia. Charles, however, with characteristic insincerity, carried on 
at the same time a negotiation with the Presbyterians, which, being dis 
covered by the military chiefs, caused them to break off all terms with him. 
Under dread of their resentment, he made his escape from Hampton Court 
( November 11, 1647 ) : and after an unsuccessful atempt to leave the 
kingdom, was obliged to put himself under the charge of the governor of 
Carisbrooke Castle, in the Isle of Wight. Here he entered upon a new 
negotiation with the House of Commons, to whom he made proposals, and 
from whom he received certain proposals in return ; all of which were, how- 
ever, rendered of non-avail by a secret treaty which he at the same time 
carried on with a moderate party of the Scottish Presbyterians. 

He finally agreed with the latter party, but under strict secrecy, to give 
their form of church government a trial of three years, and yield to them 
in several other points ; they, in return, binding themselves to unite their 
strength with the English Royalists, for the purpose of putting down the 
Independent party, now predominant in the English Parliament. With 
some difficulty the Duke of Hamilton and others, who conducted this ne- 
gotiation, succeeded, by a vote of the Scottish Parliament, in raising an 
army of 12,000 men, with which they invaded England in the summer of 
1648. The more zealous of the clergy and people of Scotland protested 
against an enterprise, which, from its cooperating with Royalists and Episco- 
palians, and not perfectly insuring the ascendancy of the Presbyterian 
church, appeared to them as neither deserving of success nor likely to 
command it. As the Scottish army penetrated the western counties, par- 
ties of Presbyterians and Royalists rose in different parts of England, and 
for some time the ascendancy of the Independents seemed to be in consid- 
erable peril. But before the forces of the enemy could be brought togeth- 
er, Cromwell, with 8000 veteran troops, attacked and overthrew Hamilton 
at Preston, while Fairfax put down the insurgents in Kent and Essex. 
Hamilton was himself taken prisoner, and very few of his troops ever re- 
turned to their native country. 

While Cromwell was employed in suppressing this insurrection, and in 
restoring a friendly government in Scotland, the Presbyterians of the House 
of Commons, relieved from military intimidation, entered upon a new nego- 
tiation with Charles, which was drawing towards what appeared a success- 
ful conclusion — though the king secretly designed to deceive them, and to 
pursue other means for an effectual restoration — when the army return- 
ed to London, breathing vengeance against him for the last war, of whieh 
they considered him as the author. Finding the Parliament in the act of 
voting his concessions to be satisfactory, Cromwell sent two regiments, 
under Colonel Pride, who forcibly excluded from it about two hundred 
members of the Presbyterian party ; a transaction remembered by the 
epithet of Pride's Purge. The remainder, being chiefly Independents, 
were ready to give a color of law to whatever farther measure might be 



182 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

dictated by the military leaders. Convinced of the utter faithlessness of 
the king, and that, if he continued to live, he would take the earliest op- 
portunity of revenging himself for what had already been done, Cromwell 
and his associates resolved to put him to death. A high court of Justice, 
as it was called, was appointed by ordinance, consisting of a hundred and 
thirty-three persons, named indifferently from the Parliament, the army, 
and such of the citizens as were known to be well affected to the Indepen- 
dent party. This body sat down in Westminster Hall (January 20, 1049), 
under the presidency of a barrister named Bradshaw, while another named 
Coke acted as solicitor for the people of England. Charles, who had 
been removed to St James' Palace, was brought before this court, and 
accused of having waged and renewed war upon his people, and of having 
attempted to establish tyranny in place of the limited regal power with 
which he had been intrusted. He denied the authority of the court, and 
protested against the whole of the proceedings, but was nevertheless found 
guilty and condemned to die. On the 30th of January, he was accor- 
dingly beheaded in front of his palace of Whitehall. 

THE COMMONWEALTH — SUBJUGATION OF IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. 

Though the execution of the king produced a considerable reaction in fa- 
vor of royalty, the small remaining part of the House of Commons, which 
got the ridiculous name of the Mump, now established a republic, under 
the title of the Commonwealth, the executive being trusted, under great 
limitations, to a council of forty-one members, while in reality Cromwell 
possessed the chief influence. The House of Peers was voted a grievance, 
and abolished, and the people were declared to be the legitimate source of 
all power. Soon after the king's death, the Duke of Hamilton, and a few 
other of his chief adherents, were executed. 

During the progress of the civil war, Ireland had been the scene of al- 
most ceaseless contention among the various parties of the king, the En- 
glish House of Commons, and the Catholics, none of which could effectual- 
ly suppress the rest. The most remarkable event was a secret agreement 
which Charles made, in 1646, with the Earl of Glamorgan, to establish tho 
Catholic religion in Ireland, on condition that its partisans should assist 
him in putting down his enemies in England and Scotland ; a transaction 
which ultimately injured his reputation, without leading to any solid advan- 
tage. At the time of his execution, the Royalists were in considerable 
strength under the Duke of Ormond, while Hugh O'Neill was at the he,ad 
of a large party of Catholics, who were not indisposed to join the other par- 
ty, provided they could be assured of the establishment of their religion. 
While the two parties in union could have easily rescued the country 
from the English connection, Cromwell landed (August 1649) with 12,000 
horse and foot, and in a series of victories over the scattered forces of his 
various opponents, succeeded without any great difficulty in asserting the 
sway of the Commonwealth. One of his most important actions was the 
capture of Drogheda, where he put the garrison and a number of Catholic 
priests to the sword, in order to strike terror into the nation. 

The people of Scotland, who had had scarcely any other object in the 
civil war than the establishment of their favorite form of worship, and were 
eincere friends to a limited monarchy, heard of the death of the king with 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 188 

the greatest indignation, and immediately proclaimed his eldest son Charles. 
Early in 1650, the young monarch, who had taken refuge in Holland, sent 
Montrose with a small force to attempt a Cavalier insurrection in Scotland ; 
but this nobleman being taken and put to death, Charles found it necessary 
to accede to the views of the Scotch respecting the Presbyterian religion, 
and he was accordingly brought over and put at the head of a considerable 
army, though under great restrictions. Cromwell, who had now nearly 
completed the conquest of Ireland, lost no time in returning to London, and 
organizing an army for the suppression of this new attempt against the 
Commonwealth. On the 19th of July he crossed the Tweed, and advanced 
through a deserted country to Edinburgh, where the Scottish army lay in 
a fortified camp. Sickness in his army, and the want of provisions, soon 
after compelled him to retreat ; and the Scottish army, following upon his 
rear, brought him into a straightened position near Dunbar, where he 
would soon have been under the necessity of surrendering. In the midst 
of his perplexities (September 3), he beheld the Scots advancing from 
the neighboring heights to give him battle, and, in a transport of joy, ex 
claimed, ' The Lord hath delivered them into our hands ! ' The movement 
was solely the result of interference on the part of the clergy who followed 
the Scottish camp : the better sense of Gen. Leslie would have waited for 
the voluntary surrender of his enemy. In the fight which ensued, the vet 
eran troops of Cromwell soon proved victorious. The Scots fled in conster 
nation and confusion, and were cut down in thousands by their pursuers. 
This gained for Cromwell the possession of the capital and of all the south 
east provinces ; but the Covenanters still made a strong appearance at 
Stirling. 

Cromwell spent a whole year in the country, vainly endeavoring to brin£ 
on another action. During the interval (January 1, 1651), the Scots 
crowned the young king at Scone, part of the ceremony consisting in his 
acceptance of the Solemn League and Covenant. In the ensuing summer, 
Cromwell at length contrived to out-flank the position of the Scottish army ; 
but the result was, that Charles led his troops into England without oppo 
sition, and made a very threatening advance upon the capital. Ere the 
Royalists had time to rally around him, Cromwell overtook the king at 
Worcester, where, after a stoutly-contested fight (September 3, 1651), h* 
proved completely victorious. Charles, with great difficulty, escaped 
abroad, and Scotland, no longer possessed of a military force to defend it 
self, submitted to the conqueror. All the courts of the Scottish church 
were suppressed, and the ministers were left no privilege but that of preach 
ing to their flocks. The country was kept in check by a small army under 
General Monk, and in a short time was declared by proclamation to be uni 
ted with England. 

THE PROTECTORATE. 

After the country and its dependencies had been thoroughly settled 
under the new government, the republican leaders resolved upon com 
mencing hostilities against Holland, which, during the civil war, had man 
ifested a decided leaning towards the king, and had recently treated the 
triumphant party with marked disrespect. In the summer of 1652, the 
Dutch fleet, under its famous commanders Van Tromp, De Ruyter, and 



184 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

De Witt, had several encounters with the English ships, under Admirals 
Blake and Ayscue, without any decided success on either side. But in 
the ensuing spring, an action was fought between Blake and Van Tromp, 
in which the latter lost eleven ships. The Dutch then sued for peace, 
which the Rump Parliament, for various reasons, were little inclined to 
grant. Their principal motive for prosecuting the war, was a conviction 
that it tended to restrict the power of Cromwell, to whom they now paid 
by no means a willing obedience. Cromwell, perceiving their design, 
proceeded with 300 soldiers to the House (April 1653), and entering 
with marks of the most violent indignation, loaded the members with re- 
proaches for their robbery and oppression of the public ; then stamping 
with his foot, he gave signal for the soldiers to enter, and addressing him- 
self to the members, ' For shame ! ' said he ; ' get you gone ! give place to 
honester men ! I tell you you are no longer a Parliament : the Lord has 
done with you ! ' He then commanded ' that bauble,' meaning the mace, 
to be taken away, turned out the members, and locking the door, returned 
to Whitehall with the key in his pocket. 

Being still willing to keep up the appearance of a representative gov 
ernment, Cromwell summoned one hundred and forty-four persons in Eng 
land, Ireland, and Scotland, to assemble as a Parliament. These individu 
als, chiefly remarkable for fanaticism and ignorance, were denominated 
the Barebones Parliament, from the name of one of the members, a 
leather seller, whose assumed name, by a ridiculous usage of the age, was 
Praise-God Barebones. As the assembly obtained no public respect, 
Cromwell took an early opportunity of dismissing it. His officers then 
constituted him Protector of the Commonwealth of Great Britain and 
Ireland, with most of the prerogatives of the late king. 

The war against Holland was still carried on with great spirit. In the 
summer of 1653, two naval actions, in which both parties fought with the 
utmost bravery, terminated in the triumph of the English, and the com- 
plete humiliation of the Dutch, who obtained peace on the condition of 
paying homage to the English flag, expelling the young king from their 
dominions, and paying a compensation for certain losses to the East India 
Company. In a war which he subsequently made against Spain, the 
fleets of the Protector performed some exploits of not less importance. 
The respect which he* thus gained for the English name throughout Eu- 
rope, is one of the brightest points in his singular history. But while 
generally successful abroad, he experienced unceasing difficulties in the 
management of affairs at home. Of the various Parliaments which he 
summoned, no one was found so carefully composed of his own creatures 
as to yield readily to his will : he was obliged to dissolve them all in suc- 
cession, after a short trial. He also experienced great difficulty in rais- 
ing money, and sometimes applied for loans in the city without success. 
His own officers could scarcely be kept in subordination, but were con- 
stantly plotting a reduction of his authority. The Royalists, on the other 
hand, never ceased to conspire for his destruction ; one named Colonel 
Titus, went so far as to recommend his assassination in a pamphlet enti- 
tled ' Killing no Murder,' after reading which he was never seen again 
to smile. 

The last Parliament called by Cromwell was in January 1656 ; when, 
besides the Commons, he summoned the few remaining peers, and endeav 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 185 

ored, by ennobling some of his officers, to make up a kind of Upper 
House. This assembly proved as intractable as its predecessors, and he 
contracted such a disgust at the very nature of a representative legisla- 
ture, as to resolve, like Charles I, never to call another. His health 
finally gave way, and he died on the 3d September 1658, a day which 
was thought to be propitious to him, as it was the anniversary of several 
of his victories. His eldest son, Richard, a weak young man, succeeded 
him as Protector, and was at first treated with all imaginable respect ; but 
he could not long maintain a rule which even his father had ultimately 
failed in asserting. He quietly sunk out of public view, leaving the su- 
preme authority in the hands of the Rump, which had taken the opportun- 
ity to reassemble. 

THE RESTORATION — DUTCH WAR. 

This remnant of an old Parliament continued in power till the autumn 
of 1659, when it gave way to a council of the officers who had been in 
command under Cromwell. The latter government, in its turn, yielded to 
the Rump, which sat down once more in December. The people, finding 
themselves made the sport of a few ambitious adventurers, began to long 
for some more fixed and respectable kind of government. At this crisis, 
General Monk, commander of the forces in Scotland, conceived the de- 
sign of settling the nation. He left Scotland (January 2, 1660), with a 
considerable army ; and though he kept his thoughts scrupulously to him- 
self, all men bent their eyes upon him, as a person destined to realize 
their hopes. He reached London (February 3), and was received with 
feigned respect by the Rump. Some resistance was attempted by Lam- 
bert, one of Cromwell's officers, but in vain. Ere long, Monk was able to 
procure the restoration of the members who had been excluded from 
Parliament by Cromwell, who, being a majority, gave an immediate as- 
cendancy to anti-republican views. As soon as this was effected, an act 
was passed for calling a new and freely-elected Parliament ; after which, 
the existing assembly immediately dissolved itself. 

The new Parliament proved to be chiefly composed of Cavaliers and 
Presbyterians, men agreeing in their attachment to monarchy, though 
differing in many other views. After some cautious procedure, in which 
the fears inspired by the late military tyranny were conspicuous, they 
agreed to invite the king from his retirement in Holland, and to restore 
him to the throne lost by his father. They were so glad to escape from 
the existing disorders, that they never thought of making any preliminary 
arrangement with the king as to the extent of his prerogative. On the 
29th of May, being his thirtieth birthday, Charles II entered London 
amidst such frantic demonstrations of joy, that he could not help thinking 
it his own fault, as he said, that he had been so long separated from his 
people. 

One of the first measures of the new monarch was the passing of a 
bill of indemnity, by which all persons concerned in the late popular 
movements were pardoned, excepting a few who had been prominently 
concerned in bringing the king to the block. Harrison, Scrope, and a 
few other regicides, were tried and executed ; and the bodies of Cromwell, 
Ireton, and Bradshaw, were raised from the grave and exhibited upon 



186 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

gibbets. In Scotland, only three persons suffered — the Marquis of 
Argyle, Johnston of Warriston, and Mr. Guthry, a clergyman : it was 
considered remarkable, that the marquis had placed the crown upon the 
king's head at Scone in the year 1651. Excepting in these acts, the 
king showed no desire of revenging the death of his father, or his own 
exclusion from the throne. The Parliament which called him home was 
constituted a legal one by his own ratification of an act for that purpose. 
In the settlement of other matters, it seemed the prevailing wish that all 
the institutions of the country should be made as nearly what they Avere 
before the civil war as possible. Thus the Episcopal church was estab- 
lished both in England and Scotland, though not without causing about 
a third of the clergy in both countries to resign their charges. The stern 
and enthusiastic piety which prevailed during the civil war, was now 
treated with ridicule, and the most of the people vied with each other in 
that licentious riot and drunkenness which is condemned by all systems of 
faith. The nation, in fact, seemed intoxicated with the safety which they 
supposed themselves to have at length gained, in a restoration to the im- 
perfect freedom they enjoyed before the civil war. 

Ireland, which, during the Protectorate, had been managed by Henry, 
a younger son of Cromwell, acceded to the Restoration with as much readi- 
ness as any other part of the British dominions. An act was passed for 
settling property, by which the Catholics obtained some slight benefits, 
but which, in its main effects, tended to confirm the rights of the settlers 
introduced by Cromwell. 

Though Charles had been restored with the approbation of a very large 
portion of his subjects, his most zealous friends were the Royalists and 
Episcopalians ; hence he almost immediately subsided into the character of 
a party ruler. It was deemed necessary that he should maintain an arm- 
ed force for the protection of his person, and to keep down popular distur- 
bances. He therefore caused several horse regiments to be embodied un- 
der the name of Life Guards, being chiefly composed of Royalist gentle- 
men upon whom a perfect dependence could be placed ; and he afterwards 
added two or three foot regiments, the whole amounting to about 5000 
men. The King paid these troops chiefly out of the money allowed for 
his own support, for Parliament did not sanction his keeping up such a 
force, and the nation generally beheld it with suspicion. This was the 
commencement of a standing army in England. 

Personally indolent, dissolute, and deficient in conscientiousness, and 
surrounded almost exclusively by the ministers of the basest pleasures, 
Charles was not qualified to retain the sincere respect of a people whose 
habitual character is grave and virtuous. His extravagant expenditure 
soon cooled the affections of his Parliament, and he began to find consid- 
erable difficulties in obtaining money. To relieve himself from this em- 
barrassment, he accepted .£40,000 from the French king for Dunkirk, 
a French port, which had been acquired by Cromwell. For the same 
purpose, he married a Portuguese princess of the Catholic religion, who 
possessed a dowry of half a million. He also commenced (1664) a war 
against Holland, for apparently no better reason than that, in applying 
the Parliamentary subsidies necessary for keeping up hostilities, he might 
have an opportunity of converting part of the money to his own personal 
use. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 187 

This Dutch war was chiefly conducted by sea. On the 3d of June 
1665, an English fleet of 114 sail met a Dutch one which numbered just 
one ship less, near Lowestoffe, and after an obstinate fight, gained a com- 
plete victory, depriving the enemy of eighteen vessels, and compelling the 
vest to take refuge on their own coast. The commander on this occasion 
was the Duke of York, the king's younger bi-other ; a man of greater appli- 
cation and more steady principles, but who soon after became unpopular, 
in consequence of his avowing himself a Catholic. 

Some other Avell-contested actions took place at sea, and the English, 
upon the whole, confirmed their naval supremacy. Owing, however, to a 
failure of the supplies, the king was obliged to lay up his best vessels in 
ordinary, and to send only an inferior force to sea. The Dutch took ad- 
vantage of this occurrence to send a fleet up the Thames (June 10, 1667), 
which, meeting with no adecpiate resistance, threatened to lay the capital 
in ruins and destroy its shipping. Fortunately, the Dutch admiral did not 
think it expedient to make this attempt, but retired with the ebb of the 
tide, after having sunk and burnt nearly twenty vessels, and done much 
other damage. The king, finding himself rather impoverished than enrich- 
ed by the war, soon after concluded a peace. 

PLAGUE AND FIRE OF LONDON — PERSECUTION IN SCOTLAND. 

In the meantime two extraordinary calamities had befallen the metropo- 
lis. In the summer of 1665, London was visited by a plague, which 
swept off about 100,000 people, and did not experience any abatement till 
the approach of cold weather. On this occasion the city presented a wide 
and heartrending scene of misery and desolation. Rows of houses stood 
tenantless, and open to the winds ; the chief thoroughfares were overgrown 
with grass. The few individuals who ventured abroad, walked in the mid- 
dle of the streets, and when they met, declined on opposite sides to avoid 
the contact of each other. At one moment were heard the ravings of de- 
lirium, or the wail of sorrow, from the infected dwelling ; at another the 
merry song or careless laugh from the tavern, where men were seeking to 
drown in debauchery all sense of their awful situation. Since 1665, the 
plague has not again occurred in London, or in any other part of the 
kingdom. 

The second calamity was a conflagration, which commenced on the night 
of Sunday the 2d of September 1666, in the eastern and more crowded 
part of the city. The direction and violence of the wind, the combustible 
nature of the houses, and the defective arrangements of that age for extin- 
guishing fires, combined to favor the progress of the flames, which raged 
during the whole of the week, and burnt all the part of the city which lie-3 
between the Tower and the Temple. By this calamity, 13,200 houses and 
and 89 churches, covering in all 430 acres of ground, were destroyed. 
The flame at one time formed a column a mile in diameter, and seemed to 
mingle with the clouds. It rendered the night as clear as day for ten 
miles around the city, and is said to have produced an effect upon the 
sky which was observed on the borders of Scotland. It had one good 
effect, in causing the streets to be formed much wider than before, by 
which the city was rendered more healthy. By the populace, this fire 
was believed to have been the work of the Catholics, and a tall pillar, with 



188 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

an inscription to that effect, was reared in the city, as a monument of the 
calamity. This pillar with its inscription still exists ; but the fire is now 
believed to have been occasioned purely by accident. 

THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE — THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 

The kingdom of France was at this period, under Louis XIV, rising 
into a degree of power and wealth which it had never before known. Louis 
had some claims through his wife upon the Netherlands ( since called Bel- 
gium), which were then part of the Spanish dominions. He accordingly 
endeavored to posess himself of that country by force of arms. A jeal- 
ousy of his increasing power, and of the Catholic religion, professed by 
his people, induced the English to wish that his aggressions should be re- 
strained. To gratify them, Charles entered into an alliance with Holland 
and Sweden, for the purpose of checking the progress of the French king. 
In this object he was completely successful, and consequently he became 
very popular. The Parliament, however, having disappointed him of sup- 
plies, he soon after changed his policy, and with the assistance of five 
abandoned ministers — Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and Lau- 
derdale, who were called the cabal, from the initials of their names form- 
ing that word, resolved to render himself, if possible, independent of Par- 
liament ; in other words, an absolute prince. In consideration of a large 
bribe from Louis, he agreed to join France in a war against Holland, with 
a view of putting an end to that example of a Protestant republic. 

War was accordingly declared in May 1672, and the naval force of 
England was employed in meeting that of the Dutch by sea; while Louis 
led a powerful army across the Rhine, and in a very short time had nearly 
reduced the whole of the Seven Provinces. In this emergency the Dutch 
could only save themselves from absolute ruin by laying a great part of 
their country under water. The English, who had not entered heartily 
into this war, soon began to be alarmed for the fate of Holland, which was 
almost their only support against the dread of Popery ; and though forbid- 
den under severe penalties to censure the government measures, they soon 
contrived to exhibit so much dissatisfaction, as to render a change of pol- 
icy unavoidable. 

The king found it necessary to assemble his Parliament (February 1673), 
and it was no sooner met than it passed some acts highly unfavorable to 
his designs. Among these was the famous Test Act, so called because it 
enacted the imposition of a religious oath upon all persons about to enter 
the public service, the design being to exclude the Catholics from office. 
Above all things, the House of Commons declared that it would grant no 
more supplies for the Dutch war. The king resolved to prorouge the as- 
sembly ; but before he could do so, they voted the alliance with France, 
and several of his ministers to be grievances. Charles, who, in wishing to 
be absolute, had been inspired by no other motive than a desire of ease, 
now saw that there was a better chance of his favorite indulgence in giving 
way to his subjects than in any other course ; and he at once abandoned 
all his former measures, and concluded a separate peace with Holland. 
This country was now beginning, under the conduct of the Prince of Or- 
ange, to make a good defense against the French, which it was the better 
enabled to do by obtaining the friendship of Germany and Spain. In the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 189 

year 1678, after a war which, without any decisive victories, will ever re- 
fleet lustre upon Holland, a peace was concluded. The Prince of Orange, 
in the previous year, had married the Princess Mary, the eldest daughter 
of the Duke of York, and educated in the reformed faith — an alliance 
which pleased the English, from its strengthening the Protestant interest, 
and which was destined, some years after, to bring about important re- 
sults. 

During the whole of this reign the corruptness of the court was very 
great ; but it was in some measure the protection of the public. Charles 
spent vast sums in debauchery, and thus made himself more dependent on 
his Commons than he would otherwise have been. Many of the Commons 
were exceedingly corrupt, and all kinds of evil methods were adopted to 
render them more so. Bribes were distributed among them, and they 
were frequently closeted; that is, brought into the presence of the king in- 
dividually, and personally solicited for votes. Still a considerable party 
maintained its purity and independence, and long kept the majority against 
the court. 

THE RYE-HOUSE PLOT — DEATH OF CHARLES II. 

A fit of slavishness now befell the English nation, as remarkable in its 
extent as the late fury against the court and the Catholics. Supported by 
this mood of the people, Charles caused all the corporations in the king- 
dom to give up their old charters, and accept of new ones, by which he 
became all-powerful over the elections of magistrates, and consequently, 
over those of parliamentary representatives should ever another election 
of that kind take place. The leaders of the late majority in Parliament, 
comprising the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Russell (son of the Earl of Bed- 
ford), the Earl of Essex, Lord Howard, the famous Algernon Sydney, 
and John Hampden, grandson of the patriot who first resisted Charles I, 
being reduced to absolute despair, formed a project for raising an insurrec- 
tion in London, to be supported by one in the west of England, and another 
under the Earl of Argyle in Scotland, and the object of which should bo 
confined to a melioration of the government. They were betrayed by an 
associate named Rumsay, and implicated, by a train of unfortunate cir- 
cumstances, in a plot for assassinating the king (styled the Rye-house Plot), 
of which they were perfectly innocent. By the execution of Russell and 
Sidney, and some other severities, the triumph of the king might be con- 
sidered as completed. After having been an absolute sovereign for nearly 
four years, he died (February 6, 1685), professing himself at the last t'j be 
a Catholic, and was succeeded by the Duke of York. 

Charles II was a prince of a gay and cheerful disposition, and so noted 
a sayer of witty things, and so addicted to humorous amusements, that he 
was called ' the Merry Monarch.' His wit, shrewdness, and good humor, 
form the best side of his character. On the otner side, we find a deficien- 
cy of almost every active virtue and of all steady principle. He never 
allowed any duty of his station, or any claim upon his justice or clemency, 
to interfere with his own interests, or even to disturb him in his indolent 
and vicious pleasures. Neglecting his wife, who never had any children, 
he spent most of his time with his various mistresses, who openly lived at 
court, and were even received by the queen. Of these ladies, the most 



190 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

remarkable were Louisa Querouaile, whom he created Duchess of Ports- 
mouth, and Barbara Villiers, whom he made Duchess of Cleveland. Six 
sons of the king by his mistresses were made dukes, and five of these were 
the progenitors of families in the present English nobility. 

During the reign of Charles II, the nation advanced considerably in the 
arts of navigation and commerce ; and the manufactures of brass, glass, 
silk, hats, and paper, were established. The post-office, set up during the 
Commonwealth as a means of raising money, was advanced in this reign, 
and the penny-post was now begun in London by a private person. Roads 
were greatly improved, and stage-coach traveling was commenced, though 
not carried to any great extent. During this reign, tea, coffee, and choco- 
late, which have had a great effect in improving and softening manners, 
were first introduced. In 1660, the Royal Society was established in 
London, for the cultivation of natural science, mathematics, and all useful 
knowledge. The science of astronomy was greatly advanced by the in- 
vestigations of Flamstead and Halley. But the greatest contribution to 
science was made by Sir Isaac Newton, whose Principles of Natural Phi- 
losophy were published in 1683 : in this work, the true theory of plane- 
tary motion was first explained, in reference to the principle of gravitation. 
Among the literary men of the period, the first place is to be assigned 
to John Milton, author of the 'Paradise Lost' and other poems: Samuel 
Butler shines as a humorous and satirical poet, and Edmund Waller as a 
lyrist. Amongst divines, the highest names connected with the church 
are those of Jeremy Taylor and Isaac Barrow ; while the highest among 
the Nonconformists are those of Richard Baxter and John Bunyan. The 
theatre, which had been suppressed during the Commonwealth, was revi- 
ved in this reign ; but the drama exhibited less talent and more licentious- 
ness than it did in the previous reigns. Female characters, which had 
formerly been acted by men, were now for the first time performed by 
females. 

JAMES II — EXPEDITION OF MONMOUTH. 

Charles II, with all his faults, had conducted himself towards his sub- 
jects with so much personal cordiality, and had so well calculated his ground 
before making any aggressions upon popular liberty, that he might proba- 
bly have pursued his arbitrary career for many years longer. But his 
brother James, though much more respectable as a man, more industrious, 
and more sincere, wanted entirely the easiness of carriage, pleasantry, and 
penetration, which were the grounds of the late king's popularity and suc- 
cess. He was, moreover, an avowed Catholic, and inspired by an ardent 
desire of reforming the nation back into that faith. He began his reign 
by declaring before the privy-council his intention to govern solely by the 
laws, and to maintain the existing church ; and such was the confidence 
in his sincerity, that he soon became very popular. Addresses poured in 
upon him from all quarters, professing the most abject devotion to his per 
son. The Parliament called by him voted an ample revenue, and expressed 
the greatest servility towards him in all things. The doctrines of passive 
obedience, and the divine right of the sovereign, were now openly preach- 
ed. The university of Oxford promulgated an elaborate declaration of 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 191 

passive obedience to rulers, which they declared to be ' clear, absolute, and 
without any exception of any state or order of men.' 

The remains of the Whig party still existed, though in exile, and there 
were some districts of the country where they were supposed to have con- 
siderable influence. The Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Argyle 
(the latter of whom had been condemned to death in Scotland, for adding 
a qualification to the test-oath, but had escaped) met in Holland, and pro- 
jected two separate invasions, for the purpose of expelling King James. 
The former soon after landed in the west of England with a small retinue, 
and quickly found himself at the head of 5000 persons, though irregularly 
armed. At several places he caused himself to be proclaimed king, which 
offended many of his principal adherents, as inconsistent with his previous 
engagements. Upon the whole, his conduct was not energetic enough for 
the management of such an enterprise. Being attacked by the king's 
troops near Bridgewater, his infantry fought with some spirit, but being 
deserted by the cavalry, and by the duke himself, were obliged to give 
way. Monmouth was taken and executed. Many of his followers were 
hanged without form of trial by the royal troops, and others were after- 
wards put to death, with hardly any more formality, by the celebrated 
Chief- Justice Jefferies, whom the king sent down with a commission to try 
the offenders. The butchery of several hundred men of low condition, 
who were unable of themselves to do any harm to the government, was 
looked upon as a most unjustifiable piece of cruelty, even if it had been 
legally done ; and the principal blame was popularly ascribed to the king. 

The Earl of Argyle sailed in May with a corresponding expedition, and 
landed in that part of the West Highlands which owned his authority. 
Unfortunately for him, the government had received warning, and seized 
all the gentlemen of his clan upon whom he had chiefly depended. He 
nevertheless raised between 2000 and 3000 men, and made a timid advance 
to Glasgow, in the expectation of being joined by the persecuted Presby- 
terians of that part of the country. Being surrounded on the march by 
various parties of troops, he dispersed his army, and sought to escape in 
disguise, but was taken, brought to Edinburg, and executed. Thus termi- 
nated the last effort made by the Whig party to ameliorate the despotic 
sway of the Stuarts. 

ARBITRARY MEASURES OF THE KING. 

Encouraged by his success, James conceived that he might safely begin 
the process of changing the established religion of the country. On the 
plea of his supremacy over the church, he took the liberty of dispensing 
with the test-oath in favor of some Catholic officers, and thus broke an act 
which was looked upon, under existing circumstances, as the chief safe- 
guard of the Protestant faith. His Parliament, servile as it was in tern 
poral matters, took the alarm at this spiritual danger, and gave the king so 
effectual a resistance that he resorted to a dissolution. Transactions pre- 
cisely similar took place in Scotland. 

Heedless of these symptoms, he proclaimed a universal toleration, for the 
purpose of relieving the Catholics, and thus assumed the unconstitutional 
right of dispensing with acts of Parliament. The nation was thrown by 
this measure, and by the numerous promotions of Roman Catholics, into a 



192 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

state of great alarm ; even the clergy, who had been so eager to preach 
an implicit obedience to the royal will, began to see that it might be pro- 
ductive of much danger. When James commanded that his proclamation 
of toleration should be read in every pulpit in the country, only two hun- 
dred of the clergy obeyed. Six of the bishops joined in a respectful peti- 
tion against the order ; but the king declared that document to be a seditious 
libel, and threw the petitioners into the Tower. In June 1688, they were 
tried in Westminster Hall, and to the infinite joy of the nation acquitted. 

Blinded by religious zeal, the king proceeded on his fatal course. In 
defiance of the law, he held open intercourse with the Pope, for the resto- 
ration of Britain to the bosom of the Romish church. He called Catholic 
lords to the privy-council, and even placed some in the cabinet. Chapels, 
by his instigation, were everywhere built, and monks and priests went 
openly about his palace. A court of high commission — a cruel instru- 
ment of power under Charles I — was erected, and before this every cler- 
ical person who gave any offense to the king was summoned. He also 
excited great indignation, by violently thrusting a Catholic upon Magdalen 
College, at Oxford, as its head, and expelling the members for their resis- 
tance to his will. Public feelings was wound to the highest pitch of ex- 
citement by the queen being delivered (June 10, 1688) of a son, who 
might be expected to perpetuate the Catholic religion in the country, and 
whom many even went the length of suspecting to be a suppositious child, 
brought forward solely for that purpose. 

The disaffection produced by these circumstances extended to every class 
of the king's subjects, except the small body of Roman Catholics, many 
of whom could not help regarding the royal measures as imprudent. The 
Tories were enraged at the ruin threatened to the church of England, 
which they regarded as the grand support of conservative principles in the 
empire. The Whigs, who had already made many strenuous efforts to ex- 
clude or expel the king, were now more inflamed against him than ever. 
The clergy, a popular and influential body, were indignant at the injuries 
inflicted upon their church ; and even the dissenters, though comprehen- 
ded in the general toleration, saw too clearly through its motive, and were 
too well convinced of the illegality of its manner, and of the danger of its 
object, as affecting the Protestant faith, to be exempted from the general 
sentiment. But for the birth of the Prince of Wales, the people at large 
might have been contented to wait for the relief which was to be expected, 
after the death of the king, from the succession of the Princess of Orange, 
who was a Protestant, and united to the chief military defender of that 
interest in Europe. But this hope was now shut out, and it was necessary 
to resolve upon some decisive measures for the safety of the national re- 
ligion. 

THE REVOLUTION. 

In this crisis, some of the principal nobility and gentry, with a few 
clergymen, united in a secret address to the Prince of Orange, calling upon 
him to come over with an armed force, and aid them in protecting their 
faith and liberties. This prince, who feared that England would soon be 
joined to France against the few remaining Protestant powers, and also 
that his prospects of the succession in that country, as nephew and son-in- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 193 

law of the king, were endangered, listened readily to this call, and imme- 
diately collected a large fleet and army, comprising many individuals, 
natives of both Scotland and England, who had fled from the severe gov- 
ernment of the Stuart princes. The preparations for the expedition were 
conducted with great secrecy, and James was partly blinded to them, by a 
rumor that their only object was to frighten him into a closer connection 
with France, in order to make him odious to his subjects. When he was 
at length assured by his minister in Holland that he might immediately 
expect a formidable invasion, he grew pale, and dropped the letter from his 
hands. He immediately ordered a fleet and large army to be collected, 
and, that he might regain the affections of his subjects, he called a par- 
liament, and undid many of his late measures. The people justly suspec- 
ted his concessions to be insincere, and were confirmed in their belief, when, 
on a rumor of the Prince of Orange being put back by a storm, he re- 
called the writs for assembling Parliament. 

On the 19th of October, the Prince of Orange set sail with 50 ships of 
war, 25 frigates, 25 fire-ships, and 500 transports, containing 15,000 land 
troops. A storm occasioned some damage and delay ; but he soon put to 
sea again, and proceeded with a fair wind along the British Channel, ex- 
hibiting from his own vessel a flag on which were inscribed the words, ' The 
Protestant Religion and the Liberties op England,' with the appo- 
site motto of his family, ' Je Maintiendrei'' — ' I will maintain.' As he passed 
between Dover and Calais, his armament was visible to crowds of spectators 
on both shores, whose feelings were much excited at once by its appearance 
and its well-known purpose. The English fleet being detained at Harwich by 
the same wind which was so favorable to the prince, he landed (November 
5) without opposition at Torbay, and immediately proceeded to circulate a 
manifesto, declaring the grievances of the kingdom, and promising, with 
the support of the people, to redress them. 

At the first there seemed some reason for fear that the prince would not 
meet with adequate support. On his march to Exeter, and for eight days 
after arriving there, he was not joined by any person of consequence. The 
nation, however, soon became alive to the necessity of giving him encour- 
agement. The gentry of Devon and Somersetshires formed an association 
in his behalf. The Earls of Bedford and Abingdon, with other persons of 
distinction, repaired to his quarters at Exeter. Lord Delamere took arms 
in Cheshire ; the city of York was siezed by the Earl of Danby ; the Earl 
of Bath, governor of Plymouth, declared for the prince ; and the Earl of 
Devonshire made a like declaration in Derby. Every day discovered some 
new instance of that general confederacy into which the nation had entered 
against the measures of the king. But the most dangerous symptom, and 
that which rendered his affairs desperate, was the spirit which he found to 
prevail in his army. On his advancing at its head to Salisbury, he learned 
that some of the principal officers had gone over to the Prince of Orange. 
Lord Churchill (afterwards famous as Duke of Marlborough), Lord Tre- 
lawney, and the king's son-in-law, George, Prince of Denmark, successive- 
ly followed this example. Even his daughter, the Princess Anne, deserted 
him. In great perplexity, he summoned a council of peers, by whose ad- 
vice writs were issued for a new Parliament, and commissioners despatched 
to treat with the prince. A kind of infatuation now took possession of the 
king ; and having sent the queen and infant prince privately to France, he 
13* 



194 AMEBICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

quitted the capital at midnight, almost unattended, for the purpose of fol 
lowing them, leaving orders to recall the writs and disband the army. By 
this procedure, the peace of the country was imminently endangered ; but 
it only served to hasten the complete triumph of the Prince of Orange, who 
had now advanced to Windsor. The supreme authority seemed on the 
point of falling into his hands, when, to his great disappointment, the king, 
having been discovered at Feversham, in Kent, was brought back to Lon- 
don, not without some marks of popular sympathy and affection. There 
was no alternative but to request the unfortunate monarch to retire to a 
country-house, where he might await the settlement of affairs. James, 
finding his palaces taken possession of by Dutch guards, and dreading as- 
sassination, took the opportunity to renew his attempt to leave the king- 
dom. He proceeded on board a vessel in the Medway, and after some ob- 
structions, arrived safely in France, where Louis readily afforded him an 
asylum. 

The same day that the king left Whitehall for the last time, his nephew 
and son-in-law arrived at St. James'. The public bodies immediately wait- 
ed on him, to express their zeal for his cause ; and such of the members of 
the late Parliaments as happened to be in town, having met by his invita- 
tion, requested him to issue writs for a convention, in order to settle the 
nation. He was in the same manner, and for the same purpose, requested 
to call a convention in Scotland. The English convention met on the 22d 
of January 1689, and during its debates the prince maintained a magnan- 
imous silence and neutrality. The Tory party, though it had joined in 
calling him over, displayed some scruples respecting the alteration of the 
succession, and seemed at first inclined to settle the crown on the princess, 
while William should have only the office of regent ; but when this was 
mentioned to the prince, he calmly replied, that in that event, he should 
immediately return to Holland. A bill was then passed, declaring that 
' James II, having endeavored to subvert the constitution, by breaking the 
original contract between the king and the people, and having withdrawn 
himself from the kingdom, has abdicated the government ; and that the 
throne is thereby become vacant.'' To the bill was added a Declaration of 
Hights — namely, an enumeration of the various laws by which the royal 
prerogative and the popular liberties had formerly been settled, but which 
had been violated and evaded by the Stuart sovereigns. William and Ma- 
ry, having expressed their willingness to ratify this declaration, were pro- 
claimed king and queen jointly — the administration to rest in William ; and 
the convention was then converted into a Parliament. 

In Scotland, where the Presbyterians had resumed an ascendancy, the 
convention came to a less timid decision. It declared that James, by the 
abuse of his power, had forfeited all right to the crown — a decision also 
affecting his posterity : and William and Mary were immediately after 
proclaimed. By a bill passed in the English Parliament, the succession 
was settled upon the survivor of the existing royal pair ; next upon the 
Princess Anne and her children ; and finally, upon the children of Will- 
iam by any other consort — an arrangement in which no hereditary prin- 
ciple was overlooked, except that which would have given a preference to 
James and his infant son. 

By the Revolution, as this great event was styled, it might be consider- 
ed as finally decided that the monarchy was not a divine institution, supe- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 195 

rior to human challenge, as the late kings had represented it, but one de- 
pendent on the people, and established and maintained for their benefit. 

RESISTANCE IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 

The new government was at first extremely popular in Scotland ; but 
one portion of the people was much opposed to it. This consisted of the 
Highland clans — a primitive race, unable to appreciate the rights which 
had been gained, prepossessed in favor of direct hereditary succession, and 
of such warlike habits, that though a minority, they were able to give no 
small trouble to the peaceful Lowlanders. When the Scottish convention 
was about to settle the crown on William and Mary, Viscount Dundee, 
formerly Graham of Clave rhouse, and celebrated for his severity upon the 
recusant Presbyterians, raised an insurrection in the Highlands in favor of 
King James, while the Duke of Gordon, a Catholic, still held out Edin- 
burgh Castle in the same interest. It was with no small difficulty that the 
new government could obtain the means of reducing these opponents. 
The castle, after a protracted siege, was given up in June (1689) Gen- 
eral Macky was despatched by William, with a few troops, to join with 
such forces as he could obtain in Scotland, and endeavor to suppress the 
insurrection in the Highlands. He encountered Dundee at Killiecrankie 
(July 27), and, though his troops were greatly superior in number and 
discipline, experienced a complete defeat. Dundee, however, fell by a 
musket-shot in the moment of victory, and his army was unable to follow 
up its advantage. In a short time the Highland clans were induced to 
yield a nominal obedience to William and Mary. 

In Ireland, a much more formidable resistance was offered to the revo- 
lution settlement. Since the accession of James, the Romish faith might 
be described as virtually predominent in that kingdom. The laws against 
Catholics had been suspended by the royal authority, all public offices were 
filled by them, and though the established clergy were not deprived of their 
benefices, very little tithe was paid to them. The viceregal office was 
held by the Earl of Tyrconnel, a violent and ambitious young man, dis- 
posed to second the king in all his imprudent measures, and resolved, in 
the event of their failing, to throw the country into the hands of the French. 
The people at large being chiefly Catholics, were warmly attached to the 
late sovereign, whose cause they regarded as their own 

Early in the spring of 1689, James proceeded from France to Ireland, 
where he was soon at the head of a large though ill-disciplined army. He 
immediately ratified an act of the Irish Parliament for annulling that set- 
tlement of the Protestants upon the lands of Catholics, which had taken 
place in the time of Cromwell, and another for attainting 2000 persons of 
the Protestant faith. The Protestants, finding themselves thus dispossessed 
of what they considered their property, and exposed to the vengeance of a 
majority over whom they had long ruled, fled to Londonderry, Inniskillen, 
and other fortified towns, where they made a desperate resistance, in the 
hope of being speedily succoured by King William. That sovereign now 
led over a large army to Ireland, and (July 1) attacked the native forces 
under his father-in-law at the fords of the river Boyne, near the village of 
Dunore, where he gained a complete victory. 

James was needlessly dispirited by this disaster, and lost no time in sail- 



196 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ing again to France. In reality, the Irish made a better appearance, and 
fought more vigorously, after the battle of the Boyne than before it. 
The Duke of Berwick, a natural son of James, and the Earl of Tyrconnel, 
still kept the field with a large body of cavalry, and the infantry were 
in the meantime effectually protected in the town of Limerick. Will- 
iam invested this town, and in one assault upon it lost 2000 men, which 
so disheartened him, that he went back to England, leaving his officers to 
prosecute the war. The Irish army afterwards fought a regular battle at 
Aghrim, when partly owing to the loss of their brave leader, St. Ruth, 
they were totally routed. The remains of the Catholic forces took refuge 
in Limerick, where they finally submitted in terms of a treaty which seem- 
ed to secure the Catholic population in all desirable rights and privileges. 

REIGN OF WILLIAM III. 

Though all military opposition was thus overcome, William soon found 
difficulties of another kind in the management of the state. The Tories, 
though glad to save the established church by calling in his interfer- 
ence, had submitted with no good grace to the necessity of making him king ; 
and no sooner was the danger past, than their usual principles of hereditary 
right were in a great measure revived. From the name of the exiled 
monarch, they now began to be known by the appellation of Jacobites. 
James' hopes of a restoration were thus for a long time kept alive, and 
the peace of William's mind was so much embittered, as to make his sov- 
ereignty appear a dear purchase. Perhaps the only circumstances which 
reconciled the king to his situation, was the great additional force he could 
now bring against the ambitious designs of Louis XIV. Almost from 
his accession he entered heartily into the combination of European pow- 
ers for checking this warlike prince, and conducted military operations 
against him every summer in person. The necessity of having supplies 
for that purpose rendered him unfit, even if he had been willing, to resist 
any liberal measures proposed to him in Parliament, and hence his passing 
of the famous Triennial Act in 1694, by which it was appointed that a 
new Parliament should be called every third year. In this year died 
Queen Mary, without offspring ; after which William reigned as sole mon- 
arch. 

The peace of R rswick, concluded in 1697, by which the French power 
was confined to the limits, permitted William to spend the concluding years 
of his reign in peace. In 1700, in consideration that he and his sister-in- 
law Anne had no children, the famous Act of Succession was passed, by 
which the crown, failing these two individuals, was settled upon the next 
Protestant heir, Sophia, Duchess of Hanover, daughter of Elizabeth, the 
eldest daughter of James I. 

The reign of King William is remarkable for the first legal support of a 
standing army, and for the commencement of the national debt. It is also 
distinguished by the first establishment of regular banks for the deposit of 
monev , and the issue of a paper currency. Formerly, the business of bank- 
ing, as far as necessary, was transacted by goldsmiths, or through the me 
dium of the public Exchequer, by which plans the public was not sufficient- 
ly insured against loss. In 1695, the first public establishment for the 
purpose, the Bank of England, was established by one William Paterson, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 197 

a scheming Scotsman ; and next year the Bank of Scotland was set on foot 
by one Holland, an English merchant. The capital in the former case be- 
ing only XI, 200,000, and in the latter, the tenth part of that sum. 

In the reign of King William flourished Sir William Temple, an emi- 
nent political and philosophical writer, to whom is usually assigned the 
honor of first composing the English language in the fluent and measured 
manner which afterwards became general. The most profound philosoph- 
ical writer of the age was John Locke, author of an Essay on the Human 
Understanding, an Essay on Toleration, and other works. Bishop Tillot- 
son stands high as a writer of elegant sermons. The greatest name in 
polite literature is that of John Dryden, remarkable for his energetic 
style of poetry, and his translations of Virgil and Juvenal. 

QUEEN ANNE— MARLBOROUGH'S CAMPAIGNS. 

William was succeeded by his sister-in-law, Anne, second daughter 
of the late James II ; a princess now thirty-eight years of age, and 
chiefly remarkable for her zealous attachment to the church of England. 
The movement against the king of France had not been confined to Great 
Britain ; it was a combination of that power with the emperor of Germany 
and the states of Holland. Queen Anne found it necessary to maintain 
her place in the Grand Alliance, as it was termed ; and the Duke of 
Marlborough was sent over to the continent with a large army to prosecute 
the war in conjunction with the allies. Now commenced that career of 
military glory which has rendered the reign of Anne and the name of 
Marlborough so famous. In Germany and Flanders, under this command- 
er, the British army gained some signal successes, particularly those of 
Blenheim and Ramillies; in Spain, a smaller army, under the chivalrously 
brave Earl of Peterborough, performed other services of an important 
kind. The war, however, was one in which Britain had no real interest 
— for it has been seen that Spain has continued under a branch of the 
House of Bourbon without greatly endangering other states. 

A party, consisting chiefly of Tories, endeavored, in 1706, to put an 
end to the war ; and France was so much reduced in strength, as to con- 
cede all the objects for which the contest had been commenced. But the 
people were so strongly inspired with a desire of humiliating France, 
which in commerce and religion they considered their natural enemy, 
that some ambitious statesmen of a contrary line of politics were enabled 
to mar the design of a treaty. Among these was the Duke of Marlbor- 
ough, who, being permitted to profit not only by his pay, but by perquisites 
attached to his command, wished the war to be protracted, merely that he 
might make his enormous wealth a little greater. It was in consequence 
of these unnecessary interferences with continental politics, urged chiefly 
by the people, and by a class of statesmen popular at the time, that the 
first large sums of the national debt were contracted. 

UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 

Since their religious enthusiasm had been laid at rest by the Revolution 
Settlement, the Scottish people had been chiefly animated by a desire of 
participating in the commerce of England. The treatment of their expe- 



198 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

dition to Darien had now inspired them with a bitter feeling against their 
southern neighbors, and they resolved to show their power of counter- 
annoyance by holding up threats of dissenting from England in the matter 
of the succession. In 1703, their Parliament passed the famous Act of 
Security, by which it was ordained that the successor of her majesty in 
Scotland should not be the same with the individual adopted by the Eng 
lish Parliament, unless there should be a free communication of trade 
between the countries, and the affairs of Scotland thoroughly secured 
from English influence. Another act was at the same time passed for 
putting the nation under arms. The English ministers then saw that an 
incorporating union would be necessary to prevent the Pretender from 
gaining the Scottish crown, and to protect England from the attacks of a 
hostile nation. For this purpose they exerted themselves so effectually in 
the Scottish Parliament, as to obtain an act, enabling the queen to nomi- 
nate commissioners for the arrangement of a union. The men appointed, 
thirty on each side, were, with hardly an exception, the friends of the 
court and of the Revolution Settlement ; and the treaty accordingly was 
drawn up without difficulty. 

In October 1706, this document was submitted to the Scottish Parlia- 
ment, and was found to contain the following principal points : — That the 
two nations were to be indissolubly united under one government and leg- 
islature, each, however, retaining its own civil and criminal law ; the 
crown to be in the House of Hanover ; the Scottish Presbyterian church 
to be guaranteed ; forty- five members to be sent by the Scottish counties 
and burghs to the House of Commons, and sixteen elective peers to be 
sent to the Upper House by the nobles ; the taxes to be equalized, but, in 
consideration of the elevation of the Scotch imposts to the level of the 
English (for the latter people already owed sixteen millions), an equiva- 
lent was to be given to Scotland, amounting to nearly four hundred thou- 
sand pounds, which was to aid in renewing the coin, and other objects. 
These terms were regarded in Scotland as miserably inadequate ; and the 
very idea of the loss of an independent legislature and a place among 
governments, raised their utmost indignation. Nevertheless, by dint of 
bribery, the union was carried through Parliament ; and from the 1st of 
May 1707, the two countries formed one state, under the title of the 
Kingdom of Great Britain. 

PEACE OF UTRECHT — DEATH OP QUEEN ANNE. 

The members of the cabinet applied themselves, though very secretly, 
to the business of bringing about a peace. When their plans were ma- 
tured, the consent of the House of Commons was easily gained ; but the 
Lords having shown some reluctance, it was found necessary to create 
twelve new peers, in order to overpower the sense of that part of the 
legislature. After a tedious course of negotiation, Britain and Holland 
concluded a peace at Utrecht (1713), leaving the emperor of Germany 
still at war. By this arrangement, Philip V was permitted to retain 
Spain and the Indies, but no other part of the dominions which his am- 
bitious grandfather had endeavored to secure*for him ; and it was provid- 
ed that he and his descendants should never inherit the kingdom of 
France, nor any future king of France accede to the crown of Spain. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 199 

Britain obtained nothing tangible by all her exertions, except the possess- 
ion of Gibraltar and Minorca, and the privilege of being exclusively em- 
ployed to carry slaves to the Spanish American colonies. It has justly 
been considered a stain upon the nation, that it should have concluded a 
separate peace under such clandestine circumstances, as the interests of 
the other belligerent parties were thereby greatly injured. For the grati- 
fication of their High Church supporters, the ministers obtained an act for 
preventing dissenters from keeping schools, and another for establishing 
church patronage in Scotland, the former of which was repealed in the 
following reign. 

It is believed that Queen Anne and her Tory ministers were in secret 
willing to promote the restoration of the main line of the Stuart family, 
and Harley and St. John are now known to have intrigued for that pur- 
pose. But before any plan could be formed, the queen took suddenly ill 
and died (August 1, 1714), when the ministers had no alternative but to 
proceed according to the Act of Settlement. The Electress Sophia being 
recently dead, her son, the elector, was proclaimed under the title of 
George I. 

The reign of Queen Anne is not more distinguished by the wonderful se- 
ries of victories gained by Marlborough, than by the brilliant list of literary 
men who now flourished, and who have caused this to be styled the Augus- 
tan age of English literature, as resembling that of the Roman Emperor 
Augustus. Alexander Pope stands unrivaled in polished verse on moral 
subjects. Jonathan Swift is a miscellaneous writer of singular vigor and 
an extraordinary kind of humor. Joseph Addison wrote on familiar life 
and on moral and critical subjects with a degree of elegance before un- 
known. Sir Richard Steele was a lively writer of miscellaneous essays. 
This last author, with assistance from Addison and others, set on foot 
the ' Tatler,' ' Spectator,' and ' Guardian,' the earliest examples of small 
periodical papers in England, and which continue to this day to be regar- 
ded as standard works. Cibber, Congreve, Vanburgh, and Farquhar, were 
distinguished writers of comedy ; and Prior, Philips, and Rowe, were 
pleasing poets. In graver literature, this age is not less eminent. Dr. 
Berkeley shines as a metaphysician ; Drs. Sherlock, Atterbury, and Clark 
as divines ; and Bentley as a critic of the Roman classics. 

ACCESSION OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER — REBELLION OF 1715-16. 

The new sovereign lost no time in coming over to Britain, and fixing 
himself in that heritage which his family has ever since retained. He was 
fifty-four years of age, of a good, though not brilliant understanding, and 
very firm in his principles. Knowing well that the whigs were his only 
true friends, he at once called them into the administration. It was the 
custom of that period for every party, on getting into power, to try to 
annihilate their opponents. Not only were the whole Tory party insulted 
by the king, but a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to 
prepare articles of impeachment against Oxford, Bolingbroke, the Duke of 
Ormond, and the earl of Strafford. Bolingbroke, perceiving his life to be 
in danger, fled to the continent ; and his attainder was in consequence 
moved and carried by his rival Walpole. Ormond suffered a similar fate. 



200 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Oxford, after a protracted trial, was only saved in consequence of a differ 
ance between the Lords and Commons. 

During the first year of King George, the Tories kept up very threaten 
ing popular disturbances in favor of High Church principles; but the 
Whigs, gaining a majority in the new House of Commons, were able to 
check this a little by the celebrated enactment called the Riot Act, which 
permits military force to be used in dispersing a crowd, after a certain 
space of time has been allowed. Disappointed in their hopes of office 
and power, and stung by the treatment of their leaders, the Tories re- 
solved to attempt bringing in the Pretender by force of arms. With an 
eager hopefulness, which for a long time was characteristic of the party, 
they believed that all England and Scotland were ready to take up arms 
for the Pretender, when in reality there was but a limited portion of the 
people so inclined, and that portion unwilling to move if they saw the least 
risk or danger. Blind to these circumstances, and without design or con- 
cert, they commenced the unfortunate civil war of 1715. 

The Earl of Mar, who had been a secretary of state in the late ad- 
ministration, raised his standard in Braemar (September 6), without any 
commission from the Pretender, and was soon joined by Highland clans 
to the amount of 10,000 men, who rendered him master of all Scotland 
north of the Forth. There, however, he weakly permitted himself to be 
cooped up by the Duke of Argyle, who with a far less numerous force, had 
posted himself at Stirling. Mar expected to be supported by an invasion 
of England by the Duke of Ormond, and a rising of the people of that 
country. But the Duke completely failed in his design, and no rising took 
place, except in Northumberland. There Mr. Foster, one of the members 
of Parliament for the county, and the Earl of Derwentwater, with some 
other nobleman, appeared in arms, but unsupported by any considerable 
portion of the people. Mar detached a party of 1800 foot, under Mackin- 
tosh of Borlum, to join the Northumbrian insurgents, who complained that 
they had no infantry. The junction was managed with great address ; 
and at the same time some noblemen and gentlemen of the south of Scot- 
land attached themselves to the southern army. The government was ill 
provided with troops but it nevertheless sent such a force against Mr. Fos- 
ter, as obliged him to retire with his men into the town of Preston, in 
Lancashire, where, after an obstinate defense, the whole party (November 
13) surrendered themselves prisoners at the king's mercy. On the same 
day, the Earl of Mar met the Duke of Argyle at Sheriffmuir, near Dum- 
blane, where a battle was fought, in which, after the manner of the battles 
in the civil war, the right wing of each army was successful, but neither 
altogether victorious. The Duke withdrew in the face of his enemy to 
Stirling, and the earl retired to Perth, resolved to wait for the news of 
an invasion from France, and for the arrival of the Pretender, whom he 
had invited to Scotland. 

Mar did not for some time become aware how little reason he had to 
expect support from France. Louis XIV, upon whom the hopes of the 
party greatly rested, had died in September, leaving the government to 
the Regent Orleans, who had strong personal reasons for wishing to culti- 
vate the good-will of the British monarch, and of course declined to assist 
in the present enterprise. The Pretender, nevertheless, sailed for Scot- 
land, and on the 22d of December, arrived incognito at Peterhead, bring- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 201 

ing nothing but his person to aid his adherents. Mar, who had already 
attempted to negotiate a submission to the government, brought him for- 
ward to Perth, where he was amused for some time with preparations for 
his coronation. But before he had been many days there, the Duke of 
Argyle found himself in a condition to advance against the insurgent force ; 
and on the 30th of January 1716, this unfortunate prince commenced a 
retreat to the north, along with his dispirited army. On the 4th of Feb- 
ruary, he and the Earl of Mar provided for their own safety by going on 
board a vessel at Montrose, and setting sail for France : the army dispers- 
ed itself into the Highlands. For this unhappy appearance in arms, the 
Earl of Derwentwater, Viscount Kenmure, and about twenty inferior per- 
sons, were executed ; forty Scottish families of the first rank lost their es- 
tates, and many excellent members of society became exiles for the re- 
mainder of their lives. 

The suppression of this insurrection, and the ruin of so many Tory 
leaders, tended to increase the power of the Whig party, and the stability 
of the Hanoverian dynasty. The government, nevertheless, acted under 
considerable difficulties, as they were opposed by the majority of the clergy 
and country gentry, as well as by the whole of the mob feeling, except in 
the large commercial towns. To avoid the hazard of too often appealing 
to the people, they carried, in 1716, a bill for repealing King William's 
Triennial Act, and protracting the present and all future Parliaments to a 
duration of seven years. The chief popular support of the government 
was in the dissenters, and in the middle classes of the community. 

From the peace of Utrecht, Britain remained free from foreign war for 
nearly thirty years, excepting that, in 1719, the ministry was called on to 
interfere for the repression of an attempt on the part of Spain to regain 
her Italian territories. 

GEORGE II — WAR "WITH SPAIN. 

George I, at his death in 1727, was succeeded by his son, George II, 
a prince of moderate abilities, but conscientious, and free from all gross 
faults. In the early part of his reign, Walpole effected some useful meas- 
ures, and upon the whole was a vigorous and enlightened administrator of 
public affairs, though nothing can justify the extensive system of bribery 
by which alone he pretended to manage the House of Commons. After a 
peace of extraordinary duration, he was urged, much against his will, into 
a contest with Spain, on account of some efforts made by that country to 
check an illicit trade carried on by British merchants in its American col- 
onies. 

REBELLION OF 1745-46. 

The Pretender had married, in 1719, the Princess Clementina Sobieski 
of Poland, and was now the father of two sons in the bloom of youth, the 
the elder of whom has been distinguished in history by the title of Prince 
Charles Stuart. The misfortunes of the British arms on the continent, 
and the dissensions which prevailed among the people and the Parliament, 
encouraged this prince to make an attempt to recover the throne of his 
ancestors. In 1744, he had been furnished by France with a large fleet 



202 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and ample stores to invade the British dominions, but had been driven back 
by a storm, and prevented from again setting sail bj a superior fleet under 
Sir John Norris. Though the French monarch would not grant him any 
further supply, Charles resolved to make the proposed attempt, trusting 
solely to the generosity and valor of his friends in Britain. He therefore 
landed from a single vessel, with only seven attendants, on the coast of 
Inverness-shire, where the clans most attached to his family chiefly resi- 
ded. By merely working upon the ardent feelings of the Highland chiefs, 
he soon induced several of them to take up arms, among whom were 
Locheil, Clanranald, Glengarry, and Keppoch. 

On the 19th of August 1745 he raised his standard at Glenfinnan, with- 
in a few miles of the government station of Fort William, and found him- 
self surrounded by about 1500 men. The government was at first inclin- 
ed to disbelieve the intelligence of these proceedings, but was soon obliged 
to take steps for its own defense. A reward of thirty thousand pounds 
was offered for the head of the young prince, who with all his family, was 
under attainder by act of Parliament ; and Sir John Cope, comman- 
der of the forces in Scotland, was ordered to advance with what troops he 
had into the Highlands, and suppress the insurrection. Cope proceeded 
on this mission with about 1400 infantry ; but on finding the Highlanders 
in possession of a strong post near Fort Augustus, he thought it necessary 
to go aside to Inverness. Charles, taking advantage of this ill-advised 
movement, immediately poured his motley followers down into the Low- 
lands, gaining accessions everywhere as he advanced ; and there being no 
adequate force to oppose him, he took possession successively of Perth and 
Edinburgh. 

Cope now transported his troops back to Lothian by sea, and on the 21st 
September, a rencontre took place between him and Charles at Prestonpans. 
Seized with a panic, the royal troops fled disgracefully from the field, leav- 
ing the prince a complete victory. With the lustre thus acquired by his 
arms, he might have now, with four or five thousand men, made a formida- 
ble inroad into England. Before he could collect such a force, six weeks 
passed away, and when at length (November 1) he entered England, a 
large body of troops had been collected to oppose him. After a bold ad- 
vance to Derby, he was obliged by his friends to turn back. At Stirling 
he was joined by considerable reinforcements, and on the 17th of January 
1746, a battle took place at Falkirk between him and General Hawley, 
each numbering about 8000 troops. Here Charles was again successful ; 
but he was unable to make any use of his victory, and soon after found it 
necessary to withdraw his forces to the neighborhood of Inverness, where 
he spent the remainder of the winter. The Duke of Cumberland now 
put himself at the head of the royal troops, which had been augmented by 
6000 auxiliaries under the Prince of Hesse. During the months of Feb- 
ruary and March, the Highland army was cooped up within its own terri- 
tory by the Hessians at Perth, and the royal troops at Aberdeen. At 
length, April 16, Prince Charles met the English army in an open moor 
at Culloden, near Inverness, and experienced a total overthrow. He had 
himself the greatest difficulty in escaping from the country, and the High- 
lands were subjected for several months to the horrors of military violence 
in all its worst forms 



"DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 203 



GEORGE III— BUTE ADMINISTRATION— rEACE OF 1763. 

Soon after his accession, George III espoused the Princess Charlotte of 
Mecklenburg-Strelitz, by whom he had a large family. One of his earli- 
est political measures was to confer one of the state-secretaryships upon the 
Earl of Bute, a Scottish nobleman of Tory or Jacobite predilections, who 
had been his preceptor, and possessed a great influence over his mind. 
This, with other alterations, infused a peaceful disposition into his majesty's 
counsels, which was not much relished by Mr. Pitt. That minister, hav- 
ing secretly discovered that Spain was about to join France against Brit- 
ain, and being thwarted in the line of policy, which he consequently thought 
it necessary to assume, retired with a pension, and a peerage to his wife ; 
after which the ministry was rendered still less of a warlike temper. A 
negotiation for peace was entered into with France, which offered, for that 
end, to give up almost all her colonial possessions. The demands of the 
British were, however, rather more exorbitant than France expected, and 
not only was the treaty broken off, but Spain commenced those hostilities 
which Mr. Pitt had foretold. Nevertheless, Britain continued that splen- 
did career of conquest, which, except at the beginning, had been her for- 
tune during the whole of this war. In a very few months Spain lost Ha- 
vana, Manilla, and all the Philippine Isles. The Spanish forces were also 
driven out of Portugal, which they had unjustly invaded. At sea the 
British fleets reigned everywhere triumphant, and at no former period was 
the country in so proud a situation. The ministry, however, were sensi- 
ble that war, even with all this good fortune, was a losing game ; and they 
therefore, much against the will of the nation, concluded a peace in Feb- 
ruary 1763. 

By this treaty Great Britain gave up a certain portion of her conquests, 
in exchange for others which had been wrested from her ; but she was nev- 
ertheless a gainer to an immense amount. She acquired from the French, 
Canada, that part of Louisiana east of the Mississippi, Cape Breton, Sene- 
gal, the islands of Grenada, Dominica, St. Vincent's, and Tobago, with all 
the acquisitions which the French had made upon the Coromandel coast in 
the East Indias since 1749. From Spain she acquired Minorca, East and 
West Florida, with certain privileges of value. The continental states in 
alliance with Great Britain were also left as they had been. These ad- 
vantages on the part of Great Britain had been purchased at the expense 
of an addition of sixty millions to the national debt, which now amounted in 
all to £133,959,270. 

Since the accession of the Brunswick family in 1714, the government 
had been chiefly conducted by the Whig party, who formed a very power- 
ful section of the aristocracy of England. Walpole, Pelham, Newcastle, 
and Pitt, had all ruled chiefly through the strength of this great body, who, 
till the period subsequent to the rebellion of 1745, seem to have had the 
support of the most influential portion of the people. After that perwd, 
when the Stuart claims ceased to have any effect in keeping the crown in 
check, a division appears to have grown up between the government and 
the people, which was manifested in various forms eve-; before the demise 
of George II, but broke out in a very violent manner during the early 
years of his successor's reign. George III, who had imbibed high notions 



204 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of the royal prerogative from the Earl of Bute, showed, from the beginning 
of his career, an anxious desire to extend the power of the crown, to shake 
off the influence of the great Whig families, and keep popular force of all 
kinds within strict limits. 

A stranger, with no connection in the country, a favorite, and, more- 
over, a man of unprepossessing manners, the Earl of Bute had neither the 
support of the aristocracy nor of the people. He was assailed in Parlia- 
ment, and through the newspapers, with the most violent abuse — the un- 
popular peace furnishing a powerful topic against him. To this storm he 
at length yielded, by retiring (April 8, 1763). 

AMERICAN STAMP ACT. 

The administration of Mr. Grenville is memorable for the first attempt to 
tax the American colonies. An act passed under his influence (March 
1765) for imposing stamps on those countries, appeared to the colonists as 
a step extremely dangerous to their liberties, considering that they had no 
share in the representation. They therefore combined almost universally 
to resist the introduction of the stamped paper by which the tax was to be 
raised. Resolutions were passed in the various assemblies of the States, 
protesting against the assumed right of the British legislature to tax them. 
Partly by popular violence, and partly by the declarations issued by the 
local legislative assemblies, the object of the act was completely defeated. 

The home government were then induced to agree to the repeal of the 
act, but with the reservation of a right to impose taxes on the colonies. 
Between the Stamp Act and its repeal, a change had taken place in the ad- 
ministration : the latter measure was the act of a Whig ministry under the 
Marquis of Rockingham, which, however, did not long continue in power, 
being supplanted by one in which Mr. Pitt, now created Earl of Chatham, 
held a conspicuous place. The second Pitt administration was less popular 
than the first: the Earl of Chesterfield, reflecting on the title conferred on 
the minister, at the same time that he sunk in general esteem, called his 
rise a fall up stairs. All the ministries of this period labored under a pop- 
ular suspicion, probably not well founded, that they only obeyed the will of 
the sovereign, while the obnoxious Earl of Bute, as a secret adviser behind 
the throne, was the real, though irresponsible minister. 

At the suggestion of Mr. Charles Townshend, a member of the Earl of 
Chatham's cabinet, it was resolved, in 1767, to impose taxes on the Amer- 
icans in a new shape ; namely, upon British goods imported into the colo- 
nies, for which there was some show of precedent. An act for imposing 
duties on tea, glass, and colors, was accordingly passed with little opposi- 
tion. Soon after this, Mr. Townshend died, and the Earl of Chatham, who 
had been prevented by illness from taking any share in the business, re- 
signed. The Americans met the new burdens with the same violent oppo- 
sition as formerly. 

In 1770, the Duke of Grafton retired from the cabinet, and his place 
was supplied by Lord North, son of the Earl of Guilford. The new minis- 
try was the tenth which had existed during as many years, but the first in 
which the king might be considered as completely free of the great Whig 
families, who, by their parliamentary influence, had possessed the chief 
power since the Revolution. This was the beginning of a series of Tory 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 205 

administrations, which, with few and short intervals, conducted the affairs 
of the nation down to the close of the reign of George IV. 

THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Meanwhile the remonstrances of the American colonists had induced the 
ministry to give up all the new taxes, with the exception of that on tea, 
which it was determined to keep up, as an assertion of the right of Parlia- 
ment to tax the colonies. In America, this remaining tax continued to ex- 
cite as much discontent as the whole had formerly done, for it was the 
principle of a right to impose taxes which they found fault with, and not 
the amount of the tax itself. Their discontent with the mother country was 
found to affect trade considerably, and the British merchants were anx- 
ious to bring the dispute to a close. The government was then induced to 
grant such a drawback from the British duty on tea, as enabled the East 
India Company to offer the article in America at a lower rate than former- 
ly, so that the American duty, which was only three pence per pound, did 
not affect the price. It was never doubted that this expedient would sat- 
isfy the colonists, and large shipments of tea were accordingly sent out 
from the British ports. The principle of the right to tax still lurked, how- 
ever under the concession, and the result only showed how little the senti- 
ments of the Americans were understood at home. 

The approach of the tea cargoes excited them in a manner totally un- 
looked-for in Britain. At New York and Philadelphia, the cargoes were 
forbidden to land; in Charleston, where they were permitted to land, they were 
put into stores, and were prohibited from being sold. In Boston harbor, a 
ship-load was seized and tossed into the sea. This last act was resented by the 
passing of a bill in Parliament for interdicting all commercial intercourse with 
the port of Boston, and another for taking away the legislative assembly of 
the state of Massachusetts. The former measure was easily obviated by 
local arrangements ; and in reference to the latter, a Congress of repre- 
sentatives from the various States met at Philadelphia, in September 1774, 
when it was asserted that the exclusive power of legislation, in all cases of 
taxation and internal policy, resided in the provincial legislatures. The 
same assembly denounced other grievances, which have not here been par- 
ticularly adverted to, especially an act of the British legislature for trying 
Americans, for treasonable practices, in England. The Congress also 
framed a covenant of non-intercourse, by which the whole utility of the col- 
onies to the mother country, as objects of trading speculation, was at once 
laid prostrate. The colonists still avowed a desire to be reconciled, on the 
condition of a repeal of the obnoxious statutes. But the government had 
now resolved to attempt the reduction of the colonists by force of arms. 
Henceforth, every proposal from America was treated with a haughty si- 
lence on the part of the British monarch and his advisers. 

The war opened in the summer of 1775, by skirmishes between the Brit- 
ish troops and armed provincials, for the possession of certain magazines. 
At the beginning there seemed no hope of the contest being protracted be- 
yond one campaign. The population of the colonies was at this time un- 
der three millions, and they were greatly inferior in discipline and appoint- 
ments to the British troops. They possessed, however, an indomitable 
zeal in the cause they had agreed to defend, and fought with the advantage 



206 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of being in the country of their friends. At Bunker's Hill, near Boston 
(June 17, 1775), they had the superiority in a well-contested fight with 
the British troops, of whom between two and three hundred were killed. 
At the end of one year, the British government was surprised to find that 
no progress had been made towards a reduction of the Americans, and sent 
out an offer of pardon to the colonists, on condition that they would lay 
down their arms. This proposal only met with ridicule. 

On the 4th of July 1776, the American Congress took the decisive step 
of a declaration of their independence, embodying their sentiment in a doc- 
ument remarkable for its pathos and solemnity. During the next two 
campaigns, the slender forces of the new republic were hardly able any- 
where to face the large and well-appointed armies of Great Britain. Much 
misery was endured by this hardy people in resisting the British arms. 
Notwithstanding every disadvantage and many defeats, America remained 
unsubdued. 

The first serious alarm for the success of the contest in America, was 
communicated in December 1777, by intelligence of the surrender of an 
army under General Burgoyne at Saratoga. In the House of Commons, 
the ministers acknowledged this defeat with marks of deep dejection, but 
still professed to entertain sanguine hopes from the vigor with which the 
large towns throughout Britain were now raising men at their own expense 
for the service of the government. Mr. Fox, the leader of the Opposition, 
made a motion for the discontinuance of the war, which was lost by 165 to 
259, a much narrower majority than any which the ministry had before 
reckoned in the Lower House. 

In proportion to the dejection of the government, was the elation of the 
American Congress. Little more than two years before, the British sov- 
ereign and ministers had treated the petitions of the colonists with silent 
contempt ; but such had been the current of events, that, in 1778, they 
found it necessary, in order to appease the popular discontent, to send out 
commissioners, almost for the purpose of begging a peace As if to avenge 
themselves for the indignities of 1775, the Americans received these com- 
missioners with the like haughtiness ; and being convinced that they could 
secure their independence, would listen to no proposals in which the ac- 
knowledgment of that independence, and the withdrawal of the British 
troops, did not occupy the first place. The ministers, unwilling to submit 
to such terms, resolved to prosecute the war, holding forth to the public, 
as the best defense of their conduct, the necessity of curbing the spirit of 
insubordination, both in the American colonies and at home, which they 
described as threatening the overturn of the most sacred of the national in- 
stitutions. 

The rise of Great Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centu- 
ries, in wealth and military and naval power, had been observed by many 
of the surrounding states with no small degree of jealousy. France in 
particular, had not yet forgiven the triumphant peace which Britain had 
dictated in 1763. The Americans, therefore, by their emissary, the cele- 
brated Benjamin Franklin, found no great difficulty in forming an alliance 
with France, in which the latter power acknowledged the independence of 
the colonists, and promised to send them large auxiliary forces. Viewing 
the distressed state to which Britain was reduced by the contest, and con- 
cluding that the time had arrived to strike a decisive blow for the humilia- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. • 207 

tion, Spain soon after declared war against her ; and in 1780, Holland 
was added to the number of her enemies. Russia then put herself at the 
head of what was called an Armed Neutrality, embracing Sweden and 
Denmark, the object of which was indirectly hostile to Britain. So tre- 
mendous was the force reared against Britain in 1779, even before all 
these powers had entered into hostilities, that it required about 300,000 
armed men, 800 armed vessels, and twenty millions of money annually, 
merely to protect herself from her enemies. Even her wonted superiority 
at sea seemed to have deserted her ; and for some time the people beheld 
the unwonted spectacle of a hostile fleet riding in the Channel, which there 
was no adequate means of opposing. 

It was now obvious to the whole nation that this contest, upon whatever 
ground it commenced, was a great national misfortune ; and the Opposition 
in Parliament began to gain considerably in strength. After some votes, 
in which the ministerial majorities appeared to be gradually lessening, Mr. 
Dunning, on the 6th of April 1780, carried, by a majority of eighteen, a 
motion, 'that the influence of the crown had increased, was increasing, and 
ought to be diminished.' This was looked upon as a severe censure of the 
government, considering that the House of Commons was not altogether a 
popular body, but included many who had seats there only through the in- 
fluence of the crown, or by the favor of the nobility and gentry. 

In the year 1778, an act had been passed, relieving the Roman Catholics 
in England from some of the severe penal statutes formerly enacted against 
them. The apprehension of a similar act for Scotland caused the people 
of that country to form an immense number of associations with a view to 
opposing it ; and in the early part of 1779, the popular spirit broke out at 
Edinburgh and Glasgow in several alarming riots, during which one- or two 
Catholic chapels, and some houses belonging to Catholics, were pillaged 
and burnt. An extensive Protestant Association was also formed in Eng- 
land, to endeavor to procure the repeal of the English act. This body 
was chiefly led by Lord George Gordon, a son of the late Duke of Gordon, 
and member of the House of Commons. In June 1780, an immense mob 
assembled in London to accompany Lord George to the House of Commons, 
where he was to present a petition against the act, signed by 120,000 
persons. His motion for the repeal of the act being rejected by a vast ma- 
jority, he came out to the lobby and harangued the crowd in violent terms, 
suggesting to them similar acts to those which had taken place in Scotland. 
The mob accordingly proceeded to demolish the chapels of the foreign am- 
bassadors. Meeting with no effectual resistance, for the magistrates of 
the city were afraid to take decisive measures against them, they attacked 
Newgate, released the prisoners, and set the prison on fire. The new 
prison at Clerkenwell, the King's Bench, and Fleet Prisons, and the 
New Bridewell, were treated in like manner. At one time thirty- 
six fires were seen throughout the city. The mob had uncontrolled pos- 
session of the streets for five days, pillaging, burning, and demolishing ; 
until the king in council determined to authorize the military to put them 
down by force of arms. Tranquillity was then restored, but not before up- 
wards of 400 persons were killed and wounded. Many of the ringleaders 
were convicted and executed. Lord George Gordon was tried for high 
treason, but acquitted on a plea of insanity, which his subsequent life 
showed to be well founded. Similar outrages were attempted in other 



208 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

cities, but prevented by the vigor of the magistrates. The chief sufferers 
from these riots were the party who aimed at political reforms. On the 
other hand, the king obtained increased respect, in consequence of the 
firmness he had shown in taking measures for the suppression of the riots. 

The states of North and South Carolina, which contained a larger pro- 
portion of persons friendly to the British crown than any of the northern 
states, had submitted, in 1780, to a British army under General Clinton. 
Next year the greater part of the troops which had been left in those states 
were conducted northward by Lord Cornwallis, in the hope of making fur- 
ther conquests ; but the consequence was that General Greene, after a se- 
ries of conflicts, in which he greatly distressed various parties of the Brit- 
ish troops, regained both Carolinas, while Lord Cornwallis took up a posi- 
tion at Yorktown in Virginia. At this time, General Washington, the 
American commander-in-chief, to whose extraordinary sagacity and purity 
of motives the colonists chiefly owed their independence, was threatening 
General Clinton's army at New York. Clinton tamely saw him retire to 
the southward, believing that he only meant to make a feint, in order to 
draw away the British from New York, when he in reality meant to attack 
Cornwallis. On the 29th of September (1781), Yorktown was invested 
by this and other corps of Americans and French ; and in three weeks 
more, the British batteries being completely silenced, Lord Cornwallis sur- 
rendered with his whole army. With this event, though some posts were 
still kept up by the British troops, hostilities might be said to have been 
concluded. 

At the next opening of Parliament many of those who had formerly sup- 
ported the war, began to adopt opposite views ; and early in 1782, a mo- 
tion, made by General Conway, for the conclusion of the war, was carried 
by a majority of nineteen. The necessary consequence was, that, on the 
20th of March, Lord North and his colleagues resigned office, after twelve 
years of continued misfortune, during which the prosperity of the country 
had been retarded, a hundred millions added to the national debt, and 
three millions of people separated from the parent state. 

As usual in such cases, a new administration was formed out of the 
Opposition. The Marquis of Rockingham was made prime minister, and 
Mr. Fox one of the secretaries of state. The new ministers lost no time 
in taking measures for the restoration of peace. Unfortunately for their 
credit with the nation, Sir George Rodney gained an important victory 
over the French fleet of the island of Dominica, April 12, 1782, after the 
ministers had despatched another officer to supersede him in the command. 
On this occasion, thirty-seven British vessels encountered thirty-four 
French ; and chiefly by the dexterous manoeuvre of a breach of the ene- 
my's line, gained one of the most complete victories recorded in modern 
warfare. The triumph was eminently necessary, to recover in some meas- 
ure the national honor, and enable the ministers to conclude the war upon 
tolerable terms. In November, provisional articles for a peace with the 
United States of America, now acknowledged as an independent power, 
were signed at Paris, and the treaty was concluded in the ensuing Febru- 
ary. When the American ambassador was afterwards, for the first time, 
introduced at the British levde, the king received him kindly, and said 
with great frankness, that though he had been the last man in his domin 
ions to desire that the independence of America should be acknowledged, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 209 

he should also be the last to wish that that acknowledgment should be 
withdrawn. War was soon after concluded with France, Spain, and Hol- 
land, but not without some considerable concessions of colonial territory on 
the part of Great Britain. 

The conclusion of this war is memorable as a period of great sufferinc, 
arising from the exhaustion of the national resources, the depression of 
commerce, and the accident of a bad harvest. The principles of prosper- 
ity were, after all, found to be so firmly rooted in the country, that imme- 
diately after the first distresses had passed away, every department of the 
state resumed its wonted vigor, and during the ensuing ten years of peace, 
a great advance was made in national wealth. 

In 1786, Mr. Pitt established his celebrated but fallacious scheme for 
redeeming the national debt, by what wa3 called a Sinking Fund. The 
revenue was at this time above fifteen millions, being about one million 
more than was required for the public service. This excess he proposed to 
Jay aside annually, to lie at compound interest ; by which means he cal- 
culated that each million would be quadrupled at the end of twenty-eight 
years, and thus go a great way towards the object he had in view. To 
this scheme Mr. Fox added the infinitely more absurd amendment, that, 
when the government required to borrow more money, one million of every 
six so obtained should be laid aside for the same purpose. The scheme 
was so well received as to increase the popularity of the minister, and it 
was not till 1813 that its fallacy was proved. 

In the same year commenced the parliamentary proceedings against Mr. 
Warren Hastings, for alleged cruelty and robbery exercised upon the na- 
tives of India during his governorship of that dependency of Great Britain. 
These proceedings were urged by Mr. Burke and other members of the 
Whig party, and excited so much public indignation against Mr. Hastings, 
that the ministry were obliged, though unwillingly, to lend their counten- 
ance to his trial, which took place before Parliament in the most solemn 
manner, and occupied in the aggregate one hundred and forty-nine days, 
extending over the space of several years. The proceedings resulted in 
the acquittal of Mr. Hastings. 

The king and queen had in the meantime become the parents of a 
numerous family of sons and daughters. The eldest son, George, Prince 
of Wales, had now for several years been of age, and exempted from the 
control of his father. He had no sooner been set up in an establishment 
of his own, than he plunged into a career of prodigality, forming the 
most striking contrast with the chastened simplicity and decorum of the 
paternal abode. He also attached himself to the party of the Opposition, 
though rather apparently from a principle of contradiction to his father, 
than a sincere approbation of their political objects. The result was the 
complete alienation of the Prince of Wales from the affections of his 
majesty. 

In November 1788, an aberration of intellect, resulting from an illness 
of some duration, was observed in the king, and it became necessary to 
provide some species of substitute for the exercise of the royal functions. 
To have invested the Prince of Wales with the regency, appeared the 
most obvious course ; but this would have thrown out the ministry, as it 
was to be supposed that his royal highness would call the chiefs of his own 
party to his councils. Mr. Fox contended that the hereditary nature of 
14* 



210 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the monarchy pointed out an unconditional right in the prince to assume 
the supreme power under such circumstances ; but Mr. Pitt asserted the 
right of Parliament to give or withhold such an office, and proposed to 
assign certain limits to the authority of the intended regent, which would 
have placed the existing ministry beyond his reach. The Irish Parlia- 
ment voted the unconditional regency to the prince ; but that of Great 
Britain was about to adopt the modified plan proposed by Mr. Pitt, when, 
March 1789, the king suddenly recovered, and put an end to the difficulty. 
The debates on the regency question exhibit in a very striking light how 
statesmen will sometimes abandon their most favorite dogmas and strong 
est principles on the call of their own immediate interests. 

FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND CONSEQUENT WAR WITH FRANCE. 

The country had for several years experienced the utmost prosperity 
and peace, when it was roused by a series of events which took place in 
France. The proceedings of the French nation for redressing the politi- 
cal grievances under which they had long labored, commenced in 1789, 
and were at first very generally applauded in Britain, as likely to raise 
that nation to a rational degree of freedom. Ere long, the violence 
shown at the destruction of the Bastile, the abolition of hereditary privil- 
eges, the open disrespect for religion, and other symptoms of an extrava- 
gant spirit, manifested by the French, produced a considerable change in 
the sentiments of the British people. The proceedings of the French 
were still justified by the principal leaders of Opposition in Parliament, 
and by a numerous class of the community ; but they inspired the govern- 
ment, and the propertied and privileged classes generally, with great 
alarm and distrust. 

When at length the coalition of Austria and Prussia with the fugitive 
noblesse had excited the spirit of the French people to a species of frenzy, 
and led to the establishment of a Republic, and the death of the king, the 
British government and its supporters were effectually roused to a sense 
of the danger which hung over all ancient institutions, and a pretext was 
found (January 1793) for declaring war against France. A comparative- 
ly small body of the people were opposed to this step, which was also 
loudly deprecated in Parliament by Messrs. Fox and Sheridan ; but all 
these remonstrances were drowned in the general voice of the nation. 
At such a crisis, to speak of political reforms in England seemed the 
height of imprudence, as tending to encourage the French. All, there- 
fore, who continued to make open demonstrations for that cause, were 
now branded as enemies to religion and civil order. In Scotland, Mr. 
Thomas Muir, a barrister, and Mr. Palmer, a Unitarian clergyman, were 
tried for sedition, and sentenced to various terms of banishment. Citizens 
named Skirving, Gerald, and Margarot, were treated in like manner by 
the Scottish criminal judges, for offenses which could only be said to de- 
rive the character ascribed to them from the temporary and accidental 
circumstances of the nation. An attempt to inflict similar punishments 
upon the English reformers, was defeated by the acquittal of a shoemaker 
named Hardy ; but the party was nevertheless subjected, with the appar- 
ent concurrence of a large and influential portion of the people, to many 
minor severities. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 211 

After alliances had been formed with the other powers hostile to France, 
the British ministers despatched an army to the Netherlands, under the 
command of the king's second son, the Duke of York, to cooperate in 
reducing the fortresses in possession of the French, while the town of 
Toulon, being inclined to remain under the authority of the royal family, 
put itself into the hands of a British naval commander. At first, the 
French seemed to fail somewhat in their defenses ; but on a more ardently 
republican party acceding to power under the direction of the famous 
Robespierre, the national energies were much increased, and the Duke of 
Brunswick experienced a series of disgraceful reverses. The Prussian 
government, having adopted new views of the condition of France, now 
began to withdraw its troops, on the pretext of being unable to pay them ; 
and though Britain gave nearly a million and a quarter sterling to induce 
this power to remain nine months longer upon the field, its cooperation 
was of no further service, and was soon altogether lost. On the 1st of 
June 1794, the French Brest fleet sustained a severe defeat from Lord 
Howe, with the loss of six ships ; but the republican troops not only drove 
the combined armies out of the Netherlands, but taking advantage of an 
unusually hard frost, invaded Holland by the ice which covered the Rhine, 
and reduced that country to a Republic under their own control. The 
successes of the British were limited to the above naval victory, the tem- 
porary possession of Corsica and Toulon, the capture of several of the 
French colonies in the West Indies, and the spoliation of a great quantity 
of the commercial shipping of France ; against which were to be reckoned 
the expulsion of an army from the Netherlands, the loss of 10,000 men 
and 60,000 stand of arms, in an unsuccessful descent upon the west coast 
of France, some considerable losses in mercantile shipping, and an increase 
of annual expenditure from about fourteen to nearly forty millions. 

In the course of the year 1795, the lower portions of the community 
began to appear violently discontented with the progress of the war, and 
to renew their demands for reform in the state. As the king was passing 
(October 29) to open the session of Parliament, a stone was thrown into 
his coach, and the interference of the horse guards was required to pro- 
tect his person from an infuriated mob. The ministers consequently ob- 
tained acts for more effectually repressing sedition, and for the dispersion 
of political meetings. They were at the same time compelled to make a 
show of yielding to the popular clamor for peace ; and commenced a ne- 
gotiation with the French Directory, which was broken off by the refusal 
of France fe> restore Belgium to Austria. In the ensuing year, so far 
from any advance being made towards the subjugation of France, the 
northern states of Italy were overrun by its armies, and formed into what 
was called the Cisalpine Republic. The celebrated Napoleon Bonaparte 
made his first conspicuous appearance as the leader of this expedition, 
which terminated in Austria submitting to a humiliating peace. At the 
close of 1796, a French fleet sailed for Ireland, with the design of revo- 
lutionizing that country, and detaching it from Britain ; but its object was 
defeated by stress of weather. At this crisis, a new attempt was made 
to negotiate with the French Republic ; but as the events of the year had 
been decidedly favorable to France, a renewed demand of the British for 
the surrender of Belgium was looked upon as a proof that they were not 
sincere in their proposals, and their agent was insultingly ordered to leave 



212 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the French territory. To add to the distresses of Britain, while Austria 
was withdrawn from the number of her allies, Spain, by a declaration of 
war in 1797, increased in no inconsiderable degree the immense force 
with which she had to contend. 

THREATENED INVASION— SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 

For some time an invasion of Britain had been threatened by France ; 
and, sacred as the land had been for centuries from the touch of a foreign 
enemy, the successes of the republicans had hitherto so greatly exceeded 
all previous calculation, that the execution of their design did not appear 
improbable. Just as the inteference of the neighboring powers had, in 
1792, roused the energies of the French, so did this proposed invasion 
stimulate the spirit of the British people. The clamors of reformers, and 
of those who were friendly to France, were now lost in an almost univer- 
sal zeal for the defense of the country ; and not only were volunteer 
corps everywhere formed, but the desire of prosecuting the war became 
nearly the ruling sentiment of the nation. The ministers, perceiving the 
advantage which was to be derived from the tendency of the national 
spirit, appeared seriously to dread an invasion, and thus produced an un- 
expected and very distressing result. The credit of the Bank of England 
was shaken ; a run was made upon it for gold in exchange for its notes, 
which it could not meet. On the 25th of February 1797, therefore, the 
Bank was obliged, with the sanction of the privy-council, to suspend cash 
payments — that is, to refuse giving coin on demand for the paper money 
which had been issued. This step led to a great depreciation in the value 
of Bank of England notes ; and was followed by a very serious derange- 
ment of the currency for a number of years. 

In April, a new alarm arose from the proceedings of the seamen on 
board the Channel fleet, who mutinied for an advance of pay, and the 
redress of some alleged grievances. A convention of delegates from the 
various ships met in Lord Howe's cabin, and drew up petitions to the 
House of Commons and the Board of Admiralty. Upon these being 
yielded to, order was restored ; but the seamen on board the fleet at the 
Nore soon after broke out in a much more alarming revolt ; and on the 
refusal of their demands, moored their vessels across the Thames, threat- 
ening to cut off all communication between London and the open sea. 
The reduction of this mutiny appeared at one time as if it could only be 
effected by much bloodshed ; but by the firmness of the government, and 
some skillful dealings with the seamen, a loyal party was formed, by whom 
the more turbulent men were secured, and the vessels restored to their 
respective officers. The ringleaders, the chief of whom was a young 
man named Richard Parker, were tried and executed. 

The same year was remarkable for several victories gained by the 
British fleets. A Spanish fleet of twenty-seven ships was attacked by 
fifteen vessels under Admiral Jervis (February 14), off Cape St. Vincent, 
and completely beaten, with the loss of four large vessels. A fleet under 
Admiral Harvey, with a military force under Sir Ralph Abercromby, cap 
tured the island of Trinidad, a Spanish colony. In October, a Dutch 
fleet, under Admiral De Winter, was attacked off the village of Camper- 
down, upon their own coast, by Admiral Duncan, who after a desperate 



DEPARTMENT OP IIISTORY. 213 

battle, captured nine of the enemy's vessels. These naval successes 
compensated in some measure for the many land victories of the French, 
and served to sustain the spirit of the British nation under this unfortu- 
nate contest. 

In 1798, the French overran and added to their dominions the ancient 
republic of Switzerland, which gave them a frontier contiguous to Austria, 
and enabled them eventually to act with increased readiness and force 
upon that country. In this year, the directors of the French Republic, 
beginning to be afraid of the ambition of their general, Bonaparte, sent 
him at the head of an expedition to reduce and colonize Egypt, intending 
from that country to act against the British empire in the East Indies. 
The expedition was successful in its first object ; but the fleet which had 
conveyed it was attacked in Aboukir Bay, by Admiral Nelson (August 1), 
and almost totally destroyed or captured. While so much of the strength 
of the French army was thus secluded in a distant country, the eastern 
powers of Europe thought they might safely recommence war with the 
republic. Austria, Naples, and Russia, formed a confederacy for this 
purpose ; and Britain, to supply the necessary funds, submitted to the 
grievance of an income tax, amounting in general to ten per cent., in ad- 
dition to all her previous burdens. 

The new confederacy was so successful in 1799, as to redeem the great- 
er part of Italy. A Russian army, under the famous SuwaroiF, acted a 
prominent part in the campaign ; but, in the end, attempting to expel the 
French from Switzerland, this large force was nearly cut to pieces in one 
of the defiles of that mountainous country. In August of the same year, 
Great Britain made a corresponding attempt to expel the French from Hol- 
land. Thirty-five thousand men, under the Duke of York, formed the 
military part of the expedition. The fleet was successful at the first in 
taking the Dutch ships, but the army, having landed under stress of weather 
at an unfavorable place for their operations, was obliged, after an abortive 
series of skirmishes, to make an agreement with the French, purchasing 
permission to go back to their country by the surrender of 8000 prisoners 
from England. 

The reverses which France experienced in 1799, were generally attribu- 
ted to the weakness of the Directory — a council of five, to which the exe- 
cutive had been intrusted. Bonaparte suddenly returned from his army in 
Egypt, and, by a skillful management of his popularity, overturned the 
Directory, and caused himself to be appointed the sole depositary of the 
executive power of the state, under the denomination of Fir3t Consul. 
He immediately wrote a letter to King George, making overtures of peace, 
but was answered, by the British secretary, that no dependence could be 
placed by Great Britain on any treaty with France, unless her govern- 
ment were again consolidated under the Bourbons. Bonaparte, having 
much reason to wish for peace, made a reply to this note, vindicating 
France from the charge brought against her, of having commenced a system 
of aggression inconsistent with the interests of other states, and asserting 
her right to choose her own government — a point, he said, that could not 
decently be contested by the minister of a crown which was held by no 
other tenure. But the British government was at this time too much ela- 
ted by the expulsion of the French army from Italy, and the late changes 



214 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

in the executive, which, in their estimation, betokened weakness, to be im- 
immdiately anxious for peace. 

The events of 1800 were of a very different nature from what had been 
calculated upon in England. Sir Sidney Smith, who commanded the 
British forces in Syria, had made a treaty with the French army after it 
had been left by Bonaparte, whereby it was agreed that the French should 
abandon Egypt, and retire unmolested to their own country. The British 
government, in its present temper, refused to ratify this arrangement, and 
the consequence was a continuance of hostilities. The French overthrew 
a large Turkish army at Grand Cairo, and made themselves more effectually 
than ever the masters of the country, so that Britain was obliged to send 
an army next year, under Sir Ralph Abercromby, to accomplish, at an 
immense expense, and a great waste of human life, what the French had 
formerly agreed to do. In Europe, the presence of Bonaparte produced 
equally disastrous results. By one of his most dexterous movements, he 
eluded the Austrians, led an army over the Alps by the Great St. Bernard 
into the Milanese, and having gained a decisive victory at Marengo (June 
14), at once restored the greater part of Italy to French domination. 
Cotemporaneously with Napoleon's movements, Moreau led another army 
directly into Germany, overthrew the Austrians in several battles, and 
advanced to within seventeen leagues of their capital, Vienna. These re- 
verses obliged Austria next year (1801) to sue for and conclude a peace, 
by which France became mistress of all continental Europe west of the 
Rhine and south of the Adige. 

REBELLION IN IRELAND— UNION WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 

Although the government had been able, in 1783, to procure a dissolu- 
tion of the volunteer corps, the bulk of the Irish people continued to ex- 
press the most anxious desire for such a reform in their Parliament as 
might render it a more just representation of the popular voice. Unable 
to yield to them on this point, Mr. Pitt endeavored to appease them by ex- 
tending their commercial privileges ; but his wishes were frustrated, chiefly 
by the jealousy of the British merchants. A strong feeling of discontent, 
not only with the government, but with the British connection, was thus 
engendered in Ireland. 

The commencement of the revolutionary proceedings in France excited 
the wildest hopes of the Irish. Towards the close of the year 1791, they 
formed an association, under the title of the United Irishmen, comprehen- 
ding persons of all religions, and designed to obtain ' a complete reform of 
the legislature, founded on the principles of civil, political, and religious 
liberty.' The government from the first suspected this association of 
meditating an overturn of the state, and took strong measures for keeping 
it in check. Acts were passed for putting down its meetings, and the sec- 
retary, Mr. Hamilton Rowan, was tried and sentenced to a fine and two 
years' imprisonment for what was termed a seditious libel. At the same 
time, some concessions to the popular spirit were deemed indispensable, 
and the Irish Parliament accordingly passed acts enabling Catholics to in- 
termarry with Protestants, to practice at the bar, and to educate their 
own children. 

On discovering that a treasonable correspondence had been carried on 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 215 

with France by some leading persons in the society of United Irishmen 
the government was so much alarmed as to send (1794) a Whig lord-lieu- 
tenant (Earl Fitzwilliam) to grant further concessions ; but ere anything 
had been done, the ministers were persuaded by the Protestant party to 
return to their former policy. The patriotic party now despaired of effect- 
ing any improvement by peaceable means, and an extensive conspiracy 
was entered into for delivering up Ireland to the French republic. The 
scheme was managed by a directory of five persons, and though half a 
million of men were concerned in it, the most strict secrecy was preserv- 
ed. In December 1796, a portion of the fleet which had been fitted out 
by the French to cooperate with the Irish patriots, landed at Bantry Bay ; 
but measures for a rising of the people not being yet ripe, it was obliged 
to return. Next year, the losses at Camperdown crippled the naval re- 
sources of France, and prevented a renewal of the expedition. Losing all 
hope of French assistance, the conspirators resolved to act without it; but 
their designs were betrayed by one Reynolds ; and three other members 
of the directory, Emmett, Macnevin, and Bond, were seized. Notwith- 
standing the precautionary measures which the government was thus ena- 
bled to take, the Union persisted in the design of rising on a fixed day. 
Lord Edward Fitzgerald, another of its leaders, was then arrested, and 
being wounded in a scuffle with his captors, soon after died in prison. On 
the 21st of May 1798, Lord Castlereagh, secretary to the lord-lieutenant, 
disclosed the whole plan of insurrection, which had been fixed to commence 
on the 23d. 

Though thus thwarted in their designs, and deprived of their best lead- 
ers, the conspirators appeared in arms in various parts of the country. Par- 
ties attacked Naas and Carlow, but were repulsed with loss. A large 
party, under a priest named Murphy, appeared in the county of "Wexford, 
and took the city of that name. Slight insurrections about the same time 
broke out in the northern counties of Antrim and Down, but were easily 
suppressed. In Wexford alone did the insurgents appear in formidable 
strength. Under a priest named Roche, a large party of them met and 
defeated a portion of the government troops ; but on a second occasion, 
though they fought with resolution for four hours, they were compelled to 
retreat. Another defeat at New Ross exasperated them greatly, and some 
monstrous cruelties were consequently practised upon their prisoners. On 
the 20th of June, their whole force was collected upon Vinegar Hill, near 
Enniscorthy, where an army of 13,000 men, with a proportionate train of 
artillery, was brought against them by General Lake. They were com- 
pletely overthrown and dispersed. From this time the rebellion languish- 
ed, and in July it had so far ceased to be formidable, that an act of am 
nesty was passed in favor of all who had been engaged in it, except the 
leaders. 

On the 22d of August, when the rebellion had been completely extin- 
guished, 900 French, under General Humbert, were landed at Killala, in 
the opposite extremity of the country from that in which the insurgents 
had shown the greatest strength. Though too late to be of any decisive 
effect, they gave some trouble to the government. A much larger body 
of British troops, under General Lake, met them at Castlebar, but retreat- 
ed in a panic. They then advanced to the centre of the country, while 
the lord-lieutenant confessed the formidable reputation which their country- 



216 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA 

men had acquired, by concentrating an immensely disproportioned force 
against them. On the 8th of September, they were met at Carrick-on- 
Shannon by this large army, to which they yielded themselves prisoners 
of, war. 

During the ensuing two years, the British ministers exerted themselves 
to bring about an incorporating union of Ireland with Great Britain ; a 
measure to which the Irish were almost universally opposed, but which, by 
the use of bribes and government patronage liberally employed amongst 
the members of the Irish legislature, was at length effected. From the 
1st of January 1801, the kingdom of Ireland formed an essential part of 
the empire, on which was now conferred the name of the United Kingdom 
of Great Britain and Ireland. The act of Union secured to the Irish 
most of the commercial privileges which they had so long sought. Upon 
a comparison of the aggregate exports and imports of the two countries, 
Ireland was to raise two parts of revenue for every fifteen raised by Great 
Britain, during the first twenty years of the Union, after which new reg- 
ulations were to be made by Parliament. One hundred commoners were 
to be sent by Ireland to the British (now called the Imperial) Parliament ; 
namely, two for each county, two for each of the cities of Dublin and Cork, 
one for the university, and one for each of the thirty-one most considera- 
ble towns. Four lord spiritual, by rotation of sessions, and twenty-eight 
lords temporal, elected for life by the Peers of Ireland, were to sit in the 
House of Lords. 

The Union, though, upon the whole, effected in a spirit of fairness to- 
wards Ireland, increased the discontent of the people, which broke out in 
1803 in a new insurrection. Under Robert Emmet and Thomas Russell, 
a conspiracy was formed for seizing the seat of the vice-government, and 
for this purpose a great multitude of peasantry from the county of Kildare 
assembled (July 23) in Dublin. Disappointed in their attempt upon the 
castle, they could only raise a tumult in the streets, in the course of which 
Lord Kilwarden, a judge, and his nephew, Mr. Wolfe, were dragged from 
a carriage and killed. The mob was dispersed by soldiery, and Emmett 
and Russell, being seized, were tried and executed. 

CHANGE OF MINISTRY, AND PEACE OF AMIENS, 1801. 

At the commencement of 1801, Britain had not only to lament this un 
expected turn of fortune, but to reckon among her enemies the whole of 
the northern states of Europe, which had found it necessary to place them- 
selves on a friendly footing with Bonaparte, and though they did not de- 
clare war against Britain, yet acted in such a manner as to render hostili- 
ties unavoidable. Nelson sailed in March with a large fleet for Copenhagen, 
and proved so successful against the Danish fleet, as to reduce that country 
to a state of neutrality. The death of the Russian Emperor Paul, which 
took place at the same time, and the accession of Alexander, who was 
friendly to Britain, completely broke up the northern confederacy. Yet 
the great achievements of France on the continent, joined to the distresses 
of a famine which at this time bore hard on the British people, produced 
a desire for that peace which, a year before, might have been gained upon 
better terms. With a view, apparently, to save the honor of Mr. Pitt 
and his friends, a new ministry was appointed under Mr. Addington, by 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 217 

whom a peace was at length, in the end of the year (1801), concluded 
with France, which was left in the state of aggrandizement which has just 
been described. 

The war of the French Revolution placed Great Britain in possession of 
a considerable number of islands and colonies in the East and West Indies 
and elsewhere ; and while only two war ships had been lost on her part, 
she had taken or destroyed 80 sail of the line, 181 frigates, and 224 small- 
er ships, belonging to the enemy, together with 743 privateers, 15 Dutch, 
and 76 Spanish ships. The triumphs of the British fleets were indeed nu- 
merous and splendid, and had the effect of keeping the national commerce 
almost inviolate during the whole of the war while that of France was 
nearly destroyed. There was, however, hardly the most trifling instance 
of success by land ; and the expenses of the contest had been enormous. 
Previously to 1793, the supplies usually voted by the House of Commons 
were £14,000,000 ; but those for 1801 were £42,197,000 — a sum about 
double the amount of the whole land-rent of the country. 

WAR RENEWED WITH FRANCE, 1803 — SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 

It was only one of the results of the war against French independence, 
that France was led by the course of events to place herself under the 
control of her chief military genius, Napoleon Bonaparte ; a man singu- 
larly qualified for concentrating and directing the energies of a country in 
the existing condition of France, but animated more by personal ambition 
than by any extended views of the good of his species. It was soon 
manifested that Bonaparte did not relish peace. By taking undue advan- 
tage of several points left loose in the treaty, he provoked Great Britain 
to retaliate by retaining possession of Malta ; and the war was accordingly 
recommenced in May 1803. Britain immediately employed her superior 
naval force to seize the French West India colonies ; while France took 
possession of Hanover, and excluded British commerce from Hamburg. 
Bonaparte collected an immense flotilla at Boulogne, for the avowed pur- 
pose of invading England ; but so vigorous were the preparations made by 
the whole British population, and so formidable the fleet under Lord Nel- 
son, that he never found it possible to put his design in execution. In 
the year 1804, he was elevated to the dignity of Emperor of the French ; 
and France once more exhibited the formalities of a court, though not of 
the kind which the European sovereigns were anxious to see established. 
In April of the same year, the Addington administration was exchanged 
for one constructed by Mr. Pitt, and of which he formed the leader. 

In 1805, under the fostering influence of Great Britain, a new coalition 
of European powers, consisting of Russia, Sweden, Austria, and Naples, 
was formed against Napoleon. He, on the other hand, had drawn Spain 
upon his side, and was making great exertions for contesting with Britain 
the empire of the sea. A fleet of thirty-three sail, partly French and 
partly Spanish, met a British fleet of twenty-seven, under Nelson, off Cape 
Trafalgar, October. 25, 1805, and was completely beaten, though at the 
expense of the life of the British commander. Britain thus fixed perma- 
nently her dominion over the seas and coasts of the civilized world. At 
this time, however, Napoleon was asserting with equal success his supre- 
macy over continental Europe. By a sudden, rapid, and unexpected 



218 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

movement, he conducted an army into Germany, where the Austrians were 
already making aggressions upon neutral territory. On the 17th October, 
he took the fortress of Ulm, with its artillery, magazines, and garrison of 
30,000 men ; a month after, he entered Vienna without resistance. He 
then pursued the royal family, and the allied armies of Russia and Austria, 
into Moravia; and on the 2d of December 1805, he gained the decisive 
and celebrated victory of Austerlitz, which put an end to the coalition, 
and rendered him the dictator of the continent. 

This series of events caused much gloom in the British councils, and 
with other painful circumstances, among which was the impeachment of 
his colleague Lord Melville, for malpractices in the Admirality, proved a 
death-blow to Mr. Pitt, who expired on the 23d of January 1806, com- 
pletely worn out with state business, at the early age of forty-seven, half 
of which time he had spent in the public service. Mr. Pitt is universally 
allowed the praise of high talent and patriotism. But his policy has been 
a subject of dispute between the two great political parties into which 
British society is divided. By the Tories it is firmly believed that his 
entering into the war against the French Republic was the means of sav- 
ing the country from anarchy and ruin ; by the Whigs, that this step only 
ended to postpone the settlement of the affairs of France, and loaded Brit- 
ain with an enormous debt. Of the absence of all selfish views in the po- 
litical conduct oi Mr. Pitt, there can be no doubt ; for, so far from accu- 
mulating a fortune out ;•! the public funds, he left some debts, which Par- 
liament gratefully paid. 

Mr. Pitt's ministry was succeeded by one composed of Lord Grenville, 
Mr. Fox, and their friends ; it was comprehensively called Whig, although 
Lord Grenville was a Tory, except in his advocacy of the claims of the 
Catholics for emancipation. In the course of 1806, the new cabinet made 
an attempt to obtain a peace from France, which now threatened to bring 
the whole world to its feet. But the Grenville administration encounter- 
ed serious difficulties from the king, who never could be induced to look 
with the least favor on the Catholic claims, or those who advocated them. 
Exhausted by his useless labors, Mr. Fox died, September 13, 1806. 
Few names are more endeared to the British people than his, for, though 
the leader of the Whigs, he never excited any rancor in his opponents. 
He was remarkable for his frankness and simplicity. His abilities as a 
parliamentary orator and statesman were of the first order, and he was 
invariably the consistent and sincere friend of popular rights. 

A new coalition, excluding Austria, but involving Prussia, had been sub- 
sidised by Britain, and was preparing to act. With his usual decision, 
Napoleon led what he called his ' Grand Army' by forced marches into 
Prussia ; gained, on the 14th of October, the battles of Jena and Auer- 
stadt, which at once deprived that country of her army, her capital, and her 
fortresses ; and then proclaimed the famous ' Berlin Decrees,' by which 
he declared Great Britain in a state of blockade, and shut the ports of 
Europe against her merchandise. The King of Prussia, Frederick Will- 
iam III, took refuge with his court in Russia, which now was the only 
continental power of any importance that remained unsubdued by France. 

Towards that country Napoleon soon bent his steps, taking, as he went, 
assistance from Poland, which he promised to restore to independence. 
After a series of skirmishes and battles of lesser importance, he met the 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 219 

Russian army in great strength (June 14, 1807), at Friedland, and gave 
it a total overthrow. He might now have easily reduced the whole coun- 
try, as he had done Austria and Prussia ; but he contented himself with 
forming a treaty (called the treaty of Tilsit, from the place where it was 
entered into), by which Russia agreed to become an ally of France, and 
entered into his views for the embarrassment of Britain by the exclu- 
sion of her commerce from the continental ports. France had thus, in the 
course of a few years, disarmed the whole of Europe, excepting Great 
Britain, an amount of military triumph for which there was no precedent 
in ancient or modern history. 

The Grenville administration was displaced in the spring of 1807, in con- 
sequence of the difference between its members and the king on the subject 
of the Catholic claims, which had long been urged by the Whig party, with 
little support from the people. The next ministry was headed by the 
Duke of Portland, and included Lords Hawkesbury and Castlereagh (af- 
terwards Earl of Liverpool and Marquis of Londonderry), and Mr. Can- 
ning, as secretaries ; Mr. Spencer Perceval being chancellor of the ex- 
chequer. After being accustomed to the services of such men as Pitt and 
Fox, the people regarded this cabinet as one possessing comparatively lit- 
tle ability. One of its first acts was the despatch of a naval armament 
to Copenhagen to seize and bring away the Danish shipping, which was 
expected to be immediately employed in subserviency to the designs of 
France, and for the injury of Britain. The end of the expedition was 
very easily obtained; but it was the means of lowering the honor of Britain 
in the estimation of foreign powers. 

FIRST PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN — SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 

The retaliation of France, for the interferences of other powers with its 
Revolution, even supposing such retaliation justifiable, was now more than 
completed. Further measures could only appear as dictated by a desire 
of aggrandizement. But France was now given up to the direction of a 
military genius, who had other ends to serve than the defense of the coun- 
try against foreign aggression or interference. The amazing successes of 
Napoleon had inspired him with the idea of universal empire : and so great 
was the influence he had acquired over the French, and so high their mil- 
itary spirit, that the attainment of his object seemed by no means impossi- 
ble. There was a difference, however, between the opposition which he 
met with before this period , and that which he subsequently encountered. 
In the earlier periods of the war, the military operations of the European 
powers were chiefly dictated by views concerning the interests of govern- 
ments, and in which the people at large felt little sympathy. Henceforth 
a more patriotic spirit rose everywhere against Napoleon : he was looked 
upon in England and elsewhere as the common enemy of humanity and of 
freedom ; and every exertion made for the humiliation of France was ani- 
mated by a sentiment of desperation, in which the governors and governed 
alike participated. 

The Spanish peninsula was the first part of the prostrated continent 
where the people could be said to have taken a decidedly hostile part 
against Napoleon. He had there gone so far as to dethrone the reigning 
family, and give the crown to his elder brother Joseph. A sense of wrong 



220 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and insult, mingled with religious fanaticism, raised the Spanish people in 
revolt against the French troops ; and though their conduct was barbarous, it 
was hailed in Britain as capable of being turned to account. In terms of a 
treaty entered into with a provisional government in Spain, a small army was 
landed, August 8, 1808, in Portugal, which had been taken possession of 
by the French. Sir Arthur Wellesley, who afterwards became so famous 
as Duke of Wellington, was the leader of this force. In an engagement 
at Vimeira, on the 21st, he repulsed the French, under Junot, who soon 
after agreed, by what was called the Convention of Cintra, to evacuate the 
country. Sir Arthur being recalled, the British army was led into Spain 
under the command of Sir John Moore ; but this officer found the rein- 
forcements poured in by Napoleon too great to be withstood, and according- 
ly, in the end of December, he commenced a disastrous, though well-con- 
ducted retreat towards the port of Corunna, whither he was closely pur- 
sued by Marshal Soult. The British army suffered on this occasion the 
severest hardships and losses, but did not experience a check in battle, 
or lose a single standard. In a battle which took place at Corunna, Jan- 
uary 16, 1809, for the purpose of protecting the embarkation of the troops, 
Sir John Moore was killed. 

Much of the public attention was about this time engrossed by circum- 
stances in the private life of the eldest son of the king. The Prince of 
Wales had been tempted, in 1796, by the prospect of having his large 
debts paid by the nation, to marry the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, for 
whom he entertained no real affection. Almost ever since the marriage, 
he had shown the most marked disrespect for his consort, who consequent- 
ly lived separate from him, and was herself considered by many as not al- 
together blameless in her conduct as a matron. 

In 1809, Austria was induced once more to commence war with France. 
Upwards of half a million of men were brought into the field, under the 
command of the Archduke Charles. Bonaparte, leaving Spain comparative- 
ly open to attack, moved rapidly forward into Germany, and, by the victory 
of Eckmiihl, opened up the way to Vienna, which surrendered to him. 
After gaining a slight advantage at Essling, the archduke came to a sec- 
ond decisive encounter at Wagram, where the strength of Austria was 
completely broken to pieces. The peace which succeeded was sealed by 
the marriage of Napoleon to Maria Louisa, daughter of the emperor of 
Austria, for which purpose he divorced his former wife Josephine. 

In the autumn of 1809, the British government despatched an army of 
100,000 men, for the purpose of securing a station which should command 
the navigation of the Sheldt. The expedition was placed under the command 
of the Earl of Chatham, elder brother of Mr. Pitt, a nobleman totally unac- 
quainted with military affairs on such a scale. The army, having disem- 
barked on the insalubrious island of Walcheren, was swept off in thousands 
by disease. The survivors returned in December without having done 
anything towards the object for which they set out. This tragical affair 
became the subject of inquiry in the House of Commons, which by a ma- 
jority of 272 against 232, vindicated the manner in which the expedition 
had been managed. 

SUCCESSES OF WELLINGTON IN SPAIN. 

A new expedition in Spain was attended with better success. Taking 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 221 

advantage of the absence of Napoleon in Austria, a considerable army was 
landed, April 23, 1809, under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, 
who immediately drove Soult out of Portugal, and then made a rapid 
move upon Madrid. King Joseph advanced with a considerable force 
under the command of Marshal Victor ; and on the 28th of July, attacked 
the British and Spanish troops in a strong position at Talavera. The 
contest was obstinate and sanguinary ; and though the French did not re- 
treat, the advantage lay with the British. As this was almost the first 
success which Britain experienced by land in the course of the war, Sir 
Arthur Wellesley became the theme of universal praise, and he was ele- 
vated to a peerage, under the title of Viscount Wellington of Talavera. 
He was obliged immediately to fall back upon Portugal, where he occupied 
a strong position near Santarem. 

Early in 1810, Napoleon reinforced the army in Spain and gave orders 
to Massena to ' drive the British out of the Peninsula.' Wellington posted 
his troops on the heights of Busaco — eighty thousand in number, includ- 
ing Portuguese — and there, on the 27th of September, was attacked by 
an equal number of French. Both British and Portuguese behaved well : 
the French were repulsed with great loss, and for the first time in the war, 
conceived a respectful notion of the British troops. Wellington now re- 
tired to the lines of Torres Vedras, causing the whole country to be deso- 
lated as he went, for the purpose of embarrassing the French. When 
Massena observed the strength of the British position, he hesitated ; and 
ultimately, in the spring of 1811, performed a disastrous and harassing 
retreat into the Spanish territory. 

It now became an object of importance with Wellington to obtain pos- 
session of the Spanish fortresses which had been seized by the French. 
On the 22d of April, he reconnoitered Badajos, and soon after laid siege to 
Almeida. Massena, advancing to raise the siege, was met on fair terms 
at Fuentes d'Onoro, May 5, and repulsed. Almeida consequently fell into 
the hands of the British. General Beresford, at the head of another body 
of British forces, gained the bloody battle of Albuera over Soult, and 
thereby protected the siege of Badajos, which, however, was soon after 
abandoned. During the same season, General Graham, in command of a 
third body of troops, gained the battle of Barossa. At the end of a cam- 
paign, in which the French were upon the whole unsuccessful, Wellington 
retired once more into Portugal. 

EVENTS OF 1811, 1812, AND 1813. 

The year 1811 was regarded as the period of greatest depression and 
distress which the British empire had known for several ages. At this 
time, with the exception of an uncertain footing gained in Spain, the in- 
fluence of England was unknown on the continent. Bonaparte seemed as 
firmly seated on the throne of France as any of her former monarchs, 
while every other civilized European kingdom either owned a monarch of 
his express appointment, or was in some other way subservient to him. By 
the Berlin and Milan decrees, he had shut the ports of the continent against 
British goods, so that they could only be smuggled into the usual markets. 
By British orders in council, which, though intended to be retaliatory, only 
increased the evil, no vessel belonging to a neutral power — such, for in- 



222 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

stance, as the United States — was permitted to carry goods to those ports, 
unless they should previously land and pay a duty in Britain. Thus the 
nation at once suffered from the shortsighted despotism of the French em- 
peror, and from its own narrow and imperfect views of commerce ; for, by 
embarrassing America, it only deprived itself of one of its best and almost 
sole remaining customers. 

The power of Bonaparte, though sudden in its rise, might have been 
permanent if managed with discretion. It was used, however, in such a 
way as to produce a powerful reaction throughout Europe in favor of those 
ancient institutions, which, twenty years before, had been threatened with 
ruin. The exclusion of British goods — a measure which he had dictated 
in resentment against England — proved the source of great distress, op- 
pression, and hardship throughout the continent, and was greatly instru- 
mental in exciting a spirit of hostility against him. The very circumstance 
of a foreign power domineering over their native princes, raised a feeling 
in favor of those personages, which, being identified with the cause of na- 
tional independence, acted as a very powerful stimulant. On the other 
hand, a sense of the grasping ambition of Napoleon — of his hostility to 
real freedom — of his unscrupulousness in throwing away the lives of his 
subjects for his own personal aggrandizement — had for some time been 
gaining ground in France itself. 

In 1812, when the transactions in Spain had already somewhat impaired 
Napoleon's reputation, Alexander, Emperor of Russia, ventured upon a 
defiance of his decrees against British merchandise, and provoked him to a 
renewal of the war. With upwards of half a million of troops, appointed 
in the best manner, he set out for that remote country, determined to re- 
duce it into perfect subjection. An unexpected accident defeated all his 
plans. The city of Moscow, after being possessed by the French troops in 
September, was destroyed by incendiaries, so that no shelter remained for 
them during the ensuing winter. Napoleon was obliged to retreat ; but, 
overtaken by the direst inclemency of the season, his men perished by thou- 
sands in the snow. Of his splendid army, a mere skeleton regained central 
Europe. Returning almost alone to Paris, he contrived with great exer- 
tions to reinforce his army, though there was no replacing the veterans lost 
in Russia. 

Early in 1813, he opened a campaign in northern Germany, where the 
emperor of Russia, now joined by the king of Prussia and various minor 
powers, appeared in the open field against him. After various successes 
on both sides, an armistice was agreed to on the 1st of June, and Bona- 
parte was offered peace on condition of restoring only that part of his do- 
minions which he had acquired since 1805. Inspired with an overween- 
ing confidence in his resources and military genius, he refused these terms, 
and lost all. In August, when the armistice was at an end, his father-in- 
law, the emperor of Austria, joined the allies, whose forces now numbered 
500,000 men, while an army of 300,000 was the largest which Napoleon 
could at present bring into the field. Henceforth he might be considered 
as overpowered by numbers. By steady, though cautious movements, the 
allies advanced to France, driving him reluctantly before them, and in- 
creasing their own force as the various states became emancipated by their 
presence. At the close of 1813, they rested upon the frontiers of France, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 223 

while Lord Wellington, after two successful campaigns in Spain, had ad- 
vanced in like manner to the Pyrenees. 

HOME AFFAIRS— "WAR WITH AMERICA. 

Some changes had in the meantime taken place in the British adminis- 
tration. On the 11th of May, 1812, the premier, Mr. Perceval, was shot 
in the lobby of the House of Commons, by a man named Bellingham, whom 
some private losses had rendered insane. Lords Liverpool and Castlereagh 
then became the ministerial leaders in the two Houses of Parliament, but 
were quickly voted down by a majority of four, upon a motion made by Mr. 
Stuart Wortley, afterwards Lord Wharncliffe. The ministry was finally 
rendered satisfactory to Parliament by the admission of Earl Harrowby as 
president of the council, Mr. Vansittart as chancellor of the exchequer, and 
Lord Sidmouth (formerly premier while Mr. Addington) as secretary for 
the home department ; Lord Liverpool continuing as premier, and Lord 
Castlereagh as foreign and war secretary. 

Notwithstanding the successes which were at this period brightening the 
prospects of Britain, the regent and his ministers did not enjoy much pop- 
ularity. The regent himself did not possess those domestic virtues which 
are esteemed by the British people, and he had excited much disapproba- 
tion by the steps which he took for fixing a criminal charge upon his con- 
sort. The general discontents were increased by the effects of the orders 
in council, for prohibiting the commerce of neutral states. Vast multitudes 
of working people were thrown idle by the stagnation of manufactures, and 
manifested their feelings in commotion and riot. The middle classes ex- 
pressed their dissatisfaction by clamors for parliamentary reform. 

At this unhappy crisis, provoked by the orders in council, as well as by 
a right assumed by British war-vessels to search for and impress English 
sailors on board the commercial shipping of the United States, that coun- 
try (June 1812) declared war against Britain. Before the news had 
reached London, the orders had been revoked by the influence of Lord Liv- 
erpool ; but the Americans, nevertheless, were too much incensed to re- 
trace their steps. During the summer and autumn, several encounters 
took place between single American and British ships, in which the former 
were successful. It was not till June 1, 1813, when the Shannon and 
Chesapeake met on equal terms, that the British experienced any naval tri- 
umph in this war with a kindred people. On land, the Americans endea- 
vored to annoy the British by assaults upon Canada, but met with no deci- 
sive success. The British landed several expeditions on the coast of the 
States ; and were successful at Washington, Alexandria, and at one or two 
other points, but experienced a bloody and disastrous repulse at New Or- 
leans. The war ended, December 1814, without settling any of the prin- 
ciples for which the Americans had taken up arms. But while thus simply 
useless to America, it was seriously calamitous to Britain. The com- 
merce with the States, which amounted in 1807, to twelve millions, was 
interrupted and nearly ruined by the orders in council, and the hostilities 
which they occasioned : henceforth America endeavored to render herself 
commercially independent of Britain, by the encouragement of native 
manufactures — a policy not immediately advantageous perhaps to herself, 
and decidedly injurious to Great Britain. The fatal effects of the Berlin 



224 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and Milan decrees to Napoleon, and of the orders in council to the interests 
of Britain, show how extremely dangerous it is for any government to in- 
terfere violently with the large commercial systems upon which the imme- 
diate interests of their subjects depend. 

PEACE OF 1814— SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 

At the close of 1813, it was evident that Bonaparte could hardly defend 
nimself against the vast armaments collected on all hands against him 
Early in 1814, having impressed almost every youth capable of bearing 
arms, he opposed the allies on the frontiers with a force much less numer- 
ous and worse disciplined. Even now he was offered peace, on condition 
that he should only retain France as it existed before the Revolution. But 
this proposition was too humiliating to his spirit to be accepted ; and he 
entertained a hope that, at the worst, his father-in-law, the Emperor of 
Austria, would not permit him to be dethroned. Two months were spent 
in almost incessant conflict with the advancing allies, who, on the 30th of 
March, entered Paris in triumph ; and in the course of a few days, ratified 
a treaty with Napoleon, by which he agreed to resign the government of 
France, and live for the future as only sovereign of Elba, a small island in 
the Mediterranean. 

In the measures for settling France, Great Britain concurred by her 
representative Lord Castlereagh, who attended the allies during the cam- 
paign of 1814 ; and peace was proclaimed in London on the 20th of June. 
France was deprived of all the acquisitions gained both under the Repub- 
lic and the Empire, and restored to the rule of the ancient royal family in 
the person of Louis XVIII. The emperor of Russia and the king of Prus- 
sia visited England in June, and were received with all the honors due to 
men who were considered as the liberators of Europe. Wellington, now 
created a duke, received a grant of ,£400,000 from the House of Com- 
mons, in addition to one of ,£100,000 previously voted ; and had the hon- 
or to receive in person the thanks of the House for his services. Repre- 
sentatives from the European powers concerned in the war, met at Vienna, 
October 2, in order to settle the disturbed limits of the various countries, 
and provide against the renewal of a period of war so disastrous. Through- 
out the whole arrangements, Great Britain acted with a disinterested mag- 
nanimity, which, after her great sufferings and expenses, could hardly have 
been looked for, but was highly worthy of the eminent name which she 
bore amidst European nations. 

In March 1815, the proceedings of the Congress were interrupted by 
the intelligence that Napoleon had landed in France and was advancing 
in triumph to the capital. He had been encouraged by various favorable 
circumstances to attempt the recovery of his throne ; and so unpopular had 
the new government already become, that, though he landed with only a 
few men, he was everywhere received with affection, and on the 20th of 
March was reinstated in his capital, which had that morning been left by 
Louis XVIII. The latter sovereign had granted a charter to his people, 
by which he and his successors were bound to rule under certain restric- 
tions, and with a legislature composed of two chambers, somewhat resem- 
bling the British Houses of Parliament. Bonaparte now came under simi- 
lar engagements, and even submitted to take the votes of the nation for his 



DEPARTMENT OE HISTORY. 225 

restoration ; on which occasion he had a million and a-half of affirmative, 
against less than half a million of negative voices, the voting being per- 
formed by ballot. His exertions to reorganize an army were successful to 
a degree which showed feia extraordinary influence over the French nation. 
On the 1st of June he had 559,000 effective men under arms, of whom 
217,000 were ready to take the field. 

A Prussian army of more than 100,000 men, under Blucher, and one 
of about 80,000 British, Germans, and Belgians, under Wellington, were 
quickly rendezvoused in the Netherlands, while still larger armies of Aus- 
trians and Russians, making the whole force above 1,000,000, were rapid- 
ly approaching. These professed to make war, not on France, but against 
Bonaparte alone, whom they denounced as having, by his breach of the 
treaty, ' placed himself out of the pale of civil and social relations, and in- 
curred the penalty of summary execution.' Napoleon, knowing that his 
enemies would accumulate faster in proportion than his own troops, crossed 
the frontier on the 14th of June, with 120,000 men, resolved to fight 
Blucher and Wellington separately, if possible. The rapidity of his move- 
ments prevented that concert between the Prussian and English generals 
which it was their interest to establish. On the 16th, he beat Blucher at 
Ligny, and compelled him to retire. He had at the same time intrusted to 
Marshal Ney the duty of cutting off all connection between the two hostile 
armies. His policy, though not fully acted up to by his marshals, was so 
far successful, that Blucher retired upon a point nearly a day's march from 
the forces of Wellington. 

After some further fighting next day, Napoleon brought his whole forces 
to bear, on the 18th, against Wellington alone, who had drawn up his troops 
across the road to Brussels, near a place called Waterloo. The battle con- 
sisted of a constant succession of attacks by the French upon the British 
lines. These assaults were attended with great bloodshed, but nevertheless 
resisted with the utmost fortitude, till the evening, when Blucher came up 
on the left flank of the British, and turned the scale against the French, 
who had now to operate laterally, as well as in front. The failure of a final 
charge by Napoleon's reserve to produce any impression on the two ar- 
mies, decided the day against him : his baffled and broken host retired be- 
fore a furious charge of the Prussian cavalry, who cut them down unmer- 
cifully. On his return to Paris, Napoleon made an effort to restore the 
confidence of his chief counsellors, but in vain. After a fruitless abdica- 
tion in favor of his son, he retired on board a small vessel at Rockfort, with 
the intention of proceeding to America ; but being captured by a British 
ship of war, he was condemned by his triumphant enemies to perpetual 
confinement on the island of St. Helena, in the Atlantic, where he died in 
1821. 

Louis XVIII was now restored, and the arrangements of the Congress of 
Vienna were completed. The expenses of Great Britain during the last 
year of hostilities exceeded seventy millions ; and the national debt, which 
in 1763 had been £230,000,000, now amounted to the vast sum of <£860,- 
000,000. 

During the latter years of Napoleon, a reaction had taken place through- 
out Europe against the innovatory doctrines which, by producing the 
French Revolution, had been the cause, innocent or guilty, of so much ru- 
inous warfare. Encouraged by this sentiment, the sovereigns of Austria, 
15* 



226 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Prussia, and Russia, had no sooner settled the new government of France, 
than they entered, September 26, 1815, into a personal league or bond for 
assisting each other on all occasions when any commotion should take place 
among their respective subjects. This treaty was composed in somewhat 
obscure terms ; and from its professing religion to be the sole proper guide 
' in the counsels of princes, in consolidating human institutions, and reme- 
dying their imperfections,' it obtained the name of the Holy Alliance. It 
was published at the end of the year, and communicated to the Prince Re- 
gent of England, who approved of, but did not accede to it. 

In May 1816, the Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince Regent, 
was married to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a young officer who had 
gained her affections when attending the allied sovereigns at the British 
court. In November 1817, to the inexpressible grief of the whole na- 
tion, the young Princess died, immediately after having given birth to a 
dead son. 

In August 1816, a British armament under Lord Exmouth bombarded 
Algiers, and reduced that piratical state to certain desirable conditions re- 
specting the treatment of Christian prisoners. 

The year 1816, and the four following years, will always be memorable 
as an epoch of extraordinary distress, affecting almost every class of the 
community. The liberation of European commerce at the end of the war 
produced a proportionate diminution of that trade which England had pre- 
viously enjoyed, through her exclusive possession of the seas. While all 
public burdens continued at their former nominal amount, the prices of eve- 
ry kind of produce, and of every kind of goods had fallen far below the un- 
natural level to which a state of war and of paper money had raised them; 
and hence the expenses of the late contest, which had never been felt in 
the fictitious prosperity then prevalent, came to press with great severity 
upon the national resources, at a time when there was much less ability to 
bear the burden. To complete the misery of the country, the crops of 1816 
fell far short of the usual quantity, and the price of bread was increased 
to an amount more than double that which has since been the average 
rate. 

On the 20th of January 1820, George III died at Windsor, in his 
eighty-second year, without having experienced any lucid interval since 
1810. The Prince Regent was immediately proclaimed as George IV ; 
but there was no other change to mark the commencement of a new reign. 
A few days after the decease of George III, the Duke of Kent, his fourth 
son, died suddenly, leaving an infant daughter, Victoria, with a very near 
prospect to the throne. 

REIGN OF GEORGE IV. 

At the time when George IV commenced his reign, the recent proceed 
ings of the ministry, had inspired a small band of desperate men with the 
design of assassinating the ministers at a cabinet dinner, and thereafter 
attempting to set themselves up as a provisional government. On the 23d 
of February 1820, they were suprised by the police in their place of meet 
ing, and, after a desperate resistance, five were seized, among whom one 
Thistlewood was the chief. These wretched men were tried for high trea- 
son, and executed. Nearly about the same time, an attempt was made 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 227 

by the workmen in the west of Scotland to bring about some alteration in 
the state ; and two men were executed. 

On the accession of the king, his consort's name had been omitted from 
the liturgy. This and other indignities induced her to return from a 
voluntary exile in Italy, June 1820, to the great embarrassment of the 
king and his ministers. Her majesty, who had long been befriended by 
the Opposition, was received by the people with the warmest expressions 
of sympathy. Whatever had been blameable in her conduct was over 
looked, on account of the greater licentiousness of life ascribed to her 
husband, and the persecution which she had suifered for twenty-four years. 
The king, who had established a system of observation round her majesty 
during her absence from the country, caused a bill of pains and penalties 
against her to be brought (July 6) into the House of Lords, which thus 
became a court for her trial. Messrs Brougham and Denman, who after- 
wards attained high judicial stations, acted as counsel for her majesty, and 
displayed great dexterity and eloquence in her defense. The examination 
of witnesses occupied several weeks ; and nothing was left undone which 
might promise to confirm her majesty's guilt. But no evidence of crimi- 
nality could soften the indignation with which almost all classes of the com- 
munity regarded this prosecution. Though the bill was read a second 
time by a majority of 28 in a house of 218, and a third time by 108 against 
99, the government considered it expedient to abandon it, leaving the queen 
and her partisans triumphant. 

In July 1821, the coronation of George IV took place under circum- 
stances of great splendor. On this occasion, the queen made an attempt 
to enter Westminster Abby, for the purpose of witnessing the ceremony, 
but was repelled by the military officers who guarded the door ; an insult 
which gave such a shock to her health as to cause her death in a few days. 

From the year 1805, the Catholic claims had been a prominent subject 
of parliamentary discussion, and since 1821 they had been sanctioned by a 
majority in the House of Commons. Almost despairing of their cause, 
while left to the progress of mere opinion in the English aristocracy, the 
Irish Catholics had in 1824 united themselves in an Association, with the 
scarcely concealed purpose of forcing their emancipation by means of a 
terrifying exhibition of their physical strength. An act was quickly passed 
for the suppression of this powerful body ; but it immediately reappear- 
ed in a new shape. In fact, the impatience of the Catholic popula- 
tion of Ireland under the disabilities and degradation to which they were 
subjected on account of religion, was evidently becoming so very great, 
that there could be little hope of either peace or public order in that country 
till their demands were conceded. Though the English public lent little 
weight to the agitation, and the king was decidedly hostile to its object, 
Catholic emancipation rapidly acquired importance with all classes, and 
in all parts of the empire. In the spring of 1828, a kind of preparation 
was made for the concession, by the repeal of the test and corporation 
oaths, imposed in the reign of Charles II. 

The ministry soon after received an alarming proof of the growing force 
of the question. Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald had vacated his seat for the county 
of Clare, on becoming president of the Board of Trade. He was a friend 
to emancipation, and possessed great influence in the county ; but he was 
also a member of an anti-Catholic administration. As an expedient for 



228 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

annoying the ministry, the Catholic Association, and all the local influ- 
ences on that side, were set in motion to procure the return of Mr. Daniel 
O'Connell, the most distinguished orator of the Catholic party. To the 
surprise of the nation, Mr. O'Connell was returned by a great majority. 
It was even surmised that the laws for the exclusion of Catholics from 
Parliament would be unable to prevent him from taking his seat. The 
Duke of Wellington now began to see the necessity of taking steps towards 
a settlement of this agitating question ; and the first, and most difficult, 
was to overcome the scruples of the sovereign. At the opening of the 
session of 1829, in consequence of a recommendation from the throne, bills 
were introduced by ministers for removing the civil disabilities of Catho- 
lics, and putting down the Catholic Association in Ireland ; and notwith- 
standing a great popular opposition, as well as the most powerful exertions 
of the older and more rigid class of Tories, this measure was carried by a 
majority of 353 against 180 in the House of Commons, and by 217 to 
112 in the House of Lords. 

REIGN OF WILLIAM IV. 

The agitations respecting the Catholic Relief Bill had in some measure 
subsided, when, June 26, 1830, George IV died of ossification of the 
vital organs, and was succeeded by his next brother, the Duke of Cla- 
rence, under the title of William IV. About a month after, a great 
sensation was produced in Britain by a revolution which took place in 
France, the main line of the Bourbon family being expelled, and the 
crown conferred upon Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans. By this event, 
a great impulse was given to the reforming spirit in Britain, and the de- 
mands for an improvement in the parliamentary representation became 
very strong. The consequence was the retirement of the Wellington ad- 
ministration in November, and the formation of a Whig cabinet, headed 
by Earl Grey. The agitations of the time were much increased by a sys- 
tem of nocturnal fire-raising, which spread through the south of England, 
and caused the destruction of a vast quantity of agricultural produce and 
machinery. 

The Whig ministry came into power upon an understanding that they 
were to introduce bills for parliamentary reform, with reference to the 
three divisions of the United Kingdom. These, when presented in March 
1831, were found to propose very extensive changes, particularly the dis- 
franchisement of boroughs of small population, for which the members 
were usually returned by private influence, and the extension of the right 
of voting in both boroughs and counties to the middle classes of society. 
The bills accordingly met with strong opposition from the Tory, now called 
the Conservative party. By a dissolution of Parliament, the ministry 
found such an accession of supporters as enabled them to carry the meas- 
ure through the House of Commons with large majorities ; but it encoun- 
tered great difficulties in the House of Lords ; and it was not till after a 
temporary resignation of the ministry, and some strong expressions of 
popular anxiety respecting reform, that the bills were allowed to become 
law. 

During the few years which followed the passing of the Reform Bills, 
the attention of Parliament was chiefly occupied by a series of measures 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 229 

ffhich a large portion of the public deemed necessary for improving the 
institutions of the country, and for other beneficial purposes. The most 
important of these, in a moral point of view, was the abolition of slavery 
in the colonies, the sum of twenty millions being paid to the owners of the 
negroes, as a compensation. By this act, eight hundred thousand slaves 
were (August 1, 1834) placed in the condition of freemen, but subject to 
an apprenticeship to their masters for a few years. 

In the same year, an act was passed for amending the laws for the sup- 
port of the poor in England, which had long been a subject of general 
complaint. One of the chief provisions of the new enactment established 
a government commission for the superintendence of the local boards of 
management, which had latterly been ill conducted, and were now pro- 
posed to be reformed. The able-bodied poor were also deprived of the 
right which had been conferred upon them at the end of the eighteenth 
century, to compel parishes to support them, either by employment at a 
certain rate, or pecuniary aid to the same amount : they were now left no 
resource, failing employment, but that of entering poor-houses, where 
they were separated from their families. The contemplated results of 
this measure were a reduction of the enormous burden of the poor-rates, 
which had latterly exceeded seven millions annually, and a check to the 
degradation which indiscriminate support was found to produce in the 
character of the laboring classes. 

Early in 1837, the ministry again introduced into the House of Com- 
mons a bill for settling the Irish tithe question ; but before this or any 
other measure of importance had been carried, the king died of ossification 
of the vital organs (June 20), in the seventy-third year of his age, and 
seventh of his reign, being succeeded by his niece, the Princess Victoria. 
The deceased monarch is allowed to have been a conscientious and amiable 
man, not remarkable for ability, but at the same time free from all gross 
faults. 

COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT REIGN. 

Queen Victoria began to reign June 20, 1837, having just completed 
her eighteenth year ; was crowned on the 28th of June in the following 
year ; and was married to her cousin, Prince Albert of Coburg and Gotha, 
February 10, 1840. In the autumns of 1842, '44, '47, and '48, her 
majesty visited Scotland, but on each occasion more in a private than in a 
state capacity ; residing at the mansions of the nobility that lay in her 
route to the Highlands, where the Prince Consort enjoyed the invigorating 
sports of grouse-shooting and deer-stalking. In 1843 she paid a visit, 
entirely divested of state formalities, to the late royal family of France ; 
and shortly after made another to her uncle, the king of the Belgians. 
In 1845, besides making the tour of the English midland counties, the 
royal pair visited the family of Prince Albert at Coburg and Gotha ; re- 
ceiving the attentions of the various German powers that lay on their out- 
ward and homeward route. Her majesty has received in turn the friendly 
visits of several crowned heads, among whom have been the ex-king of 
the French, Leopold of Belgium, the king of Saxony, and the emperor of 
Russia. Such interchanges and attentions are not without their impor 



230 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

tance ; at all events they are characteristic of a new era in the mternation 
al history of Europe. 

The Whig ministry and measures, which had for some time been on the 
decline, were set aside by a vote of 'no confidence' in the summer of 1841 ; 
ft dissolution of Parliament was the consequence ; and after the new elec- 
tions, the Opposition was found to be so far in the ascendancy, that Vis 
count Melbourne tendered his resignation, and retired from public life, 
leaving Sir Robert Peel again to take the helm of affairs. The Parlia 
ment of 1841, under the direction of the Peel ministry, was in many 
respects one of the most important during the reigning dynasty. Besides 
passing several measures of benefit to the internal management of tho 
country, it established, by the abolition of the corn-laws and other restric- 
tive duties, the principles of free trade, and in that course Britain has 
since been followed by other nations ; it gave, by the imposition of a prop- 
erty and income tax, a preference to the doctrine of direct taxation ; it 
countenanced in all its diplomatic negotiations the duties and advantages 
of a peace policy ; and engaged less with political theories than with prac- 
tical and business-like arrangements for the commerce, health, and educa- 
tion of the country. In consequence of ministerial differences, Sir Robert 
Peel tendered his resignation as premier in June 1846, and was succeeded 
in office by Lord John Russell, to whom was assigned the further task of 
carrying out the principles of free trade, of legislating for Ireland in a 
time of dearth and famine (caused by successive failures of the potato 
crop), and of adopting some plan of national education — a subject which 
has been too long neglected in this otherwise great and prosperous empire. 

Since the accession of her majesty, Britain has been on the most friendly 
terms with the other nations of Europe — cooperating with them in the 
extension and liberation of commerce, the continuance of peace, the sup- 
pression of slavery, and the advancement of other measures of importance 
to civilization. The disputed boundaries between British America and 
the United States have been determined by friendly negotiation ; thus giv- 
ing permanency in the new world as well as in the old to the spirit of 
peace and national brotherhood. 

WAR WITH RUSSIA — ALLIANCE OF ENGLAND, FRANCE AND TURKEY. 

On the 12th of March, 1854, a treaty of alliance between England, 
France, and the Porte, was signed by the representatives of those powers. 

The treaty consists of five articles. By the first, France and England 
engage to support Turkey in her present struggle with Russia, by force of 
arms, until the conclusion of a peace which shall secure the independence of 
the Ottoman empire, and the integrity of the rights of the Sultan. The 
two protecting Powers undertake not to derive from the actual crisis, or 
from the negotiations which may terminate it, any exclusive advantage. 
By the second article the Porte, on its side, pledges itself not to make peace 
under any circumstances without having previously obtained the consent 
and solicited the participation of the two Powers, and also to employ all 
its resources to carry on the war with vigor. In the third article the two 
Powers promise to evacuate, immediately after the conclusion of the war, 
and on the demand of the Porte, all the points of the empire which their 
troops shall have occupied during the war. By the fourth article the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 231 

treaty remains open for the signature of the other Powers of Europe who 
may wish to become parties to it ; and the fifth article guarantees to all 
the subjects of the Porte, without distinction of religion, equality in the 
eye of the law, and admissibility into all employments. To this treaty are 
attached, as integral parts of it, several protocols. One relates to the in- 
stitution of mixed tribunals throughout the whole empire ; a second is 
relative to an advance of 20,000,000fr. jointly by France and England ; 
and a third relates to the collection of the taxes and the suppression of the 
haratch or poll-tax, which, having been considered for a long time past by 
the Turkish Government as only the purchase of exemption from military 
service, leads, by its abolition, to the entrance of Christians into the army. 

The Russians continued to prosecute the war eagerly on the banks of 
the Danube, but any temporary success was more than counterbalanced by 
subsequent and more brilliant Turkish victories. 

In consequence of the atrocious conduct of the military authorities of 
Odessa, in firing upon an English flag of truce, a division of English and 
French steam frigates appeared before Odessa. On their arrival the great- 
est terror pervaded the city. The wealthy hired all the post-horses to re- 
move to the interior, and the inhabitants sought refuge in the neighboring 
country ; but the English and French steamers having withdrawn, after 
taking a survey of the roads, the alarm subsided, the population returned, 
and the shops were reopened. On the 21st of April, however, the appear- 
ance of thirty-three sail on the horizon created still greater terror, for it 
was evident that they were coming to avenge the insult above alluded to, 
and which, even at Odessa, was the subject of universal reprobation. The 
next day nothing could exceed the consternation, everybody being in con- 
stant apprehension of a catastrophe. The fears redoubled when after a 
bombardment of eight hours, the gunpowder magazine blew up, and the 
military stores were seen on fire. The sight of wounded soldiers brought 
in from the batteries, and the brutality of the governor and his forces to- 
wards the inhabitants, were not calculated to allay their terror. This affair 
produced great discouragement among the troops, and an excellent effect 
on the population, who perceived that the Russian army was unable to pro- 
tect them ; and that, if the city were not reduced to ashes, it was solely 
owing to. the generosity of the allied Powers. 

On the 14th June, the Duke of Cambridge with his staff, the brigade 
of Guards, and the Highland brigade (42d, 79th, and 93d regiments), 
arrived at Varna, where a numerous Anglo-French army was already en- 
camped. It is probable that the unexpected and retrograde movement of 
the Russians upon the Pruth — intelligence of which reached the allied 
generals about this time — occasioned a deviation from the plan of opera- 
tions originally contemplated, as it obviated the necessity of any active 
cooperation with Omer Pacha's army on the Danube. An expedition 
upon a gigantic scale was, however, planned, its destination being the 
Crimea and Sebastopol. 

The result of the Baltic operations may be given in few words. The 
fleet of the Czar, outnumbered by that of the allied powers, was detained 
in captivity at Helsingfors and Kronstadt, declining alike every offer of 
battle, and unable to stay the devastation that was effected along the Fin- 
nish shore of the Bothnian Gulf. Scarcely a Russian merchant vessel es- 
caped the vigilance of the cruisers ; and the whole line of her coasts, up 




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234 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to the shoals of Kettle Island, were shown to be at the mercy of the allies. 
In a national point of view, there was not much to boast of in the achieve- 
ments of so stupendous a fleet. But there were individual acts of valor 
as bright as any that adorn the pages of naval history. 

Until the last twelvemonth opened a new page in history, it could not 
have been anticipated that the battle-field of Europe would be a little arid 
peninsula in the remotest corner of the Black Sea, and that the armies of 
Britain, France, Turkey, and Russia would be concentrated in direct strife 
around a fortress, whose very name was hardly known in this country be- 
fore the present war broke out. 

Connected with the barren steppes of the mainland of Southern Russia 
only by the narrow strip of flat and sandy land, not five miles across, which 
constitutes the Isthmus of Perekop, the Crimea stretches out in a nearly 
northerly direction, in the form of a diamond-shaped peninsula, about one- 
third the size of Ireland. At its western point is Cape Tarkham ; at its 
eastern, Kertch and Kaffa, and in the south, the bay, town, and fortress 
of Sebastopol. 

At least one third of the Crimea consists of vast waterless plains of 
sandy soil, rising only a few feet above the level of the sea, and in many 
places impregnated with salt ; but all along the south-eastern side of the 
peninsula, from Sebastopol to Kertch and Kaffa, there extends a chain of 
limestone mountains. Beginning at Balaklava, nine miles east of Sebas- 
topol, precipices fringe all this north-eastern coast ; but at the foot of these 
limestone precipices extends a narrow strip of ground, seldom half a league 
in width, intervening between the hills and the shore. It is in this pictur- 
esque and delightful region that the Allied army established its base of op • 
erations. A luxuriant vegetation descends to the water's edge. Chesnut 
trees, mulberries, almonds, laurels, olives, and cypresses grow along its 
whole extent. Numbers of rivulets of the clearest water pour down from 
the cliffs, which effectually keep off cold and stormy winds. Thickly stud 
ded with villages, and adorned with the villas and palaces of the richest 
Russian nobles, this tract offers a most striking contrast to the remainder 
of the peninsula or indeed to any part of Russia. 

The possession of the Crimea, and the construction of a maratime for- 
tress of the first order in the magnificent harbor of Akhtiar (for such was 
the former name of Sebastopol) were prominent parts of that vast scheme 
of policy, by which the genius of the Czar Peter, and his successors, trans- 
formed Muscovy into the Russian Empire. 

The ever-memorable expedition of the Allies, designed to wrench this 
fortress and fleet from the possession of the Czar, set sail from Varna in 
the first week of September, 1854. No naval expedition ever before 
equaled it. 

In the oay of Baltjik, where the expedition first rendezvoused, the sea 
was literally covered for a space of eight miles long with splendid shipping. 
Thirty-seven sail of the line — ten English, sixteen French, and eleven 
Turkish, about a hundred frigates and lesser vessels of war, and nearly 
two hundred of the finest steam and sailing transports in the world, lay at 
anchor, in one immense semicircle, nine or ten deep. The great line of 
battle-ships, with lights gleaming from every port, looked like illuminated 
towns afloat; while the other vessels, with position-lights hoisted at the 
main and fore, shed a light upon the sea, twinkling away until lost in the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 235 

distance. Each division of the army carried lights, corresponding to the 
number of their division, and at night, when every ship was lighted up 
the scene was of the most extraordinary and interesting description. Con- 
stantinople, during the feast of Bairam, or the feast of Lamps, described 
in Moore's poems, would have been a worthy illustration. 

On the 4th of September, 1854, six hundred vessels sailed from Varna, 
bearing the combined army of 60,000 in the direction of Sebastopol: at 
the same time intelligence was received by the commanders of a signal 
victory obtained by Schamyl at Tiflis, over the Russians under Prince 
Bebutoff. They lost on this occasion many men and horses, seven guns, 
3000 tents, all their amunition, baggage, provisions, and retreated in some 
disorder from Kutais and Kars to Taflis. 

On the 14th September, 58,000 men were landed at Eupatoria, about 
forty-five miles N. W. of Sebastopol. They subsequently advanced some 
distance inland without meeting with any opposition. 

The place of debarkation had many advantages. It is a small town, 
containing only 4,000 inhabitants, weakly defended by a garrison of about 
12,000 men, and in no condition to resist an invasion such as this. The 
commanders had intended, in the first place, to have thrown up entrench- 
ments sufficiently strong to secure the place ; but having experienced no 
resistance, the troops marched at once towards their destination. In this 
march they proceeded for about eleven miles, along a slip of land, having 
on the left the salt lake Sasik, and the sea on their right. 

The country traversed is fertile, and well supplied with water by three 
rivers, the Alma, the Katcha, and the Balbek. On the left, or southern 
bank of the latter stream, the first obstacles encountered were the out- 
works recently thrown up by the Russians, and an old star fort. Having 
surmounted these, the Allies found themselves in possession of the high 
ground commanding the rear of the defenses on the northern shore of the 
inlet, and they were scarcely adapted to resist a strong attack. 

As the Black Sea expedition was departing from Varna for the Crimea, 
the Baltic fleet, or the greater part of it, received orders to " bear up" 
for England. 

On the night of the 18th September, 1854, orders were given by Lord 
Raglan that the troops should strike tents at daybreak. An advance had 
been determined upon, and it was understood that the Russian light cav- 
alry had been sweeping the country of all supplies up to a short distance 
from the outlaying pickets. 

At three o'clock next morning, the camp was roused by the reveille, and 
all the 30,000 sleepers woke into active life. Of Turkish infantry, 7,000 
under Suleiman Pacha moved along by the sea side ; next came the divis- 
ions of Generals Bosquet, Canrobert, Forey, and Prince Napoleon. The 
order of march of the English army was about four miles to the right of 
their left wing, and as many behind them. The right of the allied forces 
was covered by the fleet, which moved along with it in magnificent order, 
darkening the air with innumerable columns of smoke, ready to shell the 
enemy should they attack the right, and commanding the land for nearly 
two miles from the shore. 

The troops presented a splendid appearance. The effect of these grand 
masses of soldiery descending the ridges of the hills, rank after rank, with 
the sun playing over forests of glittering steel, can never be forgotten by 



236 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

those who witnessed it. Onward the torrent of war swept, wave after wave, 
huge stately billows of armed men ; while the rumbling of the artillery, and 
the tramp of cavalry, accompanied their progress. A halt took place about 
three o'clock, at a muddy stream, of which the men drank with avidity. 
At this stage they passed the Imperial post-house, twenty miles from Se- 
bastopol. 

Orders were given to halt and bivouac for the night, which was cold and 
damp, but the men were in excellent spirits, looking forward to the prob- 
ability of an engagement with the enemy with perfect confidence as to the 
result. 

On the morning of the 20th, ere daybreak, the whole force was under 
arms. They were marshaled silently ; no bugles or drums broke the still- 
ness ; but the hum of thousands of voices rose loudly from the ranks, and 
the watchfires lighted up the lines of the camp as though it were a great 
town. When dawn broke it was discovered that the Russians had retired 
from the heights. It was known that the Russians had been busy fortifying 
the heights over the valley through which runs the little river Alma, and 
that they had resolved to try their strength with the allied army in a po- 
sition giving them vast advantages of ground, which they had used every 
means in their power to improve to the utmost. The advance of the armies 
this great day was a sight which must ever stand out like a landmark of 
the spectator's life. Early in the morning, the troops were ordered to get 
in readiness, and at half-past six o'clock they were in motion. It was a 
lovely day ; the heat of the sun was tempered by a sea breeze. The fleet 
was visible at a distance of four miles, covering the ocean as it was seen be- 
tween the hills, and steamers could be seen as close to the shore as possi- 
ble. The Generals, St Arnaud, Bosquet, and Forey, attended by their 
staff, rode along the lines, with Lord Raglan and his Generals at second 
halt, and were received with tremendous cheering. 

The order in which the army advanced was in columns of brigades in de- 
ploying distance ; the left protected by a line of skirmishers of cavalry and 
of horse artillery. The advantage of the formation was, that the army, in 
case of a strong attack from cavalry and infantry on the left or rear, could 
assume the form of a hollow square, with the baggage in the centre. The 
great object was to gain the right of the position, so that the attacking par- 
ties could be sheltered by the vertical fire of the fleets. As soon as the po- 
sition of the allies could be accurately ascertained, the whole line, extend- 
ing itself across the champaign country for some five or six miles, advanced. 
At the distance of two miles the English army halted to obtain a little time 
to gather up the rear ; and then the troops steadily advanced in grand 
lines, like the waves of the ocean. 

The French occupied the high road, nearest the beach, with the Turks ; 
and the English marched to the left. At about one o'clock in the after- 
noon, the Light Division of the French army came in sight of the village 
of Almatamak, and the British Light Division descried that of Burliuk, both 
situated on the right bank of the river Alma. 

At the place where the bulk of the British army crossed, the banks of 
the Alma are generally at the right side, and vary from two and three to 
six and eight feet in depth to the water ; where the French attacked, the 
banks are generally formed by the unvaried curve of the river on the left 
hand side. A village is approached from the north by a road winding 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 287 

through a plain nearly level till it comes near the village, where the ground 
dips, so that at the distance of three hundred yards a man on horseback 
can hardly see the tops of the nearer and more elevated houses, and can only 
ascertain the position of the stream by the -willows and verdure along its 
banks. At the left or south side of the Alma the ground assumes a very 
different character — smooth where the bank is deep, and greatly elevated 
where the shelve of the bank occurs, it recedes for a few yards at a mod- 
erate height above the stream, pierced here and there by the course of the 
winter's torrents, so as to form small ravines, commanded, however, by the 
heights above. It was on these upper heights, and to the sea, that the 
Russian army, forty-five thousand strong, besides six or eight thousand cav- 
alry, and at least a hundred pieces of artillery, were posted. A remarka- 
ble ridge of mountains, varying in height from 500 to 700 feet, runs along 
the course of the Alma on the left or south side with the course of the 
stream, and assuming the form of cliffs when close to the sea. At the top 
of the ridges, between the gullies, the Russians had erected earthwork bat- 
teries, mounted with 321b. and 241b. brass guns, supported by numerous 
field pieces and howitzers. These guns enfiladed the tops of the ravines 
parallel to them, or swept them to the base, while the whole of the sides 
up which an enemy, unable to stand the direct fire of the batteries, would 
be forced to ascend, were filled with masses of skirmishers, armed with an 
excellent two-grooved rifle, throwing a large solid conical ball with force at 
700 and 800 yards, as the French learned to their cost. The principal 
battery consisted of an earthwork of the form of the two sides of a trian- 
gle, with the apex pointed towards the bridge, and the sides covering both 
sides of the stream, corresponding with the bend of the river below it, at 
the distance of 1000 yards ; while, with a fair elevation, the 32-pounclers 
threw, very often, beyond the houses of the village to the distance of 1400 
and 1500 yards. This was constructed on the brow of a hill about 600 
feet above the river, but the hill rose behind it for another 50 feet before 
it dipped away towards the road. The ascent of this hill was enfiladed by 
the fire of three batteries of earthwork on the right, and by another on the 
left, and these batteries were equally capable of covering the village, the 
stream, and the slopes which led up the hill to their position. In the first 
battery were thirteen 32-pounder brass guns of exquisite workmanship, 
which only told too well. In the other batteries were some twenty-five 
guns in all. 

The force of the British was about 26,000, that of the French about 
23,000. 

It had not escaped the observation of the allied Commanders that tho 
Russian General had relied so confidently on the natural strength of his po- 
sition towards the sea where the cliff rose steep and high above the gardens 
of an adjacent village, that he had neglected to defend this part of his 
works by masses of troops or by heavy guns. These military defenses were, 
on the contrary, accumulated on his right and centre. The plan of the 
battle was therefore formed so as to enable the French, and a Turkish di- 
vision, in the first instance, to turn the Russian left, and gain the plateau ; 
and, as soon as this operation was accomplished, so as to occupy a portion 
of the Russian army, the British troops and the French Third Division 
were to attack the key of the position on the right of the enemy, while the 
French completed his defeat on the upper ground. 



238 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

General Bosquet's division crossed the river Alma near the mouth about 
11:30 ; the Turkish battalions crossing at the same time close to the bar, 
and within musket range of the beach. This movement was unopposed; 
and, although a crowd of French skirmishers and light-infantry crossed the 
gardens and brushwood below the hill, which might easily have been defend- 
ed, not a shot was fired on them, and not a gun seemed to bear on the line 
of march they followed. It was afterwards ascertained from the Russian 
prisoners, that Prince Menschikoff had left this line unguarded, because he 
regarded it as absolutely impassable even for goats. He did not know the 
Zouaves. With inconceivable rapidity and agility they swarmed up the 
cliff, and it was not till they formed on the height, and deployed from be 
hind a mound there, that the Russian batteries opened upon them. The 
fire was returned with great spirit, and a smart action ensued, during which 
General Bosquet's division was engaged for some time almost alone, until 
General Canrobert came to his support. The Turkish division, which pre- 
sented a very martial appearance, and was eager to fight, formed part of 
the army under the command of Marshal St. Arnaud ; and some regret 
was felt by these brave troops that they had no active part assigned to them 
in the struggle. 

While the French troops were scaling the heights, the French steamers 
ran in as close as they could to the bluff of the shore at the south side of 
the Alma, and commenced shelling the Russians in splendid style ; the 
shells bursting over the enemy's squares and batteries, and finally driv- 
ing them from their position on the right, within 3000 yards of the sea. 
The Russians answered the ships from the heights, but without effect. 

At 1:50 a line of skirmishers got within range of the battery on the hill, 
and immediately the Russians opened fire at 1200 yards, with effect, the 
shot ploughing through open lines of the riflemen, and falling into the ad- 
vancing columns behind. Shortly ere this time, dense volumes of smoke 
rose from the river, and drifted along to the eastward, interfering with the 
view of the enemy on the left. The Russians had set the village on fire. 
It was a fair exercise of military skill — was well executed — took place at 
the right time, and succeeded in occasioning a good deal of annoyance. 
It is said the Russians had taken the range of all the principal points in 
their front, and placed twigs and sticks to mark them. In this they were 
assisted by the post sign-boards on the road. The Russians opened a fu- 
rious fire on the whole English line. The round shot whizzed in every di- 
rection, dashing up the dirt and sand into the faces of the staff of Lord Rag- 
lan. Still he waited patiently for the development of the French attack. At 
length, an Aid-de-Camp came to him and reported the French had crossed 
the Alma, but they had not established themselves sufficiently to justify an 
attack. The infantry were, therefore, ordered to lie down, and the army 
for a short time was quite passive, only that the artillery poured forth an 
unceasing fire of shell, rockets, and round shot, which plowed through 
the Russians, and caused them great loss. They did not waver, however, 
and replied to the artillery manfully, their shot falling among the men as 
they lav, and carrying off legs and arms at every round. 

Lord Raglan at last became weary of this inactivity, and gave orders for 
the whole line to advance. Up rose these serried masses, rnd — passing 
through a fearful shower of round, case-shot and shell — they dashed into 
the Alma and ' floundered ' through its waters, which were literally torn 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 239 

into foam by the deadly hail. At the other side of the river were a num- 
ber of vineyards, occupied by Russian riflemen. Three of the staif were 
here sh >t down ; but, led by Lord Raglan in person, they advanced, cheer- 
ing on the men. And now came the turning point of the battle, in which 
Lord Raglan, by his sagacity, probably secured the victory at a smaller 
sacrifice than would have been otherwise the case. He dashed over the 
bridge, followed by his staff*. From the road over it, under the Russian 
guns, he saw the state of the action. The British line, which he had or- 
dered to advance, was struggling through the river and up the heights in 
masses, firm indeed, but mowed down by the murderous fire of the batter- 
ies ; and by grape, round shot, shell, canister, case-shot, and musketry, from 
some of the guns in the central battery, and from an immense and compact 
mass of Russian infantry. 

Then commenced one of the most bloody and determined struggles in the 
annals of war. The 2d Division, led by Sir de Lacy Evans, crossed the 
stream on the right. Brigadier Pennefather (who was in the thickest of 
the fight, cheering on his men), again and again was checked, but never 
drew back in his onward progress, which was marked by a fierce roll of 
Minie musketry ; and Brigadier Adams bravely charged up the hill, and 
aided him in the battle. Sir George Brown, conspicuous on a gray horse, 
rode in front of his Light Division, urging them with voice and gesture. 
Meantime the Guards on the right of the Light Division, and the brigade 
of Highlanders, were storming the heights on the left. Suddenly a torna- 
do of round and grape rushed through from the terrible battery, and a roar 
of musketry from behind it thinned their front ranks by dozens. It was 
evident that the troops were just able to contend against the Russians, fa- 
vored as they were by a great position. At this very time an immense 
mass of Russian infantry were seen moving down towards the battery. 
They halted. It was the crisis of the day. Sharp, angular, and solid, 
they looked as if they were cut out of the solid rock. Lord Raglan saw 
the difficulties of the situation. He asked if it would be possible to get a 
couple of guns to bear on these masses. The reply was ' Yes ;' and an ar- 
tillery officer brought up two guns to fire on the Russian squares. The 
first shot missed, but the next, and the next, and the next, cut through the 
the ranks so cleanly, and so keenly, that a clear lane could be seen for a 
moment through the square. After a few rounds the columns of the square 
became broken, wavered to and fro, broke, and fled over the brow 
of the hill, leaving behind them six or seven distinct lines of dead, ly- 
ing as close as possible to each other, marking the passage of the fatal 
messengers. This act relieved the infantry of a deadly incubus, and they 
continued their magnificent and fearless progress up the hill. ' Highland- 
ers,' said Sir C. Campbell, ere they came to the charge, ' don't pull a trig- 
ger till you're within a yard of the Russians !' They charged, and well 
they obeyed their chieftain's wish ; Sir Colin had his horse shot under him ; 
but he was up immediately, and at the head of his men. But the Guards 
pressed on abreast, and claimed, with the 33d, the honor of capturing a 
cannon. The Second and Light Division crowned the heights. The French 
turned the guns on the hill against the flying masses, which the cavalry in 
vain tried to cover. A few faint struggles from the scattered infantry, a 
few rounds of cannon and musketry, and the enemy fled to the south-east, 



240 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

leaving three Generals, three guns, 700 prisoners, and 4000 killed and 
wounded, behind them. 

The loss on the part of the British was 2000 killed, wounded, and miss- 
ing ; that of the French, about 1400. 

On the night after the battle the allied army bivouacked on the summit 
of the heights which they had so gloriously won ; the French Marshal 
pitching his tent on the very spot occupied by that of Prince Menschikoff 
the morning before. 

On the 23d the Allied armies left the Alma and proceeded to cross the Kats- 
cha ; on the 24th they crossed the Belbec, where it had been intended to 
effect the landing of the siege materiel with a view to an attack on the 
north side of Sevastopol. It was found, however, that the enemy had 
placed a fortified work so as to prevent the vessels and transports from 
approaching this river ; and it was determined to advance at once by a 
flank march round the east of Sebastopol, to cross the valley of the Tcher- 
naya, and seize Balaklava as the future basis of operations against the 
south side of the harbor at Sebastopol. 

The enemy did not hold Balaklava in any strength. After a few shots 
the little garrison surrendered, and as Sir E. Lyon's ship, the Agamemnon, 
reached the mouth of the harbor at the very time that the troops appeared 
on the heights, the British army was once more in full communication 
with the fleet. 

The march of the French army which followed in the track of the Brit- 
ish, was more prolonged and fatiguing. They did not reach the Tcherna- 
ya river until the 26th, having passed the previous night at Mackenzie's 
Farm. It was on this day that the French marshal, at length succumb- 
ing to his fatal malady, issued his last order of the day, in which he took 
leave formally of his troops, and resigned the command into the hands of 
General Canrobert. 

Having swept the enemy from their path by the bloody triumphs of 
the Alma, the next step of the Allies was to lay siege to Sebastopol. 

The bay of Balaklava, which now became the principal base of their op- 
erations, is a place admirably suited for the landing of stores and materiel. 
As a port it is the most perfect of its size in the world. The entrance is 
between perpendicular cliffs, rising eight hundred feet high on either hand, 
and is only wide enough to allow the passage of one ship at a time ; but 
once in you find yourself in a land-locked tideless haven, still as a moun- 
tain lake, three quarters of a mile in length, by two hundred and fifty yards 
Avide, and nowhere less than six fathoms deep, so that every square foot of 
its surface is available for ships of the greatest burden. 

The bay of Balaklava was instantly adopted as the new base of opera- 
tions of the British army, and never before did its waters mirror so many 
tall ships on their bosom. 

From fifty to a hundred war-ships and transports were constantly at 
anchor, landing the siege-guns, stores, and provisions of all kinds. The 
only access to Balaklava from the land side is at the inner end of the bay, 
through a breach in the surrounding hills, which gradually opens out into 
an extensive valley, about three miles long by about two broad ; it was in 
this valley that the serious part of the combat of the 25th October took 
place. Through this valley runs the road to the Tchernaya and Macken- 
zie's Farm, by which the Allies advanced to Balaklava, and which on the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 241 

other side of the Tchernaya enters deep gorges in the mountains. On the 
side next the sea this valley is bounded by a line of hills stretching from 
Balaklava to Inkerman, and along the summit of which runs the road to 
Sebastopol. Another road in the opposite direction conducts to the valley 
of Baider, the most fertile district of the Crimea. 

The port of Balaklava having been found barely large enough for the 
landing of the British stores and guns, the French selected as their base 
of operations the three deep bays lying between Cape Chersonesus and 
Sebastopol bay. The country between Balaklava and Sebastopol, upon 
which the Allied army encamped, is a barren hilly steppe, destitute of wa- 
ter, and covered with no better herbage than thistles. The French took 
up their position next the sea ; the British inland, next the Tchernaya. 
The front of the besieging force extended in a continuous line from the 
mouth of the Tchernaya to the sea at Strelitska bay, forming nearly a sem- 
icircle around Sebastopol, at a distance of about two miles from the enemy's 
works. The position was found to be close enough, as the Russian guns 
were found to throw shells to the distance of four thousand yards. A 
most unfortunate delay took place in landing and bringing up the siege 
guns and stores of the Allies ; a delay which was improved to the utmost 
by the Russians, who kept large bands of citizens, and even women, as 
well as the garrison, at work in relays both night and day, in throwing up a 
vast exterior line of earthen redoubts and entrenchments, and in covering 
the front of their stone-works with earth. 

The force disposable for the defense of Sebastopol was nearly equal in 
number to the besieging army ; and as, from the nature of its position, the 
place could only be invested upon one side, supplies of all kinds could be 
conveyed into the town, and the Russian generals could either man the 
works with their whole forces, or direct incessant attacks against the flank 
and rear of the allies. 

Never did any army ever undertake so vast and perilous an enterprise 
as that in which the allied commanders found themselves engaged. 

Sebastopol is situated at the southern point of the Crimea, which puts 
out into the Black Sea, and is distant from Odessa, 192 miles ; from Varna, 
295, and from Constantinople, 343. 

It is one of the most modern creations of the Czar, and stands, like an 
advanced post, near to Cape Chersonese — its site, until 1786, having been 
occupied by a few straggling huts. Catherine II, on her accession, perceived 
its natural advantages as a naval port, the first stone was laid in 1780, and 
from that period it has rapidly increased in strength and importance. On 
doubling the Cape, bordered with a vast chain of rocks and breakers, 
Sebastopol appears about six and a half miles to the east — a remarkable 
picture, on account of its white cliffs, and the amphitheatrical appearance 
of the town. 

The port of Sebastopol consists of a bay running in a south-easterly 
direction, about four miles long, and a mile wide at the entrance, dimin- 
ishing to 400 yards at the end, where the Tchernaya or Black River emp- 
ties itself. On the southern coast of this bay are the commercial, military, 
and careening harbors, the quarantine harbor being outside the entrance 
— all these taking a southerly direction, and having deep water. The 
military harbor is the largest, being about a mile and a half long by 400 
yards wide, and is completely land-locked on every side. Here it is that 
16* 



242 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the Black Sea fleet is moored in the winter — the largest ships being 
able to lie with all their stores on board close to the quays. The small 
harbor, which contains the naval arsenal and docks, is on the eastern side 
of the military harbor, near the entrance. The port is defended to the 
south by six principal batteries and fortresses, each mounting from 50 to 190 
guns ; and the north by four, having from 18 to 120 pieces each ; and 
besides these, there are many smaller batteries. The fortresses are built 
on the casemate principle, three of them having three tiers of guns, and a 
fourth two tiers. Fort St. Nicholas is the largest, and mounts about 190 
guns. It is built of white limestone ; a fine, sound stone, which becomes 
hard, and is very durable, the same material being used for all the other 
forts. Between every two casemates are furnaces for heating shot red 
hot. The calibre of the guns is eight inches, capable of throwing shells 
or 68-pounds solid shot. 

There were in the military harbor of Sebastopol twelve line-of-battle 
ships, eight frigates, and seven corvettes, comprising the Black Sea fleet, 
independent of steamers. 

The town of Sebastopol is situated on the point of land between the 
commercial and military harbors, which rises gradually from the water's 
edge to an elevation of 200 feet, and contains 31,500 inhabitants. Inclu- 
ding the military and marines, the residents numbered 40,000. It is more 
than a mile in length, and its greatest width is about three-quarters of a 
mile — the streets entering the open steppe on the south. The streets are 
built in parallel lines from north to south, are intersected by others from 
east and west, and the houses, being of limestone, have a substantial ap- 
pearance. The public buildings are fine. The library erected by the 
Emperor, for the use of naval and military officers, is of Grecian architec- 
ture, and is elegantly fitted up internally. The books are principally con- 
fined to naval and military subjects and the sciences connected with them, 
history, and some light reading. The club-house is handsome externally, 
and comfortable within ; it contains a large ball-room, which is its most 
striking feature, and billiard-rooms, which appear to be the great centre of 
attraction ; but one looks in vain for reading rooms, filled with newspapers 
and journals. There are many good churches, and a fine landing-place 
of stone from the military harbor, approached on the side of the town, 
beneath an architrave supported by high columns. It also boasts an Italian 
opera-house. The eastern side of the town is so steep that the mastheads 
of the ships cannot be seen until one gets close to them. Very beautiful 
views are obtained from some parts of the place, and it is altogether 
agreeably situated. A military band plays every Thursday evening in 
the public gardens, at which time the fashionables assemble in great num- 
bers. 

As Sebastopol is held exclusively as a military and naval position, com- 
merce does not exist; the only articles imported by sea being those re- 
quired for materials of war, or as provisions for the inhabitants and garrison. 
On the eastern side of the military harbor, opposite to the town, is a line 
of buildings consisting of barracks, some store-houses, and a large naval 
hospital. 

The country around Sebastopol sinks gradually down, in a succession 
of ridges from the position occupied by the Allied army to the town ; 
but for nearly a third of a mile, immediately in front of the town, the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 243 

ground is quite flat, the ridges there having been long ago leveled by the 
Russians in order to give no cover to an attacking force. We have said 
that there is a circuit of five or six hundred yards of level ground imme- 
diately around the town, and it was beyond this radius that the Russians 
threw up their new works, erecting strong redoubts on several elevated 
positions ; the Allies had to open their trenches at the distance of a mile 
from the body of the place, although within one hundred and twenty yards 
of the Russian batteries. The French were the first to break ground. 
At nine at night, on the 9th, the trenches were opened by one thousand six 
hundred workmen, divided into relief parties, and supported to defend 
the works. A land wind, and an almost entire absence of moonlight, 
favored the operations, and by breaking of day 1,014 yards in length were 
completed, without interruption from the enemy, of sufficient depth to 
cover the men. 

Next night the British broke ground ; but this time the garrison were on 
the alert, and kept up a very heavy but ineffectual fire. The British, who 
occupied much higher ground than the French, placed their batteries with 
great skill. The raised mounds or beds of earth, upon which the guns 
were placed, were erected precisely along the crest of the various ridges 
on which the batteries were planted, and, when finished, showed only the 
muzzle of the guns over the brow of the ridge, so as to present little to 
the direct fire of the enemy. 

The besiegers' batteries were now drawing near completion ; and the 
governor of Sebastopol had sent a request to Lord Raglan, that he would 
spare the inhabitants by not firing upon the civilian part of the city, to 
which he replied, that he would grant a safe-conduct to such of the in- 
habitants as were desirous of leaving, but would promise nothing as to his 
mode of attack, save that the buildings marked by the yellow flag should 
be respected as hospitals. 

Every means was adopted to keep up the spirits of the garrison, and 
balls even were given every other night. 

On the 17th of October the dreadful work began, and no one then pre- 
sent -will ever forget that memorable scene. The morning dawned slowly ; 
a thick fog hung over the town, and spread far up the heights. Towards 
six o'clock the mist began to disperse, and the rich clear October sun eve- 
ry instant made objects more and more visible. 

In the Allied lines, all the artillerymen were at their pieces, and as the 
iron muzzles of the guns became visible through the fog in the now un- 
masked embrasures, a scattering and fast-increasing fire was opened upon 
them from the Russian lines. Soon the Russian works, crowded with 
grey figures, could be seen below, with, in rear, the large handsome white 
houses and dockyards of Sebastopol itself. Slowly, like the drawing back 
of a huge curtain, the mist moved off seaward, a cool morning breeze 
sprang up, and the atmosphere became clear and bright. Around were 
the wide extending lines of the besiegers, sloping down from the elevated 
ridges held by the British to the low grounds on the coast occupied by the 
French. Facing them below was the continuous line of Russian intrench- 
ments of earthwork, interspersed with redoubts and stone towers, and loop- 
holed walls, with the line-of-battle ships showing their broadsides in the 
harbor ; and beyond all, the open sea, bearing on its bosom, like a dark 
belt, the immense armada of the Allied fleet. 



244 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

At half-past six, the preconcerted signal of three shells went up, one afte/ 
another, from a French battery, and the next instant the whole Allied bat- 
teries opened simultaneously. On the side of the British, seventy-three, 
and of the French, fifty-three, in all one hundred and twenty-six guns, 
one-half of which were of the very heaviest calibre, launched their thun- 
ders on the side of the Allies ; while upwards of two hundred replied in 
one deafening roar from the Russian lines. Two long lines of belching 
flame and smoke appeared, and through the space between hurled a 
shower of shot and shell, while the earth shook with the thunders of the 
deadly volleys. 

Distinctly amidst the din could be heard the immense Lancaster guns, 
which here, for the first time, gave evidence of their tremendous powers. 
Their sharp report, heard among the other heavy guns, was like the crack 
of a rifle among muskets. But the most singular thing was the sound of 
their ball, which rushed through the air with the noise and regular beat 
precisely like the passage of a rapid railway train at close distance — a 
peculiarity which, at first, excited shouts of laughter from the men, who 
nicknamed it the express-train. The eifect of the shot was terrific ; from 
its deafening and peculiar noise, the ball could be distinctly traced by the 
ear to the spot where it struck, when stone or earth were seen to go down 
before it. 

The first few minutes' firing sufficed to show to each side, what neither 
had as yet accurately known, the actual strength of its opponents ; and it 
now appeared, that even in the extent of the earthwork batteries thrown 
up since the siege began, the Russians immensely surpassed their besieg- 
ers. Besides their stone forts, and a long line of intrenchments, guns of 
heavy calibre had been planted on every ridge and height ; and as fresh 
batteries were unmasked one after another, often in places totally unex- 
pected, the Allied generals were completely taken by surprise at the mag- 
nitude of the defenses. 

Opposite to the French lines, the main strength of the Russians lay in 
the Flag-staff batteries, erected upon a hill commanding the French works. 
They consisted of two tiers of intrenchments, each mounting about twenty- 
five gunsj the upper of which tier of cannon was unknown to the besieg- 
ers until it opened fire ; with several large mortars placed on the summit 
of the hill. And on ihe extreme right of the Russian lines was a ten-gun 
battery, most commandingly placed, so as to enfilade the French lines. 
In this quarter the Russians had not only a great advantage in point of 
position, but also their guns out-numbered those of the French, and it 
soon became evident that the French were fighting at a disadvantage, and 
were dreadfully galled in flank by the ten-gun battery. Suddenly, a little 
after nine o'clock, there came a loud explosion, — a dense cloud of smoke 
was seen hanging over one of the French batteries, and the Russians were 
observed on the parapets of their works cheering vigorously. The flank 
fire of the ten-gun battery had blown up one of the French magazines, 
killing or wounding about fifty men, and blowing the earthwork to atoms. 

The British batteries were more successful. The principal works op- 
posed to them were on their right front, the Round fort, a Martello tower, 
which had been faced up with earth. A battery of twenty heavy guns 
was planted on the top of this tower, and exterior earthwork intrenchments 
had been thrown up around it, mounted with artillery of heavy calibre. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. . 245 

Next, nearly opposite the British centre, was the three-decker, the Twelve 
Apostles, placed across the harbor creek ; and facing their left was the 
Redan redoubt, carrying about forty cannon, likewise surrounded by in- 
trenchments armed with numerous guns. On the British side, the princi- 
pal redoubts were the Crown battery, of 27 guns, in the centre, fronting 
the Twelve Apostles, and the Green-Mound battery, opposite the Redan 
redoubt. 

At half-past three, a red-hot shot from the Russian three-decker, the 
Twelve Apostles, struck a powder wagon in the Crown battery, which ex- 
ploded, killing one or two men, but leaving the works of the battery unin- 
jured. The Russians cheered as before, imagining the same injury had 
been done, as previously to the French. 

But while they were still cheering, a shell from the Green Mound bat- 
tery lodged in the powder magazine of the Redan redoubt, and blew it up 
with a tremendous explosion. A white livid flame suddenly shot high into 
the air, followed by a report that made the very earth tremble in the Al- 
lied lines, and the next minute its garrison of hundreds, blown to atoms, 
were discovered strewing the ground to a distance around. ' In the 
midst of a dense volume of smoke and sparks,' says an eye-witness, 
' which resembled a water-spout ascending to the clouds, were visible to 
the naked eye, arms, legs, trunks, and heads, of the Russian warriors, 
mingled with cannons, wheels, and every object of military warfare, and, 
indeed, every living thing it contained.' So powerful was the effect 
which this explosion produced on the morale of the besiegers, which had 
been somewhat depressed by the misfortunes of the day, that the enthusi- 
asm displayed was almost of a frantic nature. Both the English and 
French troops, as well as officers, doffed their caps, and threw them high 
into the air, at the same time giving a shout which might have been heard 
at Balaklava, a league off. The Russians, however, were nowise daunted, 
and resumed their fire with undiminished energy. 

While this terrific cannonade was going on by land, the Allied fleets 
were seen bearing down upon the strong forts which defend the mouth of 
the harbor. It had been arranged between the Admirals and Generals, 
that as soon as the attention of the Russians had been attracted to the 
landward attack, the fleets should move forward and take part in a gene- 
ral assault. The French took the Quarantine fort, and other works on 
the south side of the entrance to Sebastopol bay, and the British took Fort 
Constantine and the works on the north side. 

By half-past one o'clock, the action was fairly commenced, and the con 
joined roar from the guns of the fleet and in the forts, echoed by the 
thunders of the rival batteries on shore, baffled the imagination. Never 
before in the world's history was such a cannonade witnessed — even the 
tremendous cannonade of Leipsic and Trafalgar fades into insignificance 
before so gigantic a strife. The fleets advanced to the attack in two lines 
— the British from the north, the French from the south. 

Directly the vessels came within 2,000 yards, the forts opened fire, 
which the Allies never attempted to reply to until they took up their posi- 
tions. The cannonade of the French was terrific and continuous ; envel- 
oped in smoke, they kept up whole salvoes, which was terrific, the smoke 
being lit up by the volleys of flashes, and the roar of cannon continuous. 
The Turks followed the French in this sometimes in whole broadsides, 



246 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

again their fire rnnning continuously along the line. There was less of 
this with the English ships, whose style of firing appeared less awful, but 
more business-like. The Russians used red-hot shot, rockets, combustible 
shell, and bar-shot ; and the terrible effects of these soon made themselves 
apparent. The bar-shot cut the masts, spars, and rigging to pieces, and 
the rockets and red-hot shot raised conflagrations in many of the attacking 
vessels. 

The allied vessels met with but little success, and towards night stood 
out to sea, the Russians cheering vociferously, and redoubling their fire. 

Such were the incidents of this memorable opening day of the bombard- 
ment. 

On the 18th, the fleet did not renew the attack ; and as the French 
batteries were wholly silenced for the time, the enemy were enabled to 
concentrate a terrific fire upon the British trenches. During the previous 
day's firing, the Russians had discovered the weak points of their oppo- 
nents, as well as their own, and before morning, had erected, with sand- 
bags, batteries on new and commanding positions. 

During the night of the 18th, the French worked incessantly, repaired 
all their batteries, and again opened fire on the morning of the 19th. Still 
they were unfortunate. About eleven o'clock a shell from the Russian 
ten-gun battery once more blew up one of their magazines, killing most of 
the men in the battery, and dismounting most of the guns ; thus most of 
the French works were again silenced before two o'clock. 

The British lines kept up a hot fire throughout the whole day ; but 
though at times nearly one hundred shot and shell were thrown per minute, 
little or no effect was produced upon the Russian intrenchments. The en- 
emy were provided with a perfectly inexhaustible supply of all the mate- 
rials requisite for a desperate defense. The instant a shot or shell struck 
their works the hole was filled up with sand-bags ; so that the besieged 
built up as fast as the besiegers knocked down. 

The French had repaired their injuries during the night, but in order to 
fire with more destructive effect, advanced one strong battery about two 
hundred yards nearer the enemy. This new advanced battery not only 
enabled them to maintain their ground, but even to destroy and silence 
their inveterate assailant, the Russian ten-gun battery. 

During the 22d the cannonade from the French lines was incessant, and 
told with great effect ; but early in the day the British batteries received 
orders to fire only once in eight minutes — occasioned by a deficiency of 
ammunition. The Russians worked their guns with great energy and pre- 
cision, even under the hottest fire, standing to their pieces boldly as on the 
first day of the siege ; and they continued to repair each night the injury 
done to their works in the previous day. The loss of the Allies up to this 
point of the siege was about twelve hundred men. 

One feature in the memorable siege was the great use made of riflemen 
by the besieging force, and the extreme gallantry displayed by these men 
when at work. 

Every day parties of skirmishers went out from the Allied lines, and 
lay under cover among the loose large stones about one thousand yards in 
advance of the batteries, and within two hundred yards of the Russian de- 
fenses. 

This compelled the enemy to send out parties to dislodge them, and these, 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 247 

as they advanced for that purpose across the open ground, became exposed 
to the fire both of the skirmishers and of the trenches, and usually suffer- 
ed severely. 

On one occasion a private in the British lines who had fired his last car- 
tridge, was crouching along the ground to join the nearest covering- party, 
when two Russians suddenly sprang from behind a rock, and seizing him 
by the collar, dragged him off towards Sebastopol. 

The Russian who escorted him on the left side held in his right hand hia 
own firelock, and in his left the captured Minie ; with a sudden spring the 
British soldier seized the Russian's firelock, shot its owner, clubbed his com- 
panion, and then, picking up his own Mini£, made off in safety to his own 
lines. Another of these fellows resolved to do more work on his own ac-. 
count, got away from his company, and crawled up close to a battery under 
shelter of a bridge. There he lay on his back, and loaded, turning over 
to fire ; until, after killing eleven men, a party of Russians rushed out and 
he took to his heels ; but a volley fired after him leveled him with the 
earth, and his body was subsequently picked up by his comrades riddled 
with balls. 

Probably 100,000 shot and shell a-day, exclusive of night-firing, was 
the average amount of projectiles discharged by both parties in the extra- 
ordinary siege. 

The darkness of the night was constantly interrupted by the bursting of 
shell or rockets. 

The passage of the shells through the air, thrown to an amazing height 
from the mortars, appeared like that of meteors. To the eye, the shell 
seems to rise and fall almost perpendicularly ; sometimes burning as it turns 
on its axis, and the fuse disappears in the rotation, with an interrupted 
pale light; sometimes with a steady light, not unlike the calm luminosity 
of a planet. As it travels it can be heard, amid the general stillness, ut- 
tering in the distance its peculiar sound, like the cry of the curlew. The 
blue light in a battery announces the starting of a rocket, which pursues 
its more horizontal course, followed by a fiery train, and rushes through 
the air with a loud whizzing noise that gives an idea of irresistible energy. 
So went on, day and night, ceaselessly, this unparalleled bombardment — a 
cataract of war, a Niagara of all dread sounds, whose ceaseless booming 
was heard for long miles around. Ship after ship, nearing the Crimean 
shores, heard from afar that dull, heavy sound, and all eyes were strained 
to catch sight of the dread scene, of that valley where the battle of Eu- 
rope was being fought, where the cannon were ever sounding, and 'the fire 
was not quenched.' 

While the operations were being carried on around the walls of Se- 
bastopol, events of, if possible, still greater importance were taking place 
a few miles off, upon the flanks and rear of the investing force. In truth, 
the Allies were as much besieged as besiegers. For about a fortnight 
after an affair at the Mackenzie's Farm, on the 25th of September, noth- 
ing had been seen of the enemy, who had retired towards Bakshi-serai to 
await reinforcements. Tt was towards the end of the first week of Octo- 
ber that the Russians began to assume the offensive. The Allies at first 
seem to have regarded their position as unassailable; but the enemy, 
thoroughly acquainted with every foot of the country, and consequently 
able to advance in the dark, soon showed them their mistake. 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

At daybreak on the 6th, the Russians made an advance in fcrce, for the 
purpose of reconnoitering, from the Tchernaya into the valley or plain in 
rear of the heights occupied by the Allies ; and, after surprising, in the 
grey of the morning, a picket of the Fourth Dragoons, drew off again, 
having accomplished their object. During the following night, a most dar- 
ing reconnoissance was made, by a French officer and ten men, who, on 
their return to camp, reported that they had gone as far as the river Bel- 
bee, and had only seen the bivouac of the Russian troops who had made 
the reconnoissance the preceding day. In order to check further surprises 
from this quarter, parties of Zouaves and Foot Chasseurs were placed in 
ambuscade as outposts ; every evening at six o'clock four companies of 
them concealing themselves in a ravine through which the Russians would 
advance, and remaining there until daybreak next morning. 

The enemy, however, forsaking the line of attack by the road from Mac- 
kenzie's Farm, now began to appear among the mountains directly in rear 
of the Allied lines, and also close to Balaklava, advancing by a road from 
Kansara, through the hills, which was at first deemed by the Allied gener- 
als impracticable for artillery, and, consequently, along which no serious 
attack was anticipated. One day, however, a force of 2000 Russian cav- 
alry, and 8000 infantry, with nine or ten guns, made its appearance in this 
quarter, but withdrew without showing fight. 

As soon as it became evident that the principal attacks of the Russian 
relieving army would be directed against Balaklava, means were taken to 
put that place in a state of defense. One of the first, was to turn out the 
Greek and Russian inhabitants. The little bay, so narrow at its entrance 
that only one ship could get out at a time, was crowded with upwards of 
a hundred transports, in which, besides other stores, as well as in the build 
ings on shore, were large magazines of gunpowder ; and as it was reported 
that the Greek population, besides acting as spies, had actually concerted 
to aid the Russian attack by simultaneously setting fire to the town, Lord 
Raglan ordered every one of them to be ejected from the place. At the 
same time, a redoubt, armed with heavy guns and manned with 1200 ma- 
rines from the fleet, was constructed upon the summit of a conical hill, on 
the further side of the bay, about 1000 feet high, and commanding the 
coast road approaching Balaklava from the east. Other redoubts were so 
placed as to command the road from the Tchernaya, and also from Kamara, 
through the mountains. 

Balaklava does not fall within the natural line of defense for besieging 
Sebastopol. It is held as a separate post, three miles in advance of Sebas- 
topol heights, which form the main position of the besieging force. The 
British occupied a convex line of heights, stretching from the Tchernaya, 
near its mouth, to the sea-coast, midway between Cape Chersonese and 
Balaklava. On the north-east is a valley or plain, not level, but broken 
by little eminences, about three miles long by two in width. Towards the 
Tchernaya this valley is swallowed up in a mountain gorge and deep ravines, 
above which rise tier after tier of desolate whitish rocks. At its other ex- 
tremity the valley in a similar manner contracts into a gorge, through which 
the high road passes, leading down to Balaklava. On the crest of the 
Allied line of heights, overlooking this plain, the French had constructed 
very formidable intrenchments, mounted with a few guns and lined by 
Zouaves and artillerymen. Intersecting the plains, about two miles and a 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 249 

half from Balaklava, is a series of conical heights, the highest and farth- 
est off of which joins the mountain range on the opposite side of the valley, 
while the nearest one was commanded by the French intrenchments. On 
these eminences earth-work redoubts had been constructed, each mounted 
with two or three pieces of heavy ship guns, and manned by 250 Turks. 
At the end of the plain next Balaklava, and stationed at the mouth of the 
gorge leading down to it, were the 93d Highlanders. In the plain, about 
ten miles from Balaklava, were picketed the cavalry, commanded in chief 
by the Earl of Lucan, consisting of the Light Brigade, 607 strong, and 
the Heavy Brigade, mustering 1000 sabres. 

Such was the position of the rearward forces of the Allies on the morn- 
ing of the 25th October, 1854, when the Russians, under General Liprandi, 
starting from Kamara about five o'clock, advanced to attack them. The 
cavalry pickets, riding in haste, soon brought intelligence of the attack to 
the Allied head-quarters, and measures were instantly taken to^ forward all 
the troops that could be spared from before Sebastopol to tlie menaced 
point. 

The Duke of Cambridge and Sir George Cathcart were ordered to ad- 
vance with the 1st and 4th divisions with all speed, while Bosquet's French 
division received similar orders from General Canrobert. Soon after eight 
o'clock, Lord Raglan and his staff turned out, and cantered towards the 
rear. The booming of artillery, the spattering roll of musketry, were 
heard rising from the valley, drowning the roar of the siege guns in front 
before Sebastopol. General Bosquet followed with his staff and a small 
escort of hussars at a gallop. From their position on the summit of the 
heights, forming the rear of the British position, and overlooking the plain 
of Balaklava, the Allied generals beheld the aspect of the combat. Im- 
mediately below, in the plain, the British cavalry, under Lord Lucan, were 
seen rapidly forming into glittering masses, while the 93d Highlanders, 
under Sir Colin Campbell, drew up in line in front of the gorge leading to 
Balaklava. 

The main body of the Russians was by this time visible about two and 
a half miles off, advancing up the narrow valley leading from the Yaeta 
pass. A mile in front of them were two batteries of light artillery, play- 
ing vigorously on the Turkish redoubts, and escorted by a cloud of moun- 
ted skirmishers, 'wheeling and whirling like autumn leaves before the 
wind;' following those were large, compact squares of cavalry; and in 
rear of all came solid masses of infantry, with twenty pieces of artillery 
<n row before them. The enemy rapidly advanced his cavalry and horse- 
artillery, so as to overpower the detached corps of Turks before any troops 
could be moved forward from the main body to support them. In this he 
perfectly succeeded, and the second redoubt was abandoned, as the first 
had been — its defenders being severely cut up in their flight by the Cos- 
sack horse. They ran in scattered groups across towards the next redoubt, 
and towards Balaklava, but the horse-hoof of the Cossack was too quick 
for them, and sword and lance were busily plied among the retreating herd. 
The yells of the pursuers and pursued were plainly audible. As the lan- 
cers and light cavalry of the Russians advanced, they gathered up their 
skirmishers with great speed, and in excellent order ; the shifting trails 
of men, which played all over the valley, like moonlight upon the water, 
contracted, gathered up, and the little pelotons in a few moments became 



250 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

a solid column. Then up came their guns, in rushed their gunners to the 
abandoned redoubts, and the guns of the second redoubt soon played with 
deadly effect upon the dispirited defenders of the third. Two or three 
shots in return from the earthworks, and all is silent. The Turks swarm 
over the earthworks, and run in confusion towards the town, firing their 
muskets at the enemy as they run. 

Again the solid column of cavalry opens like a fan, and resolves itself 
into a long spray of skirmishers. It overlaps the flying Turks, steel flash- 
es in the air, and down goes the poor Moslem, quivering on the plain, split 
through fez and musket-guard to the chin and breast-belt. There is no 
support for them. The remnant of the Turks, flying towards Balaklava, 
took refuge behind the ranks of the 93d Highlanders, and were formed 
into line on the wings of the regiment. The Russians by this time had 
turned the guns of the captured redoubt against the Allied front, but with 
little effect, as Sir Colin withdrew his Highlanders out of range, and the 
British Cavalry were hid from view by an undulating swell of the plain. 

Encouraged by this retiring movement, the whole mass of Russian cav- 
alry, about 4,000 strong, now came sweeping into the plain, with the ob- 
vious intention of breaking through the Allied line before reinforcements 
could arrive from before Sebastopol. This was the crisis of the day, as 
the slightest reverse to the Allies in this quarter would have been attended 
with serious consequences. 

On came the foe in brilliant masses, pouring down at a canter into the 
plain and on to the high road. Here one body of horse, 1,500 strong, 
rapidly wdieeling to their left, charged down the road towards Balaklava, 
against the single Highland regiment which there barred the way, and 
which awaited their approach in a line two deep. At 800 yards the Turks, 
drawn up on the wings of the regiment, discharged their muskets and fled. 

' Highlanders ! ' exclaimed Sir Colin Campbell, as he saw his men wa- 
vering on being thus deserted, ' if you don't stand firm, not a man of you 
■will be left alive.' 

At 600 yards the regiment fired, but with little effect, upon the Russian 
squadrons now advancing at a gallop. The anxiety of the onlookers grew 
intense as they beheld that immense body of charging cavalry within 150 
yards of their Highland line, when down again went the level line of 
MiniS rifles, a steady volley rang out, and the next instant the attacking 
squadrons were seen wheeling off- to the right and left in retreat. 

Meanwhile the main body of the Russian cavalry swept on straight 
across the plain, apparently with the design of carrying the thinly-defend- 
ed heights at a gallop. But a foe intervened of which they did not make 
sufficient account. The instant they topped the little eminence in front of 
the British cavalry, the trumpets of the Heavy Brigade sounded the 
charge, and away went the brigade in two lines, the Scots Greys and En- 
niskillens in front, led on by Brigadier-General Scarlett. The Russians 
were likewise in two lines, and more than twice as deep. The shock was 
terrific, but lasted only for a moment. The handful of red-coats broke 
through the enemy, scattering the first line right and left, and then charg- 
ed the second line, which came spurring up to the rescue. It was a fight 
of heroes. The position of the Greys and Enniskilleners quickly became 
one of imminent danger ; for while cutting their way in splendid style 
through their foes, the Russian first line rallied again, and bore down upon 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 251 

their rear. God help them they are lost ! burst from the Allied generals 
and on-lookers : when, like a thunder-bolt, the 1st Royals and 4th and 5th 
Dragoon Guards, forming the British second line, broke with one terrible 
assault upon the foe, cutting through the line of rallying Russians as if it 
were pasteboard, and then, falling upon the flank of the Russian line, dis- 
ordered by the terrible assault, put it to utter rout. A cheer burst from 
every lip, and, in the enthusiasm, officers and men on the heights took off 
their caps and shouted -with delight. The loss to the British in this splen- 
did charge was very trifling. All danger to the Allied position was now 
past. The enemy had made their rush, and failed. The British and 
French divisions, arriving from before Sebastopol, began to take up a po- 
sition in the plain, and the Russians drawing back and concentrating their 
forces, relinquished all the captured redoubts save one. The fight seemed 
over ; when an unlucky mistake, the precise origin of which is still shroud- 
ed in mystery, gave rise to a most brilliant but disastrous feat of arms. 

The British cavalry had been advanced to the edge of the plain next 
the enemy, who were now slowly retiring up the narrow valley leading to 
the Yaeta Pass, from which they had debouched in the morning. In a 
gorge of this narrow valley, at about a mile and a half distant from the 
British horse, a battery of nine heavy Russian guns was posted, with in- 
fantry and a body of 2,000 cavalry in the rear. Captain Nolan, of the 
Light Brigade, one of the best swordsmen and cavalry tacticians in the 
army, now came galloping up with an order from the Commander-in-chief 
to Lord Lucan to advance with the light cavalry, and, if possible, prevent 
the enemy from carrying off the guns which they had captured in the re- 
doubts. The moment the Russians beheld the squadrons advancing, they 
covered the slopes of the valley with Minie" riflemen, and quickly planted 
two batteries on the heights, one on either side of the gorge. Formed in 
two lines, the British light cavalry advanced rapidly into the valley of 
death — not a man flinching, and Lord Cardigan leading on with a cool- 
ness and contempt of danger that was magnificent. When they arrived 
at about 1,200 yards from the enemy, thirty Russian cannons simultane- 
ously opened fire upon them, knocking over men and horses in numbers, 
and wounded or riderless steeds were seen flying over the field. Galloping 
on, they advanced up the valley, through this terrific cross-fire, towards 
the battery directly in front. The first line is broken, it is joined by the 
second, they never halt or check their speed an instant ; with diminished 
ranks, thinned by those thirty guns, which the Russians had laid with the 
most deadly accuracy, with a halo of flashing steel above their heads and 
with a cheer which was many a noble fellow's death-cry, they flew into 
the smoke of the batteries, but ere they were lost from view the plain was 
strewed with their bodies, and with the carcases of horses. Lord Cardi- 
gan was almost unhorsed by a 32-pounder exploding within a foot of his 
charger, and a shell bursting at his side, struck Captain Nolan in the 
breast, and with an involuntary shriek, the gallant officer fell dead from 
his saddle. The Russian gunners stood to their pieces till the dragoons 
were within ten yards of them, and were sabred to a man. Without 
drawing bridle, the British horse next charged the mass of cavalry in 
front of them, routed it, and pursued it pell-mell. Whilst the pursuit 
was at its height, suddenly the order was shouted " Wheel about ! " The 
enemy, instead of being broken by their own men flying, formed up four 



262 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

deep in front of the charging horse, while a mass of lancers descended 
into their rear. But, nothing daunted, the heroic light horse, facing about, 
charged again through the gathering forces of the enemy, repassed the 
guns, and closed in desperate contest with the Russian lancers. At this 
moment the Russian artillerymen, returning to the guns behind, sent a 
deadly shower of grape into the fighting mass of horsemen, indiscriminate- 
ly at friend and foe. The charge lasted barely half-an-hour, and but 198 
out of 800 returned to the British lines. Whilst the batteries were firing 
upon the retiring cavalry, a body of French chasseurs d' Afrique charged 
at the guns erected on the left of the valley, and forced them to retire. 
After sabering amongst the Russian skirmishers, the chasseurs retired. 
This closed the operations of the day. The Russians withdrew their forces 
from the heights, and did not carry out their menaced attack on Balaklava. 

The bombardment of the forts before Sebastopol continued without ces- 
sation all day. 

Elated by their success against the Turks, and the capture of the guns 
of the redoubts, the Russians attempted a sortie from Sebastopol on the 
following day, the 26th October, whose strength exceeded 9000 infantry, 
with a numerous artillery ; but no sooner had they entered within range of 
the Allies' guns, which, eighteen in number, had taken up their position, 
than the word, ' fire,' was given, and a volley of shell tore open the ranks 
of the Russians, and checked their advance. The guns being reloaded, a 
second discharge, no less severe in its execution, caused the enemy to 
wheel round and retire. 

On Sunday, the 5th of November, 1854, one of the most sanguinary 
battles ever fought within the memory of man, took place on the heights 
of Inkerman, under the walls of Sebastopol. 

It is a difficult task, in a few lines of prose, to render justice to a brav- 
ery which excels that sung by the blind and immortal bard of Greece. 
We might devote page after page to individual feats of heroic daring in 
this fearful struggle, when 8,000 British troops and 6,000 Frenchmen de- 
feated an army of 60,000 Russians, who left more killed and wounded 
upon the battle-field than the whole force the Allies brought against them. 

From the preceding pages, the position of the besieging forces is al- 
ready familiar to our readers. A road connects Balaklava and Sebastopol. 
From this road to the heights which crown the valley of the Tchernaya, 
extended the British lines. These heights form a right angle nearly oppo- 
site the ruins of Inkerman, and there run parallel with the river from 
which the valley has derived its name. On the other side of the Tcher- 
naya rise a succession of hills above the ruins of Inkerman, where the 
Russians had established themselves. 

The night between the 4th and 5th November was passed without ap- 
prehension by the Allied troops. It had rained almost incessantly, and 
the early morning gave no promise of any cessation of the heavy showers 
which had fallen for the previous four-and-twenty hours. Towards dawn 
a heavy fog settled down on the heights, and on the valley of the Inker 
man. The fog, and vapors of drifting rain were so thick as morning broke, 
that one could scarcely see ten yards before him. 

At four o'clock the bells of the churches in Sebastopol were heard ring 
ing drearily through the cold night air ; but the occurrence had been so 
usual that it excited no particular attention. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 253 

No one sujpected for a moment that enormous masses of Russians were 
creeping up the rugged sides of the heights over the valley of Inkerman, 
on the undefended flank of the Second Division. There all was security 
and repose. Little did the slumbering troops in camp imagine that a 
subtle and indefatigable enemy were bringing into position an overwhelm- 
ing artillery, ready to play upon their tents at the first glimpse of day- 
light. 

Yet such was the case. The arrival of the Grand Dukes Michael and 
Nicholas, sons of the Emperor, with large reinforcements, determined 
Prince Menschikoif to make the attempt to annihilate the besieging forces, 
and raise the siege. 

At daybreak (that is, at six o'clock), the alarm was given in the Brit- 
ish camp that the Russians had surprised the advanced picquets, and were 
already in possession of all the heights commanding their position. The 
whole army stood to arms without delay. Presently a Russian battery 
appeared upon the crest of the height known as Shell-hill, near Careening 
Bay, whilst columns of infantry were descried already descending the hills, 
or marching up the ravines, which faced the front of the British position. 
The most serious attack of the Russians was, however, directed against 
the flank of the British army, along the heights running parallel to the 
valley of the Tchernaya. 

The Russians in the front had now advanced to within five hundred yards 
of the encampment, and the action commenced. The musketry fire was 
awful, and the enemy who had now guns upon every favorable position, hurled 
shell and round shot at the advancing lines. 

The enemy's columns continued to push forward, trying to overwhelm the 
British regiments with their superior numbers. ' And now (to quote the 
words of an eye-witness of the battle) commenced the bloodiest struggle 
ever witnessed since war cursed the earth. It has been doubted by mili- 
tary historians if any enemy have ever stood a charge with the bayonet, 
but here the bayonet was often the only weapon employed in conflicts of 
the most obstinate and deadly character. Not only did the English charge 
in vain, not only were desperate encounters between masses of men main- 
tained with the bayonet alone, but they were obliged to resist bayonet to 
bayonet, with the Russian infantry again and again, as they charged the 
British with incredible fury and determination.' 

The battle of Inkerman admits of no description. It was a series of 
dreadful deeds of daring, of sanguinary hand-to-hand fights, of despairing 
rallies, of desperate assaults, in glens and valleys, in brushwood glades and 
remote dells, hidden from all human eyes, and from which the conquerors, 
Russian or British, issued, only to engage fresh foes. 

No one, however placed, could have witnessed even a small portion of 
the doings of this eventful day, for the vapors, fog, and drizzling mist, ob- 
scured the ground where the struggle took place to such an extent, as to 
render it impossible to see what was going on at the distance of fifty yards. 
Besides this, the irregular nature of the ground, the rapid fall of the hill 
towards Inkerman, where the deadliest fight took place, would have pre 
vented one, under the most favorable circumstances, seeing more than a 
very insignificant and detailed piece of the terrible work below. 

It was six o'clock when all the Head-quarter camp was roused by roll 
after roll of musketry on the right, and by the sharp report of field-guns. 



254 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Lord Raglan was informed that the enemy were advancing in force, and 
soon after seven o'clock he rode towards the scene of action, followed by 
his staff, and accompanied by Sir John Burgoyne, Brigadier General 
Strangwayr, and several aids-de-camp. As they approached the volume 
of sound, the steady unceasing thunder of gun, and rifle, and musket, told 
that the engagement was at its height. The shell of the Russians, thrown 
with great precision, burst so thickly among the troops that the noise re- 
sembled continuous discharges of cannon, and the massive fragments in- 
flicted death on every side. 

Colonel Gambier was once ordered to get up two heavy guns (eighteen 
pounders) on the rising ground, and to reply to a fire which the light guns 
were utterly inadequate to meet. As he was engaged in this duty he 
was severely wounded, and obliged to retire. His place was taken by 
Lietenant-Colonel Dickson, who, in directing the fire of these two pieces, 
which had the most marked effect in deciding the fate of the day, elicited 
the admiration of the army. But long ere these guns had been brought 
up, there had been a great slaughter of the enemy, and a heavy loss of the 
British. The generals could not see where to go. They could not tell 
where the enemy were — from what side they were coming, or where go- 
ing. In darkness, gloom, and rain, they led the lines through thick scrub- 
by bushes and thorny brakes, which broke the ranks, and irritated the men, 
while every place was marked by a corpse or men wounded from an enemy 
whose position was only indicated by the rattle of musketry, and the rush 
of ball and shell. 

Sir George Cathcart, seeing his men disordered by the fire of a large 
column of Russian infantry, which was outflanking them, while portions of 
the various regiments composing his division were maintaining an unequal 
struggle with an overwhelming force, went down into a ravine in which 
they were engaged to rally them. He rode at their head encouraging 
them, and when a cry arose that ammunition was failing, he said coolly, 
' Have you not got your bayonets ? ' As he led on his men, it was ob- 
served that another body of men had gained the top of the hill behind them 
on the right, but it was impossible to tell whether they were friends or foes. 
A deadly volley was poured into the scattered British regiments. Sir 
George cheered them, and led them back up the hill, but a flight of bullets 
passed where he rode, and he fell from his horse close to the Russian col- 
umns. His body was recovered mutilated with bayonet wounds. 

"When he fell, Colonel Seymour, who was with him, instantly dismounted, 
and was endeavoring to raise the body, when he himself received a 
ball which fractured his leg. He fell to the ground beside his general, and 
a Russian officer and five or six men running in, bayoneted him, and cut 
him to pieces as he lay helpless. The Russians bayoneted the wounded in 
every part of the field, giving no quarter, and apparently determined to 
exterminate the Allies, to drive them into the sea. 

The conflict on the right was equally uncertain and equally bloody. 
To the extreme right a contest, the like of which, perhaps, never took place 
before, was going on between the guards and dense columns of Russian 
infantry of five times their number. The guards had charged them and 
driven tl'em back, when they perceived that the Russians had outflanked 
them. They were out of amunition, too, and were uncertain whether there 
were friends or foes in the rear. They had no support, no reserve, were 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 255 

fighting with the bayonet against an enemy who stoutly contested every 
inch of ground, when the corps of another Russian column appeared on 
their right far to their rear. Then a fearful mitraille was poured into them, 
and volleys of rifle and musketry. 

The guards were broken ; they had lost twelve officers dead on the field; 
they had left one-half of their number dead on the ground ; and they re- 
tired along the lower road of the valley ; but they were soon reinforced, 
and speedily avenged their loss. 

The French advance, about ten o'clock, turned the flank of the enemy. 

When the body of French infantry appeared on the right of the British 
position, it was a joyful sight to the struggling regiments. The 3d regi- 
ment of Zouaves, under the chiefs of battalion, supported in the most strik- 
ing manner the ancient reputation of that force. The French artillery 
had already begun to play with deadly effect on the right wing of the 
Russians, when three battalions of chasseurs d'Orleans rushed by, the 
light of battle on their faces. They were accompanied by a battalian of 
chasseurs Indigenes — the Arab Sepoys of Algiers. Their trumpets 
sounded above the din of battle. Assailed in front, broken in several 
places by the impetuosity of the charge, renewed again and again, attacked 
by the French infantry on the right, and by artillery all along the line, 
the Russians began to retire, and at twelve o'clock they were driven pell- 
mell down the hill towards the valley, where pursuit would have been mad- 
ness, as the roads were covered by their artillery. They left mounds of dead 
behind them. At twelve o'clock the battle of Inkerman seemed to have 
been won ; but the day which had cleared up for an hour previously, 
again became obscured. Rain and fog set in ; and as the Allies could not 
pursue the Russians, who were retiring under the shelter of their artillery, 
they had formed in front of the lines, and were holding the battle-field so 
stoutly contested, when the enemy, taking advantage of the Allies' quiet- 
ude, again advanced, while their guns pushed forward and opened a tre 
mendous fire. 

General Canrobert, who never quitted Lord Raglan for much of the ear- 
ly part of the day, at once directed the French to advance and outflank 
the enemy. In his efforts he was most nobly seconded by General Bos- 
quet. General Canrobert was slightly wounded, and his immediate attend- 
ants suffered severely. 

The renewed assault was so admirably managed that the Russians sul 
lenly retired, still protected by their crushing artillery. 

The loss sustained by the English army was 2,400 killed or wounded ; of 
the French 1,726. The Russians, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 15,- 
000. An eye-witness thus describes the night after battle : 

' On the evening of the battle I went over the field. All the wounded 
had been removed. There is nothing so awful as the spectacle of the bod- 
ies of those who have been struck down by round shot or shell. Some had 
their heads taken off by the neck, as with an axe ; others, their legs gone 
from their hips ; others their arms ; and others again, who were hit in the 
chest or stomach, were literally as smashed as if they had been crushed in 
a machine. Passing up to Sebastopol, over heaps of Russian dead, I came 
to the spot where the Guards had been compelled to retire from the defense 
of the wall above Inkerman valley. Here the dead of the Allies were 
nearly as numerous as the enemy's. Beyond this the Russian Guardsmen 



256 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and line regiments lay as thick as leaves, intermixed with dead and wound- 
ed horses. The path lay through thick brushwood, but it was slippery with 
blood, and the brushwood was broken down and encumbered with the dead. 
The scene from the battery was awful beyond description. I stood upon its 
parapet at about nine at night, and I felt my heart sink as I gazed upon the 
scene of carnage around. 

' The moon was at its full, and showed every object as if by the light of 
day. Facing me was the valley of Inkerman, with the Tchernaya, like a 
band of silver, flowing gracefully between the hills, which, for varied and 
picturesque beauty, might vie with any part of the world. Yet I shall nev- 
er recall the memory of Inkermann valley with any but feelings of horror ; 
for round the spot from which I surveyed the scene lay upwards of five 
thousand bodies. Some lay as if prepared for burial, and as though the 
hands of relatives had arranged their mangled limbs ; while others again 
were in almost startling positions, half standing or kneeling, clutching their 
weapons or drawing a cartridge. Many lay with both their hands extend- 
ed towards the sky, as if to avert a blow or utter a prayer ; while others 
had a malignant scowl of fear and hatred. The moonlight imparted an as- 
pect of unnatural paleness to their forms, and as the cold, damp wind 
swept round the hills and waved the boughs above their upturned faces, 
the shadows gave a horrible appearance of vitality ; and it seemed as if the 
dead were laughing, and about to rise. This was not the case on one spot 
only, but all over the bloody field. ' 

The whole of the 6th (the day after the battle) was devoted to the sor 
ry task of burying the dead. A council of war was held, presided over by 
Lord Raglan, at which it was determined to winter in the Crimea, and or- 
ders were issued accordingly. Large reinforcements were demanded both 
by Lord Raglan and General Canrobert, which, with considerable prompti- 
tude were despatched by their respective governments. 



HISTORY OF FRANCE. 

The Franks, a tribe of German origin, had marched from their heredita- 
ry possessions on the Lower Rhine to the Meuse and the Sambre, A. D. 
486. From this place, their warlike king, Clovis, led them forth to war 
and plunder. After he had conquered and put to death the last Roman 
governor, Sy&grius, in Soissons, and made himself master of the country 
between the Seine and the Loire, he advanced against the Alemanni, who 
were in possession of an extensive kingdom on both banks of the Rhine. 
He defeated them in the great battle of Zulpich (between Bonn and Aix), 
and subjected their country on the Moselle and the Lahn. In the heat of 
the battle, Clovis had sworn, that if the doubtful combat should terminate 
in his favor, he would embrace the faith of his Christian wife ; and in the 
same year, he, with 3,000 nobles of his train, received baptism in the wa- 
ters of the Rhine. But Christianity produced no emotions of pity in his 
savage heart. After he had extended the Frank empire to the Rhone on 
the east, and to the Garonne on the south, he attempted to secure the whole 
territory to himself and his posterity, by putting to death the chiefs of all 
the Frank tribes. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 257 

The wickedness of the father was inherited by his four sons, who, after 
Clovis's death, divided the Frank empire between them ; the eldest received 
the eastern kingdom, Australia, with the capital, Metz ; the three younger 
sons shared the western territory, Neustria, and Burgundy, which was con- 
nected with it. But the empire was again from time to time united. The 
history of the kingly house of Merovingians displays a frightful picture of 
human depravity. The murders of brothers and relatives, bloody civil wars, 
and the explosion of unbridled passions, fill its annals. The savage enor- 
mities of the two queens, Brunhilda and Fredigonda, are particularly dread 
ful. These horrors at length destroyed all the power of the race of Clovis, 
so that they are distinguished in history as sluggish kings, whilst the stew- 
ard of the royal possessions (Mayor of the palace) gradually obtained pos- 
session of all the powers of government. A visit to the yearly assemblies 
of the people (Marzfelder), upon a carriage drawn by four oxen, was at 
last the only occupation of the imbecile Merovingians. At first, each of the 
three kingdoms had its own mayor, until the brave and shrewd Pepin of 
Heristal succeeded in uniting the mayoralties of Neustria and Burgundy 
with that of Austrasia, and making them hereditary in his own family. 
From this time, Pepin's descendants, who were called dukes of Franc6nia, 
possessed the regal power, whilst the Merovingians were kings in nothing 
but name. 

Pepin of Heristal, and his son Charles Martel, had gained the confidence of 
the nation by their warlike deeds, and the favor of the priests by their zeal in the 
propagation of Christianity. Both parties were instrumental in raising Pe- 
pin the Little, the son of Charles Martel, to the throne of the Franks. For 
when the assembly of the nation deposed the last imbecile representative 
of the Merovingians (Childeric III), and proclaimed the chief steward, 
Pepin, king, the pope confirmed the election, in hope of finding in the Frank 
ruler a support against the Longobards and the iconoclastic emperor of By- 
zantium. In return for the royal consecration, which was first performed 
by Boniface, and afterwards by Pope Stephen himself, Pepin endowed the 
Roman chair with the portion of coast on the Adriatic sea, southwards from 
Ravenna. This was the foundation of the temporal power of the pope. 

Pepin reigned for sixteen years with vigor and renown over the Frank 
empire, which extended far into South and Central Germany, and which, 
at his death, he divided between his two sons, Charles and Carloman. 
About three years afterwards, A. D. 771, Carloman died, and Charle 
magne (Charles the Great) was declared sole ruler of the Franks, by the 
voice of the estates of the Empire. He conducted many wars, and ad- 
vanced Christian cultivation and civil order. For the purpose of securing 
the boundaries of his kingdom and extending Christianity, he made war for 
thirty-one years on the Saxon confederation, which was formed by various 
Pagan tribes on the Weser and Elbe. Charles took the fortress of Eres- 
burg, on the south of the Teutoburger forest, destroyed the national pallad- 
ium — the statue of Arminius, and compelled the Saxons to a peace. He 
next proceeded against the Longobard king, Deside'rius, in ooedienco to 
the summons of Pope Adrian. With an army collected together near Ge- 
neva, he crossed the St. Bernard, stormed the passes of the Alps, and con- 
quered Pavia. Desiderius ended his days in a cloister. Charles erected 
the Lombard throne in Milan, united Upper Italy to the kingdom of the 
Franks, and confirmed the gifts made by Pepin to the pope. 
17* 



258 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

During the absence of Charles, the Saxons had expelled the Frank gar- 
risons and reestablished their ancient boundaries. Charles again marched 
into their country, subdued them, and compelled the chiefs of the tribes to 
submit at Paderborn. Their warlike duke, Witikind, alone, fled to the 
Danes and refused to confirm the treaty. In the two following years, 
Charles fought against the Moors in Spain, took Pampelona and Saragossa, 
and united the whole country, as far as the Ebro, to his own kingdom, as a 
Spanish province. But during his return, his rear, under the command of 
Roland, suffered a defeat in the valley of Roncesvalles, in which the brav- 
est champions of the Franks were destroyed. Roland's battle at Ronces- 
valles was a favorite theme with the poets of the middle ages. The Sax- 
ons took advantage of his absence to make afresh insurrection, and pursued 
their devastating course as far as the Rhine. Charles hastened to the spot, 
gave them repeated overthrows, and subdued their land afresh. But when 
he attempted to employ them as militia against the Slavonic tribes in the 
East, they fell upon the Frank troops who were marching with them, at 
the Suntal (between Hanover and Hameln), and slew them. This de- 
manded vengeance. The Frank emperor marched through the land, plun- 
dering and destroying, and then held a court of judgment at Verden on 
the Aller. 4,500 prisoners expiated with their blood the crime of their 
brethren. Upon this, hostilities were resumed with fresh violence. But 
the battle on the Hase, which terminated to the disadvantage of the Sax- 
ons, put an end to the war. Witikind and the other chiefs took an oath of 
fealty and military service, and allowed themselves to be baptised. The 
people followed their example. Eight bishoprics provided for the mainten- 
ance and extension of Christianity among the Saxons. Another insurrec- 
tion, however, was occasioned a few years afterwards, by the oppressive 
arriere-ban, and the unwonted payment of tithes to the Church, which re- 
sulted in 10,000 Saxon families being carried away from their homes, and 
colonies of Franks being established in their place. To oppose the Slavo- 
nic tribes to the east of the Elbe, Charles founded the Margraviate of Bran- 
denburg. 

Shortly after, Thassilo duke of Bavaria, attempted to render himself 
independent of the Frank power, by the assistance of the Avars, who lived 
to the east. He was overpowered, and expiated his breach of faith by 
perpetual confinement within the walls of the cloisters of Fulda. Bavaria 
was hereupon incorporated with the Frank empire, and Charles established 
the Eastern Margraviate as a check upon the wild Avars. When Charle- 
magne had reduced all the lands from the Ebro and the Appenines to the 
Eider, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Raab and the Elbe, he repaired 
to Rome at the conclusion of the century. It was here that, during the 
festival of Christmas, he was invested with the crown of the Roman empire, 
in the church of St. Peter, by Leo III, whom he had defended against a 
mob of insurgents. It was hoped, that by this means, western Christen- 
dom might be formed into a single body, of which the Pope was to become 
the spiritual, and Charles the secular head. It was at this time that the 
long-existing variance between the Western (Roman Catholic), and the 
Eastern (Greek Catholic) churches, terminated in a complete separation. 

The domestic policy of Charlemagne was not less fertile of results than 
the foreign. 1. He improved the government and the administration of 
justice by abolishing the office of duke, dividing the whole kingdom into 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 259 

provinces, and appointing counts and deputies for the conduct of the affairs 
of justice, and clerks of the treasury for the management of the crown 
lands and the collection of imposts. The laws were confirmed by the 
popular assemblies (maifelder), in which every freeman had a share. 
2. He promoted the cultivation of the land, and the education of the peo- 
ple. Agriculture and the breeding of cattle were encouraged, farms and 
villages sprang up, and barren heaths were converted into arable fields. 

He founded conventual schools and cathedrals, had the works of the an- 
cient Roman writers transcribed, and formed a collection of old German 
heroic ballads. Learned men, like the British monk, Alcuin, and the histo- 
rian Eginhard, from the Odenwald, had ample reason to congratulate them- 
selves on his encouragement and support. 3. He favored the clergy and 
the church. It was by his means that the former obtained their tithes and 
vast gifts and legacies ; church music was improved, missionaries supported, 
and churches and monasteries erected. Ingelheim on the Rhine, and Aix, 
were his favorite places of residence. He lies buried in the latter town. 

The son of Charlemagne, Louis the Denbonnaire (the Gentle), was better 
fitted for the repose of a cloister than for the government of a warlike 
nation. A too hasty division of his kingdom among his three sons, Lothaire, 
Pepin, and Louis, was the occasion of much sorrow to himself, and confu- 
sion to the empire. For when, at a later period, he proposed an altera- 
tion in favor of his fourth son, Charles the Bald, the fruit of a second mar- 
riage, the elder sons took up arms against their father. Louis, faithlessly 
deserted by his vassals on "the field of lies," near Strasburg, and betray- 
ed to his own sons, was compelled by Lothaire to do penance in the church 
and to abdicate his throne ; and was afterwards shut up for some time in a 
cloister. It is true that Louis procured his father's reinstatement ; but 
when the weak emperor, after the death of Pepin, by a new division of 
the kingdom, deprived Louis of Germany, in favor of his brothers, Lothaire 
and Charles, Louis raised his standard against him. This broke the old 
emperor's heart. Full of sorrow, he ended his days on a small island of 
the Rhine, near Ingelheim. The hostile brothers now turned their arms 
against each other. A bloody civil war depopulated the country, so that 
at last, after a battle of three days' duration, at Fontenaille in Burgundy, 
the Frank nobility refused to obey the arriere-ban, and by this means brought 
about the treaty of partition of Verdun. By virtue of this treaty, 
Lothaire received the imperial dignity, together with Italy, Burgundy, 
and Lorraine ; Charles the Bald, western Franconia (France) ; and Louis 
the German, the lands on the right bank of the Rhine — Spire, Worms, 
and Mayence. 

This division was followed by a time of great confusion, during which 
Europe was severely harassed, on the south by the Arabs ; on the east, by the 
Slavi ; and on the north and west, by the Normans. To oppose these preda- 
tory inroads, the Carlovingian monarchs, who were all men of weak and nar- 
row minds, were obliged to restore the ducal office in the different provinces, 
and to sanction the hereditary authority of the Margraves, so that, in a 
short time, all the power fell into the hands of the nobles. By the rapid 
deaths of most of the posterity of Louis the Denbonnaire, nearly the whole 
of the empire of Charlemagne devolved upon Charles the Fat, a. d. 876, a 
prince weak and indolent, and simple almost to imbecility. Incapable of 
resisting the valiant Normans, he purchased a disgraceful peace from them 



260 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

This proceeding so exasperated the German princes, that they decreed his 
deposition, at Tribur on the Rhine, and elected his nephew, the brave 
Arnulf, as his successor. Arnulf governed with vigor. He overthrew the 
Normans at Louvain, and called in the aid of the wild Magyars, or Hun- 
garians, from the Ural, a people expert in horsemanship and archery, and 
who were now, under their valiant captain Arpad, occupying the plains on 
the Danube (named after them Hungary), against the Slavi and Avars. 
The Avars were either subjected or compelled to retreat. But the stran- 
gers (the Hungarians) soon became a more dreadful scourge to Germany 
than either the Slavi or the Avars. They made their predatory inroads 
and exacted a yearly tribute, even under Louis the Child, the youthful son 
of Arnulf, who died in the flower of his age, after a glorious campaign in 
Italy. This still continued, when, after the early death of this last of the 
Carlovingian race, the German nobles, among whom the dukes of Saxony, 
Franconia, Lorraine, Swabia, and Bavaria were preeminent for power, met 
together and elected Duke Conrad of Franconia, emperor. Germany thus 
became an elective empire. 

The rule of the Carlovingians survived longest in France, but it pos- 
sessed neither strength nor dignity. Under Charles the Simple, who had 
ascended the French throne after the deposition and subsequent death of 
Charles the Fat, the dukes and counts rendered themselves entirely inde- 
pendent, and one of the most powerful among them, Hugh of Paris, kept 
the imbecile king in strict confinement. France, on the other hand, was 
delivered from the devastating forays of the Normans, by Charles admit- 
ting duke Hollo into the province named after them Normandy, on condition 
that he and his followers would suffer themselves to be baptized, and re- 
cognize the king as their suzerain (feudal sovereign). The Normans, a 
people readily susceptible of civilization, soon acquired the language, man- 
ners, and customs of the Franks. Charles the Simple was followed by 
two other kings of the Carlovingian race ; but their power was at last so 
limited that they possessed nothing but the town of Laon, with the sur 
rounding country ; every thing else had fallen into the hands of the inso- 
lent nobility. After the death of the Childless Louis V, Hugh Capet, son 
and heir of Hugh of Paris, assumed the title of king, and put to death in 
prison Louis' uncle Charles of Lorraine, who attempted to assert his right 
to the throne by force of arms. 

The first successors of Hugh Capet possessed but little power and a nar- 
row territory. The dukes and counts of the different provinces looked 
upon the king, who, properly, was only lord of France, as their equal, and 
only allowed him the first rank among themselves, in so far as they were 
obliged to recognize him as their feudal superior. The nobles dared not 
weaken the rights that appertained to him in this capacity, lest they should 
afford an example of breach of faith to their own subjects, and encourage 
them to similar behavior towards themselves. For the rest, the possessions 
of the oreat vasasls were independent counties and principalities, which 
had no closer connection with the French throne than the western territo- 
ries on the Seine, Loire, and Garonne, which belonged to the king of 
England ; or the eastern (Burgundian) lands on the Rhone and the Jura, 
which were portions of the German empire. 

But in the attempt to increase the kingly power, the house of Capet were 
not less aided by their good fortune than by their wisdom. It was fortu- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 261 

aate, that, owing to the lengthened lives of most of their kings, the throne 
was seldom vacant, that there was almost always a son of age to succeed 
his father, and that, consequently, there was never an interregnum. But 
it was wisdom in the first kings to have their eldest sons crowned during 
their lives, and to make them their partners in the government, so that, on 
the death of the father, little or no change was suffered. The most impor- 
tant kings after Hugh Capet were Louis VII, who undertook the second 
crusade, and during his absence intrusted the government in France to the 
politic Abbot Suger of St. Denis ; Philip Augustus II, who wrested Nor- 
mandy and the other territories in the west from the English king, John 
Lackland ; and Louis VIII, who enlarged his dominions on the south by 
the war against the Albigenses. But the reigns which had the greatest in- 
fluence upon the history of France were those of St. Louis and Philip the Fair. 
The former improved the laws, and caused the royal courts of justice to be 
looked upon as the highest in the land, and the disputes of the nobles among 
themselves, or with their vassals to be brought before them for decision : 
the latter, on the other hand, increased the consequence of the towns by 
granting various privileges and liberties to the citizens, and by being the 
first who summoned the representatives of the towns to the diet during his 
contest with the pope. After the death of Philip's three sons, who reigned 
one after the other, but left no male heirs, the French throne passed to the 
house of Valois, a. d. 1328. 

Philip VI of Valois, brother's son of Philip the Fair, inherited the French 
throne. But Edward III of England also asserted his claims, as son of a 
daughter of Philip the Fair. Without regard to the Salic law, which pro- 
hibited the succession of females, he assumed the title of king of Fiance, 
and made war upon Philip. After a bloody contest of a few years, the bat- 
tle of Crecy was fought, in which the English were the victors, and the 
flower of the French chivalry, together with John, the blind king of Bohe- 
mia, fell on the field. The possession of the important town of Calais was 
the fruit of the victory. Philip died in the following year, and his son, 
John the Good, succeeded to the contested crown. Eager to obliterate 
the memory of Crecy, he attacked the English army, which was under the 
command of Edward Ill's heroic son, the Black Prince, but suffered a de- 
cisive defeat at Poictiers, and was obliged to proceed as a captive to the 
capital of England. Whilst he was absent, the kingdom was governed by 
the crown prince (Dauphin). During his rule, an insurrection broke out 
in Paris and over the whole land, which was attended with great devasta- 
tions and outrages, until the imperfectly-armed citizens and peasants were 
subdued by the French knights, and visited with severe punishment. Short- 
ly after this, a peace was established between France and England, by 
which Calais and the south-west of France was surrendered to the English, 
and a heavy ransom promised for John, whilst Edward, on the other hand, 
renounced his pretensions to the French throne. But when the collection 
of the ransom money Avas delayed, John voluntarily returned into captivity, 
and died in London. 

John's son, Charles V (the Wise), healed the wounds of his country. He 
quieted men's minds by his moderate government, and by prudence and valor 
recovered the lands that had been lost on the Loire and the Garonne ; so that 
when the Black Prince fell a victim to wasting disease, and Edward III short- 
ly followed him into the grave, nothing remained to the English of all their con- 



262 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

quests but Calais. But under his successor, Charles VI, who became insane 
shortly after coming of age, France again fell into a state of confusion and law- 
lessness. Two powerful court parties, headed by the uncle of the king (the 
duke of Burgundy), and the king's brother (the duke of Orleans), contended 
for the government ; whilst the burghers rebelled against the heavy imposts, 
and demanded an increase of their privileges. About the same time in which 
the towns were waging war against the knights in Germany, the Swiss peas- 
ants were contending against the nobility, and a dangerous popular insur- 
rection, under Wat Tyler and others, was making rapid progress in Eng- 
land, the citizen and peasant class rose against the court and the nobility 
in Flanders and France also. But want of union among the insurgents 
gave the latter the victory, and the outbreak was followed by a diminution 
of the privileges of the people. The Burgundian party favored the citizens, 
the Orleans party the nobility. 

The chivalrous king, Henry V of England, took advantage of these cir- 
cumstances to renew the war with France. He demanded the former pos- 
sessions back again; and when this was refused, he entered France by Ca- 
lais, and renewed at Agincourt, on the Somme, the days of Crecy and Poic- 
tiers, a. d. 1415. The French army, four times the number of its oppo- 
nents, was overthrown, and the flower of the French chivalry either fell in 
the field, or were taken prisoners by the enemy ; nothing stood between 
the victor and Paris, where party violence had just now attained its high- 
est point, and murders and insurrections were matters of daily occurrence. 
The Orleans party joined the Dauphin, whilst the Burgundian party, with 
the queen Isabella, united themselves with the English, and acknowledged 
Henry V and his descendants as the heirs of the French crown. The whole 
of the country to the north of the Loire was soon in the hands of the Eng- 
lish. But Henry V w r as snatched away by death in the midst of his hero- 
ic course, in the same year in which the crazy Charles VI sank into the 
grave, and the Dauphin took possession of the throne under the title of 
Charles VII. But this made little difference to France. The English and 
their allies proclaimed Henry VI, who was scarcely a year old, the right- 
ful ruler of the country, and retained their superiority in the field so that 
they already held Orleans in siege. 

In this necessity, the Maid of Orleans, a peasant girl of Dom Remy in 
Lorraine, who gave out that she had been summoned to the redemption of 
France by a heavenly vision, aroused the sinking courage of Charles and 
his soldiers. Under her banner, the town of Orleans was delivered, the 
king conducted to Rheims to be crowned, and the greater part of their con 
quests wrested from the English. The faith in her heavenly mission in- 
spired the French with courage and self-confidence, and filled the English 
with fear and despair. This effect remained after Joan of Arc had fallen 
into the hands of the latter, and had been given up to the flames on a pre- 
tended charge of blasphemy and sorcery. The English lost one province 
after another ; and when Philip the Good of Burgundy reconciled himself 
with the king, Calais soon became their last and only possession in the land 
of France. Paris opened its gates and received Charles with acclamations. 
He reigned over France in peace for twenty-five years ; but he was a weak 
man, who suffered himself to be guided by women and favorites. He was 
followed by Louis XI, a crafty but politic prince, who, by cunning, vio- 
lence, and unexampled tyranny, rendered the power of the throne absolute, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 263 

and enlarged and consolidated his empire. He robbed the nobility of all 
their choicest privileges, and gradually united all the great fiefs with the 
crown. He then, by the assistance of the Swiss (whose hardy youth he 
and his successor engaged as mercenaries), overthrew Charles the Bold, 
and made himself master of the dukedom of Burgundy. The stings of con- 
science and the fear of men tortured him in the lonely castles where he 
spent the last years of his life, a. d. 1483. His two successors, Charles 
VIII and Louis XII, conquered Brittany, but dissipated the strength of 
the kingdon in their expeditions to Italy. 

FRANCE DURING THE WAR OF RELIGION. 

Henry II, a determined enemy of the Huguenots, died in consequence 
of a wound he received during a tournament, a. d. 1559. His feeble 
and delicate son, Francis II, was his successor. This prince was married 
to the fascinating Mary Stuart of Scotland, whose uncles, the Guises, in 
consequence, enjoyed great influence at the French court. The Guises, 
as zealous adherents of the Catholic Church and the papacy, made use of 
their lofty position to suppress the reformed party ; but by doing this, gave 
their opponents, and in especial, the Prince Conde, of the family of Bour- 
bon, and the Admiral Coligni, the opportunity of strengthening themselves 
by joining the Huguenots. The schism increased daily ; the one party strove 
to overthrow the other, and to secure the victory to their own side by the 
assistance of the king. The day on which the Estates assembled at Or- 
leans was selected by both parties as a befitting time for the execution of 
this project. The Guises gained the advantage. The chiefs of the Hu- 
guenots already found themselves in prison, when a turn was given to af- 
fairs by the sudden death of the king. The queen-mother, Catherine de 
Medicis, placed herself at the head of affairs during the minority of the new 
king, Charles IX, and the Bourbons assumed a position suited to their 
birth. The Guises, irritated at the neglect they experienced, retired with 
their niece, Mary Stuart, into Lorraine, whence the latter, shortly after, 
departed with sorrow and mourning into Scotland. 

The removal of the Guises from the court was of advantage to the re- 
formed party. They obtained toleration. Enraged at this concession, the 
duke of Guise concluded an alliance with some other powerful nobles for 
the preservation of the ancient faith in France, and returned to Paris. 
During this return, a horrible slaughter was perpetrated by the Guises and 
their attendants upon some Calvinists of the town of Vassy, who were as- 
sembled together in a barn, for the celebration of Divine worship. This 
proved the signal for a religious war. The outrage given to the conceded 
liberty of conscience by this bloody act of violence cried for vengeance. 
France was soon divided into two hostile camps, that attacked each other 
with bitter animosity and religious rage. The most horrible atrocities w r ere 
committed, and the kingdom disturbed to its inmost depths. The Catho- 
lics obtained aid from Rome and Spain, the Protestants were assisted by 
England ; Germany and Switzerland supplied soldiers. After the unde- 
cisive battle of Dreux, and the murder of the Duke Francis of Guise, at 
the siege of Orleans, peace was for a short time restored, and the Calvin- 
ists again assured of religious toleration — a promise that met with but 
little attention. The two parties were soon again arrayed in arms against 



264 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

each other, A. D. 1568. But despite the bravery of the Huguenots in the 
battle of St. Denis, where the elder Montmorenci lost his life, the superi- 
ority remained on the side of the Catholics ; particularly when Catherine 
de Medicis, who had hitherto sided with neither party, embraced the inter- 
ests of the latter. The sight of crucifixes and sacred objects broken to 
pieces, during a journey undertaken by the queen and her son, and the 
advice of the duke of Alba, with whom she had an interview in Bayonne, 
had produced this alteration in her opinions. After several bloody engage- 
ments in the vicinity of La Rochelle, which the Huguenots had selected 
as their battlefield, and after their gallant leader, Cond£, had been basely 
assassinated during one of them, the peace of St. Germain was arranged, 
by which the Calvinists were again assured of the free exercise of their 
religion. Conde's nephew, Henry of Beam, who had been bred up in the 
doctrine of Calvin by liis mother, Joanna d' Albret, now placed himself 
at the head of the Huguenots ; but the soul of the party was the brave 
Coligni, who stood by the side of the prince as his guide and adviser. 

Coligni possessed great influence at the court after the peace. The 
young king respected him, and favored him with his confidence. For the 
purpose of bringing about a permanent reconciliation between the religious 
parties, the king now urged a marriage between his sister, Margaret of 
Valois, and the Bourbon, Henry of Beam. This offended the Guises, who 
believed that Coligni had procured the assassination of Francis of Guise, 
and they resolved upon his destruction. Coligni was fired at one evening, 
as he was returning to his own house from the Louvre. The ball, however, 
only shattered his arm, and it was necessary to devise a fresh plan of de- 
struction. The Guises, in conjunction with Catherine of Medicis, now 
entertained the horrible project of taking advantage of the approaching 
marriage, for the solemnization of which many illustrious Calvinists had 
hastened to the capital, to destroy the chiefs of the Huguenot party. Thus 
originated the Bloody Nuptials of Paris, in the night of St. Bartholomew, 
August 24th, 1572. When the alarm bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois 
gave the signal at midnight, bands of armed ruffians fell upon the defense- 
less Calvinists. The gray-headed hero, Coligni, was the first victim that 
the Guises sacrificed to their hate ; the murderous bands then marched 
through all parts of the city, filled the streets and houses with blood and 
corpses, and laughed to scorn every sentiment of humanity and justice. 
The butchery lasted for three days, and was imitated in other towns, so 
that, at the lowest computation, 25,000 Huguenots must have perished. 
The king, to whom the plan was communicated a short time before its ex- 
ecution, listened to the voice of his passions, and himself fired upon the 
fugitives. After the deed had been accomplished, and the Guises had 
been fixed upon by the public voice as its instigators, and called upon to 
answer for their conduct, Charles took the whole affair upon himself, and 
excused the crime by a pretended conspiracy. Many of the French quit- 
ted their homes in horror, and sought for security in Switzerland, Germa- 
ny, and the Netherlands. Henry of Beam saved his fife by a compulsa- 
tory abjuration, but returned to his old faith as soon as he found himself 
in security. 

Charles IX died two years after the night of St. Bartholomew, troubled 
with evil dreams. His brother Henry, who had been for a twelvemonth 
the elected king of Poland, fled secretly from the rude shores of the Vis- 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 265 

tula to take possession of the fairer crown of France. Henry III was a 
weak and luxurious prince, without either assiduity or energy. Shut up 
with his favorites and pet dogs in the inmost apartments of the palace, he 
forgot his kingdom with its disturbances and miseries ; and when remorse 
at b.is sinful life, which was passed in lust and debauchery, seized upon him, 
he sought consolation in superstitious devotion, in pilgrimages and proces- 
sions, and in penance and flagellations. To bring the Huguenots to peace, 
so that he might be able to devote himself to the undisturbed enjoyment 
of the pleasures of his capital, Henry, immediately upon his accession, 
granted them freedom of conscience, and equal civil rights with the Cath- 
olics. Enraged at these concessions, which destroyed all the fruits of their 
previous exertions, the zealous Catholics, under the guidance of Henry of 
Guise, and with the cognizance of Philip II of Spain, concluded the Holy 
League for the preservation of the Church in all its ancient rights. Many 
members were won to this alliance by the insinuations of the priests and 
monks, and by the intrigues of the Jesuits. The fickle and faithless king, 
disturbed by this movement, united himself with the Catholic zealots, de- 
clared himself the head of the League, and curtailed the religious peace. 
The duke of Anjou, Henry's younger brother, died a few years after 
this ; and as he, like the king, was without children, the Bourbon, Henry 
of Navarre (Beam), became the nearest heir to the throne. This pros- 
pect of a Protestant king alarmed the Catholic part of France, and gave 
fresh vigor to the League. The weak king was obliged to recall all trea- 
ties with the Huguenots, to announce the extirpation of heresy, and to 
approve the arrangements of the League. Henry of Guise, at first, only 
entertained the notion of putting aside the Protestant successor to the 
throne, who had been excommunicated by the pope ; but his courage rose 
with his increasing power ; he soon made attempts upon the crown himself, 
whilst, as a pretended descendant of the Carlovingi, he asserted the supe- 
riority of his claims to those of the reigning family. A conspiracy was 
formed in Paris (where the citizens were kept in a state of perpetual agi- 
tation by fanatical popular orators) against the freedom or life of the king ; 
and when Henry III attempted to defend himself by calling in Swiss troops, 
the agitation burst into rebellion. The people assembled themselves around 
the Guises, who, against the king's commands, were entering the capital, 
barricaded the streets and bridges, and commenced a furious contest with 
single divisions of the troops. The trembling king fled with his favorites 
to Chartres, and left his capital in the hands of his rival. Henry of Guise 
now possessed the same power that had belonged to the mayors of the pal- 
ace in the time of the Merovingi. But even this position did not satisfy 
the ambitious party leader. An assembly of Estates, convoked at Blois, 
where the adherents of the Guises were the strongest party, proposed not 
only to deprive the Bourbons of their right to the throne and to extermin- 
ate Calvinism, but to change the government, and to place the whole pow- 
er in the hands of the Guises. At this crisis, Henry hazarded a bold 
stroke ; he had the duke of Guise and his brother, the Cardinal Louis, 
assassinated, and imprisoned the most influential leaders of their party. 
This proceeding produced a fearful commotion in the whole nation : in 
Paris, allegiance was renounced to the God-forsaken king, who had over- 
thrown the pillar of Catholicism ; the pope fulminated an excommunication 
at him ; revolutionary movements took place in many quarters. Despised 



266 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and forsaken, Henry III saw no other way to safety open to him than an 
alliance with Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots. A frightful civil 
war burst out afresh, but fortune was hostile to the League. Henry had 
already laid siege to Paris, and threatened to reduce the faithless town to 
a heap of ruins, when the knife of a fanatical monk put an end to his life. 
Henry III the last Valofe, died on the first of August, 1589, after appoint- 
ing Henry of Navarre and Beam his successor. 

Henry IV had still a long struggle to sustain before his head was orna- 
mented by the crown of France. Mayenne, the brother of the murdered 
Guise, placed himself at the head of the League, and offered a vehement 
resistance to the Calvinistic claimant of the throne. Philip II sought to 
turn the confusion to his own advantage, and commanded his able general, 
Alexander of Parma, to march his forces from the Netherlands into France. 
Henry tried for a long time to get possession of his inheritance by the 
sword : he laid siege to Paris, and caused the citizens to feel all the hor- 
rors of famine ; but he at length became convinced that he never could 
gain peaceable possession of the French throne by battles and victories. 
He thought the crown of France was worth a mass, and went over to the 
Catholic Church in the cathedral of St. Denis, and by this means destroyed 
the power of the League. Paris now threw open its gates, and welcomed 
the bringer of peace with acclamations. The pope recalled the anathema ; 
the heads of the League concluded a, treaty with him, and Philip II, a 
short time before his death, consented to the peace of Vervins. After for- 
eign and domestic tranquillity had been thus restored to France, the king, 
by the Edict of Nantes, conferred upon the Calvinists liberty of conscience, 
the full rights of citizenship, and many other privileges ; such as separate 
chambers in the courts of justice, several castles, with all their warlike mu- 
nitions (La Rochelle, Montauban, Nismes, &c.) and freedom from episco- 
pal jurisdiction. He next sought to heal the wounds that had been inflicted 
on the land by the war, by encouraging agriculture, trade and commerce ; 
and had the economy of the state and the taxation admirably arranged by 
his friend and minister, Sully. He won for himself the warmest affections 
of his people by his genuine French character, and by his cordial and 
cheerful disposition. His solitary failing, his too great love for woman, 
was a merit in the eyes of the French. But fanaticism was only slumber- 
ing. Henry's tolerant disposition towards heretics awakened it. As he 
was meditating the vast plan (with the approval of the Dutch Union and 
other European powers) of founding a Christian community with equal 
privileges for the three Confessions, and by this means destroying the su- 
premacy of the royal house of Hapsburg, he fell beneath the knife of Ra- 
vaillac. 

THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 

The first part of the reign of the weak Louis XIII, who only numbered 
nine years at the time of his father's murder, was full of mischief for 
France. During the time the queen-mother, Mary of Medicis, conducted 
the government, Italian favorites exerted a great influence upon affairs, 
enriched themselves at the expense of the French, and irritated the pride 
of the nation by their insolence. Enraged at this, the nobility took up 
arms, and filled the country with rebellion and the tumult of war. When 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 267 

at length Louis XIII himself, upon coming of age, assumed the govern- 
ment, he indeed consented that the foreign favorites should be removed 
by murder and execution, and banished his mother from the court ; but the 
people gained little by it. The new favorites in whom the king, who pos- 
sessed no self-reliance, reposed his confidence, were not distinguished 
from the former either by virtue or talents ; for this reason, both the no- 
bles of the kingdom and the Huguenots, who felt themselves injured in 
their rights, again rose against the government, and threw the land into 
fresh confusion. This melancholy condition of affairs Avas only put an end 
to when Cardinal Richelieu was admitted into the state council, and intro- 
duced a complete change of system, (a. d. 1624.) 

This great statesman maintained an almost absolute sway in the court 
and in the kingdom for nearly eighteen years, though the king never loved 
him, the queen and the nobility were constantly attempting his overthrow, 
and a succession of cabals and conspiracies were plotted against him. 
The greatness of his mind triumphed over all obstacles. Richelieu's ef- 
forts were directed towards the extension and rounding of the French ter- 
ritory without, and the increasing and strengthening of the royal power 
within. In furtherance of the former of these objects, he sought to weak- 
en the house of Hapsburg, and for this purpose entered into alliances with 
the enemies of the emperor not only in Germany, in the time of the Thirty 
Years' War, but in Italy and other places ; and, to attain his aims in re- 
gard to the latter object, he neglected to call together the estates of the 
kingdom, broke the power of the nobility and of the independent officials 
and judges in the parliament, and attacked the Huguenots, who had form- 
ed an almost independent alliance in the south and west of France, with 
their own fortresses, and an effective militia, and great privileges. After 
conquering the most important of the Huguenot towns (Nismes, Montauban, 
Montpellier), and destroying their fortifications, in three wars, and when 
he had at length taken Rochelle, the bulwark of the Calvinists, after a siege 
of fourteen months, he proceeded to deprive the Protestants of their polit- 
ical privileges and of their independent position, but granted them, by the 
Edict of Nismes, liberty of conscience and equal rights with Catholic sub- 
jects. The turbulent nobles had been deprived of their greatest support 
by the disarming of the Huguenots, and the war could now be prosecuted 
against them with success. The most daring were got rid of by banish- 
ment and the executioner. Even the queen-mother and her second son, 
and the duke of Orleans, who attempted to procure the fall of Richelieu, 
were compelled to leave the country, and the confidential friend of the lat- 
ter, Henry, duke of Montmorency, a scion of one of the most renowned 
families of France, died at Toulouse by the hand of the executioner. A 
similar fate awaited the count of Cinq-Mars and his friend, De Thou, a 
few years later, when in conjunction with the queen and some of the nobles, 
they formed a conspiracy against the mighty cardinal. The parliament, 
the upper tax-offices and courts of justice, which, like the king, claimed an 
independent authority on account of their offices being hereditary, were 
weakened by the establishment of extraordinary courts and higher officers, 
who were dependent upon the minister. 

In the year 1642, died Richelieu, hated and feared by the nobility and 
the people, but admired by cotemporaries and posterity ; Louis XIII, a 
prince without either great virtues or great vices, and dependent upon 



268 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

every one who could either acquire his favor or render himself formidable to 
him, soon followed him. His widow, Anne of Austria, the proud and am- 
bitious sister of the king of Spain, undertook the government during the 
minority of his son. But as she reposed the whole of her confidence on 
the Italian, Mazarin, the inheritor of the office and the principles of Rich 
elieu, she met with vehement opposers among the nobility and in the par- 
liament, who attempted to regain their former power and position. The 
people, in the hope of being relieved of some of their heavy taxes, and 
guided by the clever and dexterous Cardinal Retz, embraced their cause, 
with the intent of compelling the court to remove Mazarin, and to adopt a 
different plan of government. This gave occasion to a furious civil war, 
which is known in history as " the War of the Fronde." Mazarin was 
obliged to leave the country for a short time, but so immovable were the 
favor and confidence of the queen, that he governed France from Cologne 
as he had formerly done in Paris. But his banishment did not last long. 
When Louis XIV had attained the years of kingly majority, and Turenne, 
the commander of the royal troops, had conquered his rival, the great Con- 
de, the general of the insurgents, in the suburb of St. Antoine, Mazarin 
returned in triumph. His solemn entry into Paris was a sign that abso- 
lute power had gained the victory, and that henceforth the will of the mon- 
arch was to be law. Mazarin enjoyed for six years longer the greatest re- 
spect in France and Europe ; Cardinal Retz, the ingenious composer of the 
Memoirs of this war, was obliged to leave his country, after he had pre- 
viously expiated his turbulent conduct in the prison of Vincennes ; Conde, 
poor and unhappy, wandered among the Spaniards, till the grace of his 
master allowed him to return and take possession of his estates ; Maza- 
rin's nieces, Italian females without name or position, were endowed with 
the wealth of France, and sought for as brides by the greatest nobles ; and 
the members of parliament adapted themselves without opposition to the 
directions they received from above, after Louis had appeared before them 
in his boots and riding whip, and demanded their obedience with threats. 
Louis now gave effect to his principle, " I am the state" (Vetat, c'est moi). 
The peace of the Pyrenees with Spain was the last work of Mazarin. 
He died shortly after, (March 9, 1661,) leaving enormous wealth behind 
him. His death took place at the moment when Louis began to grow 
weary of him, and was longing to seize the reins of government in his own 
powerful grasp. 

After the death of Mazarin, Louis XIV, in whom kingly absolutism 
attained its highest point, appointed no prime minister, but surrounded 
himself with men who merely executed his will, and whose highest aim was 
to increase and spread abroad the renown, glory, and honor of the king. 
In the choice of these men, Louis displayed judgment and the talents of 
a ruler. His ministers, especially Colbert, the great promoter of French 
industry, manufactures, and trades, as well as his generals, Turenne, 
Condd, Luxemburg, and the engineer, Vauban, as much surpassed, in tal- 
ent, acquirements, and dexterity, the statesmen and soldiers of all other 
countries, as Louis XIV himself was preeminent among the princes of his 
age, in the greatness of his power, in commanding presence, and kingly 
dignity. He rendered the age of Louis XIV the most illustrious in the 
French annals, and caused the Court of Versailles (the seat of the royal 
residence) to be everywhere praised and admired as the model of taste, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 269 

of refinement, and of a distinguished mode of living. But as he sought 
nothing but the gratification of his own selfishness, of his own love of 
pleasure, of his pride, and of his desire for renown and splendor, his reign 
became the grave of freedom, of morals, of firmness of character, and of 
manly sentiments. Court favor was the end of every effort, and flattery 
the surest road to arrive at it ; virtue and merit met with little acknowledg- 
ment. 

It was during the last three decades of the seventeenth century that 
France stood at the culminating point of her power abroad and of her 
prosperity at home, so that the flattering chronicles of those days describ- 
ed the age of Louis XIV as the golden age of France. Trade and indus- 
try received a prodigious development by the care of Colbert ; the woollen 
and silk manufactories, the stocking and cloth weaving, which flourished 
in the southern towns, brought prosperity, the maritime force increased, 
colonies were planted, and the productions of France were carried by 
trading companies to all quarters of the globe. 

The court of France displayed a magnificence that had never before 
been witnessed. The palace of Versailles, and the gardens which were 
adorned with statues, fountains, and alleys of trees, were a model of taste 
for all Europe , fgtes of all kinds, jovial parties, ballets, fireworks, the 
opera and the theatre, in the service of which the first intellects in France 
employed their talents, followed upon each other in attractive succession ; 
poets, artists, men of learning, all were eager to do honor to a prince 
who rewarded with a liberal hand every kind of talent that conduced 
either to his amusement or to his glory. Sumptuous buildings, as the 
Hospital of Invalides, costly libraries, magnificent productions of the press, 
vast establishments for the natural sciences, academies, and similar institu- 
tions, exalted the glory and renown of the great Louis. The refined air 
of society, the polished tone, the easy manners of the nobility and cour- 
tiers, subdued Europe more permanently and extensively than the weapons 
of the army. The French fashions, language, and literature, bore sway 
from this time in all circles of the higher classes. The consequences of 
the French Academy by Richelieu were a development of the language, 
style, and literary composition, that was extremely favorable to the diffusion 
of the literature. The language, so particularly adapted for social inter- 
course, for conversation, and for epistolary writing, remained from hence- 
forth the language of diplomacy, of courts, and of the higher classes ; and 
although the literary productions are wanting in strength, elevation, and 
nature, — the polish of the form, and the ease and felicity of the style, 
gave French taste the supremacy in Europe, and strengthened the French 
people in the agreeable delusion that they were the most civilized of 
nations. 

But however flatterers may sing the praises of the age of Louis XIV, 
one spot of shame remains ineradicable — the persecution of the Huguenots. 
The French king believed that the unity of the Church was inseparable 
from a perfect monarchy. For this reason he oppressed the Jansenists, a 
Catholic party, which first contended against the Jesuits, and afterwards 
against the head of the Church himself; and he compelled the Calvinists, 
by the most severe persecutions, either to fly, or to return into the bosom 
of the Catholic Church. Colbert, who esteemed the Huguenots as active 
and industrious citizens, prevented for some time these violent measures ; 



270 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

but the suggestions of the royal confessor, La Chaise, the zeal for conver- 
sion of the affectedly pious Madame Maintenon, who had been first a 
tutoress of the court, and afterwards Louis' trusted wife,, and the cruelty 
of Louvois, the minister of war, at length triumphed over the advice of 
Colbert. A long succession of oppressive proceedings against the Hugue- 
nots prepared the way for the great stroke. The number of their church- 
es was restricted, and their worship confined to a few of the principal 
towns. Louis' paroxysms of repentance and devotion were always the 
sources of fresh oppressions to the Calvinistic heretics, by whose conver 
sion he thought to expiate his own crimes. They were gradually excluded 
from office and dignities ; converts were favored ; in this way, the ambitious 
were enticed, the poor were won by money, which flowed from the king's 
conversion chest, and from the liberal gifts of the pious illustrious ; a wide 
field was opened to the zeal for proselytism by the enactment that the con- 
version of children under age was valid. Families were divided, children 
were torn from their parents and brought up as Catholics. Court and 
clergy, the heartless and eloquent bishop Bossuet at their head, set all 
means in motion to establish the ecclesiastical unity of France. When 
all other means of conversion failed, came the dragonades. At the com- 
mand of Louvois, the cavalry took possession of the southern provinces, 
and established their quarters in the dwellings of the Huguenots. The 
prosperity of the industrious citizens, whose substance was devoured by 
the dragoons, soon disappeared. The bad treatment by these booted mis- 
sionaries, who quitted the houses of the apostates to fall in doubled num- 
bers upon those who remained stedfast, operated more effectually than all 
the enticements of the court or the seductions of the priests. Thousands 
fled abroad that they might preserve their faith upon a foreign soil. At 
last came the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, October, 1685. The 
religious worship of the Calvinists was now forbidden, their churches were 
torn down, their schools closed, their preachers banished from the land ; 
when the emigration increased to a formidable degree, this was forbidden, 
under punishment of the galleys and forfeiture of goods. But despite all 
threats and prohibitions, upwards of 500,000 French Calvinists carried 
their industry, their faith, arid their courage to Protestant lands. Switz- 
erland, the Palatinate of the Rhine, Brandenburg, Holland, and England, 
offered an asylum to the persecuted. The silk manufacture and stocking- 
weaving were carried abroad by the fugitive Huguenots. Flatterers ex- 
tolled the king as the exterminator of heresy, but the courage of the 
peasants in Cevennes, and the number of Huguenots who contented them- 
selves with private devotion, show how little religious oppression conduced 
to the desired end. For when the persecution was carried into the distant 
valleys of the Cevennes, where Waldenses and Calvinists lived, according 
to ancient custom, in the simplicity of the faith, the oppressors met with 
an obstinate resistance. Persecution called forth the courage of its victims, 
oppression urged zeal into fanaticism. Led on by a young mechanic, the 
Camisards, clad in a linen frock, rushed " with naked breast against the 
marshals." A frightful civil war filled the peaceful valleys of Cevennes ; 
fugitive priests, in the gloom of the forest, exhorted the evangelical breth- 
ren to a desperate defense, till, at length, the persecutors grew weary. 
Nearly two millions of the Huguenots remained without rights and with- 
out religious worship. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 271 



THE LAST DAYS OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHY— THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Louis XV at first possessed the affections of his people to such a degree, 
that he was named the ' Much-beloved ; ' and when he was attacked by a 
dangerous illness in Metz, the whole land went into mourning, and his re- 
covery was celebrated by the greatest rejoicings. But this love gradually 
changed into hatred and contempt when the king gave himself up to the 
most shameless debaucheries, and surrendered the government of the coun- 
try, the command of the army, and the decision upon points of law and 
state policy, to the companions of his orgies and the ministers of his lusts 
and pleasures ; and when mistresses, without morals or decency, ruled the 
court and the empire. Among these women, none possessed greater or 
more enduring influence than the Marchioness of Pompadour, who guided 
the whole policy of France for a period of twenty years, filled the most 
important offices with her favorites, decided upon peace or war, and dispo- 
sed of the revenues of the state as she did of her private purse, so that, 
after a life passed in luxury and splendor, she left millions behind her. 
She and her creatures encouraged Louis' excesses and love of pleasure, 
that he might plunge continually deeper in the pool of vice, and leave to 
them the government of the state. For the rest, the Pompadour used her 
position and her influence with a certain dignity, and with tact and discre- 
tion ; but when the countess Du Barry, a woman from the very dregs of 
the people, occupied her place, the court lost all authority and respect. 

When Louis XV, in consequence of his excesses, was carried off in the 
midst of his sins by a frightful distemper, the treasury was exhausted, the 
country in debt, credit gone, and the people oppressed by their burdens. 

It was under these melancholy circumstances, that an absolute throne 
descended to a prince who certainly possessed the best of hearts, but a 
weak understanding; who was good-natured enough to wish to relieve the 
condition of the people, but possessed neither strength nor intellect for effi- 
cient measures. This prince was Louis XVI. Weak and indulgent, he 
allowed the frivolity and extravagance of his brothers, the count of Pro- 
vence (afterwards Louis XVIII), and the count of Artois (Charles X); 
and permitted his wife, Marie Antoinette, the highly-accomplished daugh- 
ter of Maria Theresa, to interfere in matters of state, and to exert a con- 
siderable influence upon the court and government. The queen, by her 
pride and haughty bearing, incurred the dislike of the people, so that they 
ascribed every unpopular measure to her influence, and put a bad construc- 
tion upon every liberty she allowed herself in private. 

The prevailing want of money, and the disordered state of the revenue, 
could only be remedied by including the nobility and clergy in the taxation, 
by large reforms in the whole system of government, like those proposed 
by Turgot and Malesherbes, and by order and economy in the expenditure. 
But Louis XVI had neither strength nor resolution to carry out such de- 
cisive measures ; and as for economy, the extravagant court of Versailles 
would not listen to it. The Genevese banker, Necker, who undertook the 
management of the finances after Turgot, was as little in a position as his 
predecessor to reduce the disorder in the state economy; and when, upon 
the occasion of a loan, he exposed the financial condition of France in a 
pamphlet, he drew upon himself the displeasure of the court and the aris- 



272 AMEEICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

tocracy to such a degree, that he was obliged to resign his office. This 
happened at a time when the American war had increased the scarcity of 
money, and aroused the feeling of liberty and republicanism in France. 
It was, therefore, a great misfortune for the French monarchy, that just at 
this critical moment the frivolous and extravagant Calonne undertook the 
management of the finances. This man departed from the frugal plan of 
Necker, acceded to the wishes of the queen and the necessities of the prin- 
ces and courtiers, and deluded the world with high-sounding promises of 
putting an end to all difficulties. The most splendid festivals were cele- 
brated in Versailles, and the talents of Calonne loudly extolled. But his 
means, also, were soon exhausted. 

The popular favorite Necker, was a second time summoned, in 1788, to 
the ministry. He first allayed the irritation by repealing resolutions against 
the parliament, and then made preparations for summoning the Estates. 
Owing to this, there soon arose a division between him and the parliament 
and Notables, whom he had again consulted. The latter were of opinion 
that the new assembly should conform itself, both as to the number of rep- 
resentatives and the mode of procedure, to the Estates of 1614, while Neck- 
er wished to allow a double representation to the third Estate, and that they 
should vote individually, and not as a class ; a view that was supported by 
some of the ablest writers of the nation in a multitude of pamphlets. (Ab- 
be Sieyes : ' What is the third Estate ? ') Necker's opinion triumphed. 
An order of the king fixed the number of noble and ecclesiastical members 
at 300 each, that of the citizens at 600, and appointed the following May 
as the time of opening. Necker was the hero of the day, but he was not 
the pilot of the ship, he only ' drove the wind. ' 

In the beginning of May 1789, the deputies of the three Estates, and 
among them some of the ablest and most accomplished men of France, as- 
sembled at Versailles. The third Estate, irritated by the neglect of the 
court at the opening and during the audience, came to a rupture with the 
two privileged Estates at the first sitting, when the latter required that the 
Estates should carry on their debates separately, whilst the former insisted 
upon a general council and individual votes. After a contest of some weeks, 
the third Estate, which had chosen the astronomer, Bailli, the freedom-in- 
spired representative of Paris, for its President, but which was guided by 
the superior talents of Sieyes and Mirabeau, declared itself a National As- 
sembly, upon which it was joined by portions of the other Estates. The 
Assembly at once passed the resolution of allowing the levying of the pres- 
ent taxes only so long as the Estates should remain undissolved. This pro- 
ceeding disturbed the court, and inspired it with the thought of granting a 
constitution to the nation, and thus rendering the estates unnecessary. For 
this purpose, a royal sitting was appointed, and the hall of assembly closed 
for a few days. Upon the intelligence of this, the deputies proceeded to 
the empty saloon of the Tennis Court, and raised their hands in a solemn 
vow not to separate till they had given a new constitution to the nation. 
When this Court also was closed, the meetings were held in the church of 
St. Louis. The royal sitting took place on the 23d of June. But neither 
the speech of the king, nor the sketch of the new constitution, afforded due 
satisfaction, and they were consequently received with coldness. After 
the termination of the sitting, Louis dissolved the Assembly. The nobility 
and clergy obeyed, but the citizen class retained their seats, and when the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 273 

master of the ceremonies called upon them to obey, Mirabeau exciaimed: 
{ Tell your master that we sit here by the power of the people, and that we 
are only to be driven out by the bayonet ! ' The weak king did not ven- 
ture to encounter this resolute resistance by force, but rather advised the 
nobility and clergy to join the citizens. 

The government of the city was made over to a democratic municipality, 
at the head of which stood Bailli, as mayor. The court, alarmed at the 
increasing ferment, determined upon retiring to Versailles with a few regi- 
ments of German and Swiss troops. In this proceeding, the leaders of the 
movement believed they saw the purpose of some act of violence, and made 
use of it accordingly to excite fresh irritation. The intelligence was spread 
abroad in Paris, that Necker had been suddenly dismissed and banished 
from the country, and a favorite of the queen placed in his office. This 
was interpreted as the first step in the contemplated outrage, and proved 
the signal for a general rise. Crowds of the citizens, wearing the newly- 
invented national cockade, (blue, white, and red,) paraded through the 
streets, the alarm-bell was sounded, the work-shops of the gunsmiths plun- 
dered ; tumult and confusion reigned everywhere. On the 14th of July, 
after the populace had taken 30,000 stand of arms and some cannon from 
the Hospital des Invalides, took place the storming of the Bastille, an old 
castle that served as a state prison. The governor, Delaunay, and seven 
of the garrison, fell victims to the popular rage ; their heads were carried 
through the streets upon poles ; and many men who were hated as aristo- 
crats were put to death. The banished Necker was recalled, and his en- 
trance into the towns and villages of France was celebrated as that of a 
hero crowned with victory. In this joyous reception of the minister, tho 
people displayed their enthusiasm for liberty and their hatred to the court 
and the aristocracy. Lafayette, the champion of the liberty of America, 
was appointed commander of the National Guard, and whilst the king re- 
turned to Paris, and exhibited himself to the assembled people from the 
balcony of the council-house with the cockade in his hat, the count of Ar- 
tois, and many nobles of the first rank, as Conde*, Polignac, left their coun- 
try in mournful anticipation of coming events. 

Since the storming of the Bastille," the laws and magistrates had lost their 
authority in France, and the power lay in the hands of the populace. The 
country people no longer paid their tithes, taxes, and feudal dues to the 
clergy and nobles, but took vengeance for the long oppression they had 
suffered, by destroying the manorial castles. When intelligence of these 
proceedings spread abroad, it was proposed in the National Assembly, that 
the upper classes should prove to the people by their actions, that they were 
willing to lighten their burdens, and that, with this purpose, they should 
renounce, of their own free will, all the inherited feudal privileges of the 
middle ages. This proposal excited a storm of enthusiasm and self-renun- 
ciation. None would be behind-hand. Estates, towns, provinces, each 
strove for the honor of making the greatest sacrifices for the common good. 
This was the celebrated 4th of August, when, in one feverish and excited 
session, all tithes, labor-dues, manorial rights, corporate bodies, etc., were 
abolished, the soil was declared free, and the equality of all citizens of the 
state before the law and in regard to taxation was decreed. These reso- 
lutions, and the necessary laws and arrangements required for their reduc- 
tion to practice, which were gradually adopted, produced in a short time a 
18* 



274 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

complete revolution in all existing conditions. The Church lost her pos- 
sessions and was subjected to the state ; monasteries and religious orders 
were dissolved, and the clergy paid by the state, the bishoprics newly reg- 
ulated, and religious freedom established. Priests were required to swear 
allegiance, like officers of state, to the new constitution; but as the pope 
forbade it, the greater number refused the oath, which was the occasion of 
the French clergy being divided into sworn and unsworn priests ; the lat- 
ter lost their offices and were exposed to all kinds of persecutions, but en- 
joyed the confidence of the faithful among the people. The noble forfeit- 
ed not only his privileges and the greater part of his income, but he also 
lost the external distinctions of his rank, by the abolition of all titles, coats 
of arms, orders, etc. Upon the principle of equality, all Frenchmen were 
to be addressed as ' citizens.' For the purpose of annihilating every rem- 
nant of the ancient system, France received a new geographical division 
into departments and arrondissements ; a new system of judicature with 
jurymen ; equality of weights, measures, and standards ; and lastly, a con- 
stitutional government, in which the privileges of royalty were limited, and 
the legislative power committed to a single chamber, with a universal right 
of suffrage. 

On the 5th of October, an immense multitude, chiefly of women, pro- 
ceeded to Versailles to demand from the king relief from the scarcity of 
bread, and a return of the court to Paris. The king first attempted to 
pacify them by a conciliatory answer. But a wing of the palace was 
stormed during the night, and the guard put to the sword ; the arrival of 
Lafayette, with the National Guard, prevented any further mischief. Up- 
on the following day, the king was obliged to consent to proceed to Paris 
with his family, under the escort of this frightful crew, and to take up his 
residence in the Tuileries, which had for many years remained unoccupied. 
Shortly after, the National Assembly also followed, for whom the riding- 
school in the neighborhood of the palace had been prepared. The power 
now fell more and more into the hands of the lower class, who were kept 
in perpetual excitement by journalists and popular leaders, and were goad- 
ed to hatred against the court and the " aristocrats." 

On the day of the year in which the Bastille was taken, a grand fed- 
erative festival was arranged in the Champ de Mars (July 14, 1790). 
It must have been a moving spectacle, when Talleyrand, at the head of 
300 priests, clothed in white, and girded with tri-colored scarfs, performed 
the consecration of the banner at the altar of the country ; when Lafay- 
ette, in the name of the National Guard, the president of the National As- 
sembly, and, at length, the king himself, vowed fidelity to the Constitution ; 
when the innumerable multitude raised their hands aloft and repeated after 
him the oath of citizenship, and the queen herself, carried away by enthu- 
siasm, raised the Dauphin in the air and joined in the acclamations. This 
was the last day of happiness for the king, whose situation after this grew 
constantly worse. Necker, no longer equal to the difficulties, left France 
and retired to Switzerland. Mirabeau, won over by the court, opposed 
farther encroachments upon the kingly power with the whole of his elo- 
quence, inasmuch as he believed a constitutional monarchy and not a re- 
public to be the best government for France. Unfortunately for the king, 
this great man died, in his forty-second year, of a sickness brought on 
by his disorderly life and by over-exertion. A splendid funeral ceremony 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 275 

gave evidence of the influence of the man in whom sank the last strong 
pillar of the throne. "Weak and unselfreliant as Louis XVI was, he now 
lost all firmness. By his refusal to receive a sworn priest as his confessor, 
or to declare the emigrants traitors, who were endeavoring from Coblentz 
to excite the European courts to a crusade against France, he excited a 
suspicion that he was not honestly a supporter of the constitution he had 
sworn to maintain, and not altogether ignorant of the efforts of the emi- 
grants. The more this suspicion gained ground with the people, the more 
perilous became the position of the king. At this crisis, Louis embraced 
the desperate resolution of secretly flying to the northern frontier of his 
kingdom. BouiU.6, a resolute general in Lorraine, was let into the secret, 
and promised to support the scheme with his troops. Leaving behind him 
a letter, in which he protested against all the acts which had been forced 
from him since October, 1789, the king happily escaped, with his family, 
from Paris in a large carriage. But the clumsily executed project never- 
theless miscarried. Louis was recognized in St. Menehould by the post- 
master, Drouet, stopped by the militia at Varennes, and led back to Paris 
at the command of the National Assembly, who sent three of their mem- 
bers, and among them, Potion, to receive the royal family. The suspension 
of the royal authority, which had already been pronounced by the Assem- 
bly, remained in force, till Louis proclaimed and swore to observe, the 
Constitution completed at the end of September. 

The attention of the government and the Assembly was particularly 
directed to the priests, who had refused the oath, and to the emigrants. 
Both were endeavoring to overthrow the existing order of things: the 
former by exciting hatred and discontent among the French people ; the 
latter by making military preparations at Coblentz, and endeavoring to 
stir up foreign powers to an armed invasion of France. The Assembly 
therefore determined upon seeking out and arresting the unsworn priests, 
and declaring the emigrants traitors and conspirators, and punishing them 
by the loss of their estates and incomes. The king put his veto upon both 
these resolutions, and prevented their execution. This refusal was ascribed 
to the secret hopes, entertained by the court, of assistance from foreign 
powers and of the triumph of the emigrants, and thus the temper of the 
people grew continually more hostile. It was also known that the queen 
was in correspondence with her brother, the emperor of Austria, and that 
she looked for support and safety to the emigrant nobility. Neither was 
it any longer doubtful that war must soon break out, since the emperor of 
Austria and the king of Prussia, after a conference in Pillnitz (August, 
1791,) were making preparations, and demanded of the French govern 
ment not only to make befitting indemnification to the German princes 
and nobles who had suffered loss by the abolition of tithes and feudal bur 
dens, and to restore the province of Avignon, that had been wrested from 
the pope, but to arrange the government upon the plan proposed by the 
king himself in June, 1789. These demands were followed by a declara- 
tion of war against Austria and Prussia on the part of the French govern- 
ment, to which the king yielded his consent with tears. For the purpose 
of securing the capital and the National Assembly against any attack it 
was resolved to summon 20,000 of the federates from the southern prov- 
inces, under pretense of celebrating the festival of the Bastille, and to 
commit the defense of Paris to them. But Louis refused his consent to 



276 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

this resolution also. Upon this, the Girondist ministers laid down their 
offices, after Madame Roland had reproached and reprimanded the king in 
a letter that was soon in the hands of every body. These proceedings 
increased the irritation to such an extent that it became easy for the re- 
publicans to excite a popular insurrection. On the 20th of June, the an- 
niversary of the meeting in the Tennis Court, the terrible mob, armed 
with pikes, marched from the suburbs, under the conduct of the brewer, 
Santerre, and the butcher, Legendre, into the Tuileries, to force the king 
to confirm the decree against the unsworn priests and for the summoning 
of the National Guard. But here also Louis remained firm. He defied 
for several hours all threats and dangers, and endured the insolence of 
the mob, who even placed the red Jacobin cap upon his head and gave 
him wine to drink, with the courage of a martyr. The rather tardy arri- 
val of Petion with the National Guard at length freed him from his peril- 
ous position. 

At midnight on the 10th of August, a fearful mob proceeded to the 
Hcitel de Ville, for the purpose of establishing a new democratic munici- 
pality, and then marched to the royal palace, which was defended by 900 
Swiss, and the Parisian National Guard under the command of Mandat. 
The honest Mandat was resolved to check the advancing masses, which 
were ever assuming a more menacing aspect, by force ; his destruction was 
consequently resolved upon by the democrats. He was commanded to 
appear at the HStel de Ville, and assassinated on his way thither ; upon 
which the National Guard, uncertain what to do, and disgusted by the 
presence of a number of nobles in the palace, for the most part dispersed. 
The mob constantly assumed a more threatening aspect ; cannon were 
turned upon the palace, the pikemen pressed forwards upon every entrance, 
the people loudly demanded the deposition of the king. At this crisis, 
Louis suffered himself to be persuaded to seek for protection with his 
family in the hall of the National Assembly, where they passed sixteen 
hours in a narrow closet. The king had scarcely left the palace, before 
the tumultuous multitude pressed forward more violently ; the Swiss guard 
maintained a gallant resistance, and defended the entrance. When the 
report of musketry was heard in the adjoining Assembly, the indignant 
representatives of the people compelled the intimidated king to give his 
guard orders to cease firing. By this order, the faithful defenders of 
monarchy were doomed to destruction. Scarcely had the furious mob ob- 
served that the enemy's fire had ceased, before they stormed the palace, 
slaughtered those they found in it, and destroyed the furniture. Nearly 
5,000 men, and among them, 700 Swiss, fell in the struggle, or died after- 
wards, the victims of the popular fury. In the mean time, the National 
Assembly, upon the proposal of Vergniaud, embraced the resolution " to 
suspend the royal authority, to place the king and his family under control, 
to give the prince a tutor, and to assemble a National Convention." The 
Temple, a strong fortress erected by the Knights Templars, soon enclosed 
the imprisoned royal family. 

After the suspension of the king, a new ministry was formed by the 
National Assembly, in which, by the side of the Girondist, Roland, and 
others, the terrible Danton held office as minister of justice. This min- 
istry, and the new Common Council of Paris which had appointed itself, 
and which, after the 10th of August, had strengthened itself by members 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 277 

whc might be depended upon as hesitating at no wickedness, now possessed 
the whole power. The Municipal Council ordered the police of the capital 
to be conducted by pikeraen, and the prisons were quickly filled with the 
' suspected ' and ' aristocrats.' It was now that the frightful resolution 
was matured of getting rid of the opponents of the new order of things 
by a bloody tribunal, and of suppressing all resistance by terror. After 
the recusant priests had been slaughtered by hundreds in the monasteries 
and prisons, the dreadful days of September were commenced. From the 
2d to the 7th of September, bands of hired murderers and villains were 
collected round the prisons. Twelve of them acted as jurymen and judge, 
the others as executioners. The imprisoned, with the exception of a few 
whose names were marked upon a list, were put to death by this inhuman 
crew under a semblance of judicial proceedings. Nearly 3,000 human 
beings were either put to death singly, or slaughtered in masses, by these 
wretches, who received a daily stipend from the Common Council for their 
1 labors.' Among the murdered was the princess Lamballe, the friend of 
the queen ; a troop of pikemen carried her head upon a pole to the Temple, 
and held it before Marie Antoinette's window. The example of the capi- 
tal was imitated in many of the departments. The barbarous destruction 
of all statues, coats of arms, incriptions, and other memorials of a former 
period, formed the conclusion of the August and September days, which 
were the transition period between the French monarchy and republic. 
The autumnal equinox was distinguished as the commencement of the reign 
of liberty and equality under the republican National Convention. 

Lafayette, who was serving with the northern army, and who, after the 
days of June, had returned to Paris on his own responsibility, for the pur- 
pose, if possible, of saving the king, was now summoned before the Nation- 
al Assembly to answer for his conduct. Convinced that the Jacobins were 
seeking for his death, he fled, with some friends who shared his sentiments, 
to Holland, that he might escape to America ; but he fell into the hands 
of enemies, who treated him like a prisoner of war, and allowed him to 
live for five years in the dungeons of Olmutz and Magdeburg. Talley- 
rand repaired to England, and thence to America, where he awaited better 
times. 

The new Assembly, which, under the influence of the Jacobins, had been 
elected by universal suffrage, was composed almost exclusively of repub- 
licans, but of different dispositions and opinions. 

The trial of the king, ' Louis Capet,' was one of the first proceedings 
of the National Convention. An iron safe had been discovered in a wall 
of the Tuileries, containing secret letters and documents, from which it 
was apparent that the French court had not only been in alliance with 
Austria and the emigrants, and had projected plans for overthrowing the 
Constitution that had been sworn to by Louis, but that it had also attempted 
to win over single members of the National Assembly (for example, Mira- 
beau), by annuities, bribery, and other means. It was upon this that the 
republicans, who would willingly have been quit of the king, founded a 
charge of treason and conspiracy against the country and the people. 
Louis, with the assistance of two advocates, to whom the noble Malasher- 
bes, of his own free impulse, associated himself, appeared twice before the 
Convention (11th and 26th December), but despite his own dignified bear- 
ing and defense, and despite the efforts of the Girondist party to have the 



278 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

sentence referred to a general assembly of the people, Louis -was con 
demned to death in a stormy meeting, by a small majority of five voices, 
January 17th, 1793. The party of the Mountain, where the advocate, 
Maximilian Robespierre, the former marquis St. Just, the frightful Danton, 
the lame Couthon, and the duke of Orleans, who had assumed the name 
of Citizen Egalite, were the leaders and chiefs, had left no means unat- 
tempted to produce this result by terror ; they would, nevertheless, have 
failed in their purpose, had they not carried a resolution beforehand in 
the Assembly, that a bare majority should be sufficient for a sentence of 
death, and not, as had heretofore been the custom, that two thirds of the 
votes should be necessary. The murder was thus veiled by a show of jus- 
tice. On the 21st of January, the unfortunate king ascended the scaffold 
in the square of the Revolution. The drums of the National Guard drown- 
ed his last words, and 'Robespierre's women' greeted his bloody head 
with the shout of ' Vive la Republique.' 

The Girondists, enraged at the increasing power of the populace in Paris, 
and the unbridled acts of violence committed by the mob, entertained the 
project of converting France into a republican union like North America, 
and by this means, destroying the supremacy of the capital. The Moun- 
tain and the Jacobins, who saw that this scheme would weaken the revolu- 
tionary power of France, and endanger the future of the democratic 
republic, commenced a war of life and death with the Girondists (also 
called Brissotins) upon this point. They reproached them with weaken- 
ing the power of the people, and destroying the republic at a moment when 
France was threatened with enemies both within and without ; and when 
all these attacks were ignominiously repulsed by the victorious eloquence 
of the Girondists, the savage Marat, in his ' Friend of the People,' call- 
ed upon the populace to rise against the moderate and lukewarm, and thus 
gave occasion to daily riots and tumults, which disturbed the capital and 
endangered life and property. 

The National Convention acquired greater unanimity by the exclusion 
of the Girondists and the moderates ; so that, from this time, it was enabled 
to develop a frightful power and activity. For the purpose of better 
superintending its multitudinous affairs, it resolved itself into commit- 
tees, of which the committee of public safety and that of public security 
acquired a frightful celebrity by the persecution of every one opposed to 
the new order of things. A revolutionary tribunal, consisting of twelve 
jurymen and five judges, to which that man of blood, Fouquier Tinville, 
occupied the office of public accuser, seconded the activity of these com- 
mittees by a cruel and summary administration of justice. At the head 
of the committee of public safety stood three men, whose names became 
the terror and horror of all just men ; the envious and malignant Robes- 
pierre, the bloodthirsty Couthon, and the frantic for republican liberty and 
equality, St. Just. They pursued their bloody object without regard to 
human life ; every thing that ventured to oppose their stormy course was 
unpityingly hurled down. Thus originated the terrible period of the years 
'93 and '94, which displayed itself in three different directions — within, 
by a cruel persecution of all citizens who were known as aristocrats or 
favorers of royality, and by a bloody suppression of insurrections in the 
south and west ; without, by a vigorous defensive war against innumerable 
enemies. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 279 

The former minister, Malasherbes, the members of the Constituent 
Assembly, Bailli, etc. all who belonged to the old monarchy, and who had 
not saved themselves by flight, died by the guillotine. Among them was 
the severely-tried queen, Marie Antoinette, who displayed, during her trial 
and at her execution, a firmness and strength of soul that was worthy of 
her education and her birth. Her son died beneath the cruel treatment 
of a Jacobin ; her daughter (the duchess of Angouleme) carried a gloomy 
spirit and an embittered heart with her to the grave. Louis XVI's pious 
sister, Elizabeth, also died on the scaffold ; the head of the profligate duke 
of Orleans, whom even the favor of Danton could not preserve from tho 
envy of Robespierre, had fallen before her own. 

The bloody rule of the Mountain party displayed itself in its most fright- 
ful excess in the suppression of the revolt against the reign of terror. 
When the inhabitants of Normandy and Bretagne rose in support of the 
excluded Girondists, the committee of public safety ordered the district 
between the Seine, the Loire, and the extreme sea-coast, to be visited with 
blood and slaughter by the terrible Carrier. This monster ordered, at 
Nantes, his victims to be drowned by hundreds in the Loire by means of 
ships with movable bottoms (iioyades.') The proceedings of the Jacobins in 
the cities of the south, Lyons, Marseilles, and Toulon, were still more 
barbarous. In the first of these towns Chalier, who had formerly been a 
priest, and now was president of the Jacobin club, excited the people by 
scandalous placards to plunder and destroy the ' aristocrats.' Irritated 
at this audacity, the respectable and wealthy citizens of Lyons, who were 
thus menaced in their lives and property, procured the execution of the 
demagogue, July 16th, 1793. This deed filled the Parisian terrorists with 
fury. A republican army appeared before the walls of the town, which, 
after an obstinate contest, was taken and fearfully punished. Fr£ron a 
companion of Marat, Fouche*, Couthon, and others, caused the inhabitants 
to be shot down in crowds, because the guillotine was too tedious in its ope- 
rations ; whole streets were either pulled down or blown into the air with 
gunpowder. The goods of the rich were divided among the populace ; 
Lyons was to be annihilated, reduced to a nameless common. The republi- 
cans raged in a similar way in Marseilles and Toulon. The royalists of 
Toulon had called upon the English for assistance, and surrendered to them 
their town and harbor. Confident in this assistance, and in the strength 
of their walls, the citizens of Toulon bade defiance to their republican ene- 
mies. But the army of sans- culottes, in which the young Corsican, Napo- 
leon Bonaparte, exhibited the first proofs of his military talents, overcame 
all obstacles. Toulon was stormed. The English, unable to maintain the 
town, set fire to the fleet, and left the unfortunate inhabitants to the fright- 
ful vengeance of the Convention. Here also the barbarous Fresron order- 
ed all the wealthy citzens to be shot, and their property to be divided 
among the sans-culottes. The respectable inhabitants fled, and abandoned 
the city to the mob and the galley-slaves. Tallien behaved in a similar 
manner in Bourdeaux ; and in the north of France, Lebon marched from 
place to place with a guillotine. 

But the fate of La Vendee was the most frightful. This singular 
country, situated in the west of France, was covered with woods, hedges, 
and thickets, and intersected by ditches. Here dwelt a contented people, 
in rural quietude, and in the simplicity of the olden time. The peasants 



280 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and tenants were attached to their landlords ; they loved the king ; and 
clung with reverence to their clergy and their church usages, which had 
been° dear and sacred to them from their youth. When the National 
Assembly slaughtered or expelled their unsworn priests, when the blood of 
their king was poured out on the guillotine, when the children of the peas- 
ants were called away by a general summons, to the army — then the en- 
raged people roused themselves to resistance and civil conflict. Under 
brave leaders, of undistinguished birth, as Charette, Stofflet, Cathelineau, 
who were joined by a few nobles, Laroche-Jaquelein, D'Elbe'e, etc., they at 
first drove back the republican army, conquered Saumur, and threatened 
Nantes. Upon this the Convention despatched a revolutionary army to La 
Vendee, under the command of Westermann and the frantic Jacobins, 
E-onsin and Rossignol. These fell upon the inhabitants like wild beasts, 
set fire to towns, villages, farms, and woods, attempted to overcome the 
resistance of the ' royalists ' by terror and outrage. But the courage of 
the Vendean peasants remained unsubdued. It was not until general 
Kleber marched against La Vendee with the brave troops who had returned 
to their homes after the surrender of Mayence, that this unfortunate peo- 
ple gradually succumbed to the attacks of their enemies, after the land 
had become a desert, and thousands of the inhabitants had saturated the soil 
with their blood. La Vendee, however, was only restored to tranquillity 
when Hoche, who was equally renowned for his courage and philanthropy, 
assumed the command of the army, offered peace to those who were weary 
of the contest, and reduced the refractory to submission. Stofflet and 
Charette were made prisoners of war, and shot. 

The rage and cruelty of the Jacobins at length excited the disgust of 
the chiefs of the Cordeliers, Danton and Camille Desmoulins. The for- 
mer, who was rather a voluptuary than a tyrant, and who was capable of 
kindly feelings, had grown weary of slaughter, and had retired into the coun- 
try for a few months with a young wife, to enjoy the wealth and happiness 
that the revolution had brought him ; but Camille Desmoulins, in his much 
read paper, ' The Old Cordelier,' applied the passages where the Roman 
historian, Tacitus, describes the tyranny and cruelty of Tiberius, so appro- 
priately to his own times, that the application to the three chiefs of the 
committee of safety and their laws against the suspected was not to be mis- 
taken. This enraged the Jacobins ; and when, about this time, several 
friends and adherents of Danton (Fabre d'Eglantine, Chabot, etc.) were 
guilty of deceit and corruption in connection with the abolition of the East 
India Company, and others gave offense by their sacrilegious proceedings, 
the committee of safety made use of the opportunity to destroy the whole 
party of Danton. For since the Convention had altered the calendar and 
the names of the months, had made the year commence on the 22d of Sep- 
tember, had abolished the observance of Sunday and the festivals, and in- 
troduced in their place the decades and sans-culotte feasts, many Danton- 
ists, like Hebert, Chaumette, Momoro, Cloots, and others, had occasioned 
great scandal by their animosity to priests and Christianity. They dese- 
crated and plundered the churches, ridiculed the mass, vestments and the 
church utensils, which they carried through the streets in blasphemous pro- 
cessions, raged with the spirit of Vandals against all the monuments of 
Christianity, and at length carried a resolution through the Convention that 
the worship of Reason should be introduced in place of the Catholic service 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 281 

of God. A solemn festival, in which Momoro's pretty wife personated the 
Goddess of Reason in the church of Notre Dame, marked the commence- 
ment of this new religion. Robespierre, who plumed himself upon his rep- 
utation for virtue, because he was not a participator in the excesses or av- 
arice of Danton and his associates, took offense at these proceedings. He 
determined to destroy their originators, and in their fall to involve the de- 
struction of Desmoulins and Danton, before whose powerful natures his 
own spirit, which was filled with envy and ambition, stood abashed. Scarce- 
ly, therefore, had Danton resumed his seat in the Convention, before St. 
Just began the violent struggle by a remarkable proposal, in which he di- 
vided the enemies of the republic into three classes : the corrupt, the ultra- 
revolutionary, and the moderates, and insisted upon their punishment. 
This proposal resulted in nineteen of the ultra-revolutionaries, and among 
them Cloots, Momoro, Ronsin, and several members of the Common Coun- 
cil, being led to the guillotine on the 19th of March, 1794. On the 31st 
of April, the corrupt were placed before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and 
Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Herault de Sechelles, etc., were maliciously 
distinguished as their partisans and involved in their fate. But Danton 
and Desmoulins, supported by a raging mob that were devoted to them, de- 
manded with vehemence that their accusers should be confronted with them. 
For three days, Danton's voice of thunder and the tumult among the pop- 
ulace rendered his condemnation impossible. For the first time, the bloody 
men of the Revolutionary Tribunal became confused. The Convention, at 
length, by a law of its own, gave the Tribunal the power of condemning the 
accused who were endeavoring to subvert the existing order of things by 
an insurrection, without further hearing ; upon which the blood-stained he- 
roes of the 10th of August and the days of September, who during their 
trial had shown that a lofty spirit might dwell even in the bosom of crimi- 
nals, were led to the guillotine and beheaded, with a crowd of inferior He- 
bertists. They died with courage and resolution. 

Since the fall of Danton, the committee of safety had ruled with well- 
nigh unlimited sway, and by repeated executions and arrests had brought 
the reign of terror to its highest point. But its chiefs had lost the confi- 
dence of the people and of the Convention. The friends of Danton were on 
the watch for the favorable moment of attack, and the number of their en- 
emies was increased, when Robespierre, to put an end to the blasphemous 
proceedings of the adherents of the worship of Reason, had a resolution 
passed by the Convention in May, ' That the existence of a Supreme Be- 
ing and the immortality of the soul were truths : ' and rendered himself at 
once hateful and ridiculous by his pride at the new festival in honor of tho 
Supreme Being in the Tuileries, at which he officiated as high priest. Among 
his opponents was Tallien, who at a former period had been guilty of ex- 
cesses in Bourdeaux, but who had been brought to adopt different princi- 
ples by the fascinating Fontenay Cabarrus. With him were joined Freron, 
Fouche% Vadier, the polished rhetorician Barrere, and others. On the 9th 
Thermidor, a battle for life or death commenced in the Convention. Robes- 
pierre and his adherents were not allowed to speak ; their voices were 
drowned in the cries of their enemies, who carried through a stormy meet- 
ing the resolution, ' That the three chiefs of the committee of safety, Robes- 
pierre, St. Just, Couthon, and their confederate, Henriot, should be de- 
nounced, and conveyed as prisoners to the Luxembourg palace.' They were 



282 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

liberated by the mob on their way ; whereupon the drunken Henriot threat- 
ened the Convention with the National Guard, whilst the others betook 
themselves to the Hotel de Ville. But the National Assembly was before- 
hand with them by a hasty resolution. A loudly proclaimed sentence of 
outlawry suddenly dispersed Henriot's army, whilst the citizens who were 
opposed to the Jacobins arranged themselves around the Convention. The 
accused were again secured in the HQtel de Ville. Henriot crept into a 
sewer, whence he was dragged forth by hooks. Robespierre attempted to 
destroy himself by a pistol-shot, but only succeeded in shattering his lower 
jaw, and was first conveyed, horribly disfigured, amidst the curses and exe- 
crations of the people, before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and then guil- 
lotined, with twenty-one of his adherents. On the two following days, 
seventy-two Jacobins shared the fate of their leaders. 

Robespierre's overthrow by the ' Thermidorians ' was the commencement 
of a return to moderation and order. The assemblies of the people were 
gradually limited, the power of the Common Council diminished, and the 
lower classes deprived of their weapons. Freron, converted from a repub- 
lican bloodhound into an aristocrat, assembled the young men, who from 
their clothing were called the ' gilded youth,' around him. These, Avith 
the heavy stick they usually carried about them, attacked the Jacobins in 
the streets and in their clubs at every opportunity, and opposed the song 
of the ' Awakening of the People ' to the Marseillaise. At length, the 
club was shut up and the cloister of the Jacobins pulled down. The Con- 
vention strengthened itself by the recall of the expelled members and of 
such Girondists as were still left, and ordered the worst of the Terrorists, 
Lebon, Carrier, Fouquier, Tinville, etc., to be executed. But when four 
of the most active members of the committee of safety, (Barrere, Vaclier, 
Collot d'Herbois, and Billaud -Varennes) were denounced, the Jacobins 
collected the last remains of their strength, and drove the people, who were 
suffering from a scarcity and want of money, to a frightful insurrection. 
Crowds of grisly wretches surrounded the house of assembly, and demand- 
ed, with threatening cries, the liberation of the patriots, bread, and the 
constitution of 1793. Pichegru, who was just at this moment in Paris, 
came to the assistance of the distressed convention with soldiers and citi- 
zens, and dispersed the crowd. The still more formidable insurrection of 
the 1st Prairial, 1795, in which the mob surrounded the convention both with- 
in and without from seven o'clock in the morning till two at night, for the 
purpose of enforcing a return to the reign of terror, was also suppressed by 
the courageous president, Boissy d'Anglas. From this time, the power of 
the Terrorists was no more. Many Jacobins died by their own hands ; 
others were beheaded, imprisoned, or transported. By so much the stronger 
became the party of the royalists, who wished to have a king again ; and 
when the new government was shortly after determined upon, by which 
the executive power was to be delivered to the Directory of five persons, 
the legislative power to a council of Ancients and a council of Five Hun- 
dred, the republican members of the Convention feared that in the new 
election they might be thrust aside by the royalists. They therefore made 
additions to the original charter of the constitution, wherein it was declared 
that two-thirds of the two legislative councils must be chosen from members 
of the Convention. The royalists raised objections to this and some other 
limitations of the freedom of election ; and when these were unattended 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 283 



with success, they occasioned the insurrection of the Sections. Hereupon, 
the Convention made over to the Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte, the sup- 
pression of the insurgent royalists, who were joined by all the enemies of 
the republic and of the revolution. The victory of the 13th Vendemiaire, 
(October 5, 1795,) which was fought in the streets of Paris, gave the su- 
premacy to the republicans of the Convention, and the command of the 
Italian army to Napoleon, who was then twenty-six years of age, and who, 
a short time before, had married Josephine, the widow of General Beau- 
harnois. 

The French army in Savoy and on the frontiers of Italy was in a mel- 
ancholy condition. The soldiers were in want of every thing. At this 
crisis, Napoleon appeared as their commander-in-chief, and in a short time 
contrived so to inspirit the desponding troops and attach them to his per- 
son, that under his guidance they cheerfully encountered the greatest dan- 
gers. Where the love of glory and the sentiment of honor were not suffi- 
cient, there the treasures of wealthy Italy served as a stimulous to valor. 
In April 1796, Napoleon defeated the octogenarian Austrian general, 
Beaulieu, at Nilesimo and Montenotte, separated, by this victory, the Aus- 
trians from the Sardinians, and so terrified the king, Victor Amadeus, 
that he consented to a disadvantageous peace, by which he surrendered 
Savoy and Nice to the French, gave up six fortresses to the general, and 
submitted to the oppressive condition of allowing the French army to 
march through his land at any time. 

The course of Napoleon's victories in Upper Italy was equally rapid. 
After the memorable passage of the bridge of Lodi, he marched into Aus- 
trian Milan, subjected the Lombard towns, and so terrified the smaller 
princes by the success of his arms, that they were only too happy to make 
peace with the victor at any price. Napoleon extorted large sums of mon- 
ey, and valuable pictures, treasures of art and manuscripts, from the dukes 
of Parma, Modena, Lucca, Tuscany, etc. 

Wurmser now took the place of the old Beaulieu. But he also was de- 
feated at Castiglione, and afterwards besieged in Mantua. The army un- 
der Alvinzi that was sent to his relief sustained three defeats (at Areola, 
Rivoli, La Favorita), by which the whole Austrian force in Italy was des- 
troyed, dispersed, or captured. This compelled the gallant Wurmser to 
deliver up Mantua to the glorious victor. Bonaparte, respecting the 
courage of his enemy, permitted a free retreat to the gray-headed marshal, 
his staff, and a part of the brave garrison. Pope Pius VI, terrified at 
these rapid successes, hastened to purchase the peace of Tolentino by cess- 
ions of territory, sums of money, and works of art. Archduke Charles 
now assumed the command of the Austrian army in Italy. But he also 
was compelled to a disastrous retreat, and was pursued by Bonaparte as 
far as Klagenfurt, with the view of falling upon Vienna. The emperor 
Francis, anxious for the fate of his capital, allowed himself to be persuaded 
by female influence to conclude the disadvantageous preliminary peace of 
Leoben, at the very moment when, by the non-arrival of the expected re- 
inforcements, and the threatening movements of the Tyrolese, Styrians, and 
Carinthians, the position of the French army was becoming critical. 
About the time this treaty of peace was concluded, a popular insurrection 
arose in the rear of the French army, in the territory of the republic of 
Venice, in consequence of which many Frenchmen were murdered in Ver- 



284 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ona and its neighborhood, and even the sick and wounded in the hospitals 
were not spared. This was taken advantage of by Napoleon to destroy 
the Venetian republic. 

The French marched into Venice, carried off the ships and the stores of 
the arsenal, robbed the churches, galleries, and libraries of their choicest 
ornaments and most valued treasures, and kept possession of the city till 
the negotiations with Austria were so far advanced, that the peace of Cam- 
po Formio (October 17, 1797), by which Upper Italy fell into the hands 
of France under the name of the Cisalpine Republic, was concluded. 
Austria, who by this peace also surrendered Belgium to the French repub- 
lic, and consented to the cession of the left bank of the Rhine with Mayence, 
received the territory of Venice, together with Dalmatio, as a recompense 
for this loss. The princes, prelates, the nobles, who suffered by this aban- 
donment of the farther Rhineland, were to be indemnified on the right bank 
of the river, and this as well as all other points relating to Germany, were 
to be settled at the Congress at Rastadt. Napoleon opened this congress 
himself, and then returned to Paris, where he was received with acclama- 
tion. 

The expedition of Napoleon to Egypt and Syria, produced a fresh coa- 
lition of the three great European powers, Russia, England, and Austria, 
against France. Russia had been governed since the year 179(3 by Paul, 
the eldest son of Catherine, a prince with a mind somewhat deranged, who 
cherished the bitterest hatred against the Revolution ; and who, as a great 
admirer of the Order of Malta, to the Grand Mastership of which he had 
himself appointed, saw in the capture of that island by Napoleon, cause 
for war. England feared danger to her foreign possessions from the Egyp- 
tian expedition, and scattered money with a liberal hand to raise up fresh 
enemies against France. Austria was at variance with the directoral gov- 
ernment, because the house of the French ambassador in Vienna, Berna- 
dotte, had been broken open, and the tricolor flag torn down and burnt, 
without the Austrian government having afforded the required satisfaction. 
War was waged, at the same time, in Germany, in Italy, in Switzerland, 
and in the Netherlands. 

After his disembarkation at Alexandria, the whole of the French fleet 
at Aboukir, owing to the carelessness of the admiral, was defeated and 
captured by the English naval hero, Nelson ; and Napoleon was in conse- 
quence obliged to make arrangements for a longer stay. In July, he march- 
ed from Alexandria through the Egyptian desert to Cairo. The distress 
of the army, unprovided with water or sufficient necessaries, in the burn- 
ing heat, was very great. In the battle of the Pyramids, July 21st 1798, 
'from the tops of which 4,000 years looked down upon the combatants,' 
the Mamalukes, who at that time swayed Egypt under the Turkish gov- 
ernment, were defeated; whereupon Bonaparte marched into Cairo, and 
established a new government, police, and taxation, upon the European 
pattern, and ordered the curiosities of this wonderful land to be examined, 
and its monuments and antiquities to be collected and described, by the ar- 
tists and men of learning who accompanied his army. 

A dreadful insurrection broke out in Cairo, October 21st 1798, which 
could only be suppressed with difficulty by the superiority of European tac- 
tics, after nearly 6,000 Mahommedans had been slain. Napoleon made 
use of the victory to extort money, and then marched with his Turkish 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 28t> 

troops against Syria. After the conquest of Jaffa, where he ordered 
2,000 Arnauts, whom he had a second time taken prisoners, to be shot as 
perjured, he proceeded to the siege of Jean d'Acre. It was there that 
the fortune of Napoleon met with its first rebuff. The Turks, provided 
with artillery by the English admiral, Sir Sidney Smith, repelled the as- 
saults of the enemy, despite their wonderful valor. At the same time, a 
Turkish army threatened the European soldiers in the interior of the coun- 
try. The former was, indeed, defeated and dispersed by Junot at Naza- 
reth, and at Mount Tabor by Kleber ; nevertheless, upon the plague break- 
ing out among his troops, Napoleon found himself compelled to give up 
Acre and to commence a retreat. The horses were laden with the sick, 
the soldiers suffered the most dreadful privations ; the dangers and the dis- 
tresses of the war were frightful. Napoleon shared all the fatigues with 
the meanest of his army; he is even said to have visited a hospital filled 
with those sick of the plague. He again reached Cairo in June, and in 
the following month, defeated a Turkish army of three times his number, 
at Aboukir. A short time after this, he learned the disasters of the 
French in Italy from some newspapers ; and the intelligence produced such 
an effect upon him, that he determined upon returning to France. He qui- 
etly made his preparations for departure with the greatest expedition. 
After transferring the command of the Egyptian army to Kleber, Napoleon 
sailed from the harbor of Alexandria with two frigates and a few small 
transports, and about 500 followers, and, guided by the star of his for- 
tunes, reached the coast of France undiscovered by the English, and land- 
ed at Frejus amidst the acclamations of the people. 

Upon his arrival in Paris, Napoleon embraced the resolution of over- 
throwing the directoral government which had lost all authority and con- 
sideration. With this purpose, he made himself secure of the officers and 
troops that were in Paris, and consulted with Sieyes, one of the directors, 
and his own brother, Lucien Bonaparte, who had been elected president 
of the Five Hundred, on the means of carrying his plan into execution. 
Lucien transferred the sittings of the council to St. Cloud, for the purpose 
of bringing the members within the power of the soldiers. There, Napo- 
leon first attempted to win over the members to his plans by persuasion ; 
when he found that he could not succeed in this, but rather, that he was 
overwhelmed with threats and reproaches, he commanded his grenadiers 
to clear the room with leveled bayonets. The republicans, who presented 
a bold front to the danger, were at length compelled to yield to superior 
force, and sought their safety through the doors and windows. This done 
a commission of fifty persons was appointed to draw up a fresh constitution, 
November 9th 1799. Thus ended the violent procedure of the 18th 
Brumaire, in consequence of which Napoleon Bonaparte took the conduct 
of affairs into his own strong hands. 

According to the consular constitution, the power of the state was divi- 
ded in the following manner: — 1. To the Senate, which consisted of 
eighty members, belonged the privilege of selecting from the list of names 
sent in by the departments the members of the legislative power, and the 
chief officials and judges. 2. The legislative power was divided into the 
Tribunate, which numbered one hundred members, and whose office it was 
to examine and debate upon the proposals of the government; and the 
legislative bodies, who had only to receive or reject these proposals uncon- 



286 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



ditionally. 3. The government consisted of three Consuls, who were 
elected for ten years. Of these Consuls, the first, Bonaparte, exercised 
the powers of government, properly so called ; whilst the second and third 
Consuls (Cambace'res and Lebrun) were merely placed at his side as ad- 
visers. Bonaparte, as first Consul, surrounded himself with a state council 
and a ministry, for which he selected the most talented and experienced 
men. Talleyrand, the dexterous diplomatist, was minister of the exterior ; 
the astute Fouche* superintended the police; Berthier held the staff of 
general. 

Bonaparte was at first engaged in reconciling the old with the new, in 
combining the results of the Revolution with the forms and manners of 
the monarchical period. But he very soon made known his preference for 
the ancient system, by the restoration of all the former arrangements and 
customs. 

The reductions in the emigrant lists brought back many royalists to 
their homes, and the favor shown to them made them courteous and pliant 
in the service of the new court. Madame de Stael (daughter of Necker) 
collected, as in the old time, a circle of accomplished and illustrious men 
in her saloon. The vanity of the French favored Napoleon's efforts ; 
when he instituted the Order of the Legion of Honor, republicans and 
royalists grasped eagerly at the new plaything of human weakness. 

One of the first cares of the Consul was the restoration of Christian 
worship in the French churches. After he had abolished the republican 
festivals (10th August, 21st January), and introduced the observance of 
the Sabbath, negotiations were opened with the Roman court, which at 
length led to the conclusion of the Concordat. No less attention did 
Napoleon devote to the affairs of education ; but he particularly patronized 
the establishments for practical science, as the Polytechnic School in 
Paris. 

Repeated conspiracies against the life of the First Consul, sometimes 
undertaken by the republicans and sometimes by the royalists, were always 
followed by fresh restrictions and a more rigorous system of espionage. 
The most desperate undertaking of this kind was the attempt, by means of 
the so-called infernal machine, — a cask filled with gunpowder, bullets, 
and inflammable materials, to blow up Bonaparte on his way to the opera- 
house, — an attempt which he escaped by the rapidity with which his 
coachman was driving, but which destroyed many houses and killed several 
people. In consequence of this atrocious deed, a great number of Jaco- 
bins were condemned to deportation, though it afterwards turned out that 
the plot was undertaken by the royalists. Still more dangerous and exten- 
sive were the conspiracies against Napoleon, when the office of Consul was 
conferred upon him for life by the voice of the people, with the privilege 
of naming his successor, (August 2, 1802). By this means, the Bourbons 
were cut off from the last hopes of a return, and the emigrants accordingly 
left no means untried of destroying him. The desperate George Cadoudal, 
and Pichegru, who were residing in England, allowed themselves to be em- 
ployed as tools. They conveyed themselves secretly to France, but were 
discovered and arrested, with about forty confederates. Before their fate 
was decided, Napoleon allowed himself to be hurried into the commission 
of a revolting crime. It had been represented to him that the duke 
d'Enghien, the chivalrous grandson of the prince of Conde', was the soul 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 287 

of all the royalist conspiracies. Accordingly, this young nobleman, who 
was residing at Ettenheim, a small town of Baden, was seized at Napoleon's 
command, by a troop of armed men, conducted with the greatest haste 
through Strasburg to Paris, condemned to death by a hurried court-martial, 
and, despite a magnanimous defense, shot in the trenches of Vincennes. 
The fate of the conspirators was shortly after decided upon. Pichegru 
had already died a violent death in prison, whether by his own hand or that 
of another is uncertain. George Cadoudal, with eleven confederates, as- 
cended the guillotine. General Moreau, who was implicated, retired into 
voluntary banishment in America. 

NAPOLEON, EMPEROR. 

The royalist conspiracies were made use of by Bonaparte to establish an 
hereditary monarchy. At the instigation of his adherents, the making 
over the hereditary dignity of emperor to Napoleon was proposed to the 
Tribunat, sanctioned by the Senate, and confirmed by the whole people by 
the subscription of their names. Whilst the minds of men were still pain- 
fully excited by the late bloody executions, Napoleon was proclaimed em- 
peror of the French, and at the end of the year, solemnly anointed by the 
pope in the church of NOtre Dame. The crown, however, he placed on 
his own head, as well as on that of his wife, Josephine, who knelt before 
him. This magnificent coronation appeared to be the conclusion of the 
Revolution, since the whole ancient system, for the extinction of which 
thousands of human lives had been sacrificed, gradually returned. The 
new emperor surrounded his throne with a brilliant court, in which the 
former titles, orders, and gradations of rank were revived under different 
names. He himself certainly retained his old military simplicity, but the 
members of his family were made princes and princesses ; his generals be- 
came marshals ; the devoted servants and promoters of his plans were 
connected with the throne as the great officers of the crown, or as senators 
with large incomes. The establishment of a new feudal nobility, with the 
old titles of princes, dukes, counts, barons, completed the splendid edifice 
of a magnificent imperial court. 

The great ends attained by the Revolution — equality before the law, 
the peasants' right of property in the soil and other possessions, remained 
untouched. Industry made great progress, civil arts and trades received 
a vast impulse ; and an unaccustomed prosperity made itself everywhere 
visible. Magnificent roads, like those over the Alps, canals, bridges, and 
improvements of all kinds, are, to the present day, eloquent memorials of 
the restless activity of this remarkable man. Splendid palaces, majestic 
bridges, and noble streets, arose in Paris, every thing great or magnificent 
that art had produced was united in the Louvre ; the capital of France 
glittered with a splendor that had never before been witnessed. The uni- 
versity was arranged upon a most magnificent footing, and appointed the 
supreme court of supervision and control over the whole system of schools 
and education. 

Whilst the attention of all Europe was directed to the western coast of 
France, where Napoleon was fitting out ships of every kind with the great- 
est diligence, and assembling a vast camp at Boulogne, with the purpose, 
as was believed, of effecting a landing on the English coast, he waa making 



288 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

preparations, in all silence, for the memorable campaign of 1805. Never 
were Napoleon's talents for command or his military genius displayed in a 
more brilliant light than in the plan of this campaign. Assured of the as- 
sistance of most of the princes of southern Germany, Bonaparte crossed 
the Rhine in the autumn with seven divisions, commanded by his most ex- 
perienced marshals, Ney, Lannes, Marmont, Soult, Murat, etc, and march- 
ed into Swabia; whilst Bernadotte, disregarding Prussia's neutrality, 
pressed forward through the Brandenburg Margravate of Anspach-Bay- 
reuth upon the Isar. This violation of his neutral position irritated the 
kino-, Frederick William III, to such a degree, that he entered into closer 
relationship with the allies, and assumed a threatening aspect, without, how- 
ever, actually declaring war. 

After Ney's successful engagement at Elchingen, the Austrian general, 
Mack, was shut up in Ulm, and cut off from the main army. Helpless, 
and despairing of deliverance, the incompetent commander commenced 
negotiations with the French, which terminated in the disgraceful capitula- 
tion of Ulm. By this arrangement, 33,000 Austrians, including thirteen 
generals, became prisoners of war. Covered with shame, the once-brave 
warriors marched before Napoleon, laid down their arms before the victor, 
placed forty banners at his feet, and delivered up sixty cannon with their 
horses. When too late, it was seen in Vienna that Mack was not equal 
to his lofty position, and he was deprived of his honor, his dignities, and 
the advantages -of his office, by a court-martial. Napoleon's joy at this 
unexampled good fortune was, however, diminished by the cotemporaneous 
maritime victory of the English at Trafalgar, which annihilated the whole 
French fleet, but which also cost the life of the great naval hero, Nelson. 

The war-party had gained the upper hand in Prussia since the violation 
of the neutral territory of Bernadotte. The king renewed the bond of 
perpetual friendship with the sensitive emperor Alexander, in the church 
of the garrison at Potsdam, over the coffin of Frederick the Great, at night, 
and then sent Haugwitz with threatening demands to Napoleon. The 
French emperor, in the meantime, proceeded along the Danube towards 
the Austrian states, not without many bloody engagements, of which the 
battles of Dirnstein and Stein against the Russians under Kutusoff and 
Ba°ration were of especial importance. If the French found brave and 
circumspect opponents in the Russians in these encounters, they had the 
easier game in Austria. Murat took possession of Vienna without the 
slightest trouble ; and the prince of Auersburg, who had orders either to 
defend the bridge over the Danube, which was fortified and filled with gun- 
powder, or to blow it into the air, allowed himself to be so completely de- 
ceived by the bold cunning of the French general, and by pretended 
negotiations of peace, that he surrendered it to the enemy uninjured and 
undefended. The irresolution of the emperor Francis, and the divisions 
between the Austrians and Russians, facilitated the victory of the French, 
who, laden with enormous booty, pursued the Austro-Russian army, in the 
midst of perpetual engagements, into Moravia. In Moravia, the battle of 
Austerlitz, in which the three emperors were present, was fought on the day 
of the year in which the emperor was crowned, December 2d, 1805, and 
in which the winter sun shone upon the most splendid of Napoleon's victo- 
ries. The emperor Francis, wishing for the termination of the war, suffer- 
ed himself to be persuaded to pay a humble visit to Napoleon in the French 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 289 

camp, and then consented to a truce which stipulated for the retreat of 
the Russians from the Austrian states. Upon this, negotiations were com- 
menced which terminated in the peace of Presburg. 

After the battle of Austerlitz, the Prussian ambassador, Haugwitz, did 
not venture to convey the charge of his court to the victorious emperor ; 
without asking permission in Berlin, he allowed himself to be induced, part- 
ly by threats, and partly by the engaging affability of Napoleon, to sub- 
scribe an unfavorable contract, by which Prussia exchanged the Franconian 
principality of Anspach, some lands on the Lower Rhine, and the princi- 
pality of Nuremburg in Switzerland, for Hanover. It was in vain that the 
king resisted the exchange, which threatened to involve him in hostilities 
with England ; separated from Austria by the hasty conclusion of the 
peace of Presburg, nothing was left to the king but to submit to the dicta- 
tion of the victor. 

The constitution of the German empire was already dissolved by the ele- 
vation of the Elector of Bavaria and of the Duke of Wirtemberg into inde- 
pendent monarchs. Napoleon, in consequence, entertained the project of 
entirely removing the south and west of Germany from the influence of Aus- 
tria, and of uniting them to himself by the formation of the Confederation 
of the Rhine. A prospect of enlarging their territories and increasing their 
power, and fear of the mighty ruler from whose side victory appeared in- 
separable, induced a great number of princes and estates of the empire to 
separate fhemselves from the German empire and join France. Self-inter- 
est was more powerful than patriotism. On the 12th of July, the treaty 
was signed in Paris, by virtue of which Napoleon, as protector of the Con- 
federation of the Rhine, recognized the full sovereignty of the individual 
members, upon condition of their maintaining a certain contingent of troops 
ready at the emperor's disposal. Bavaria, Wirtemberg, Baden, Hesse- 
Darmstadt, Nassau, and several others, formed the kernel around which 
the lesser principalities, as Hohenzollern, Liechtenstein, Solms, etc., collect- 
ed themselves, till at length almost all the German confederate states of 
the second and third rank gave in their adhesion. The Elector arch-chan- 
cellor Dalberg, who had been made prince-primate, and who had received 
Frankfort, together with Hanau and Fulda, as a principality, was chosen 
Napoleon's representative in the Confederation of the Rhine. 

The wavering conduct of Prussia had filled Napoleon with the deepest 
anger, and convinced him that the king would be untrustworthy as a friend, 
and cowardly and innocuous as an enemy. He accordingly flung aside all 
respect and forbearance, and purposely inflicted many mortifications on the 
Prussian government. The irritation produced by this was soon aggravated 
into a complete rupture. 

The French troops under Napoleon and his experienced marshals were 
in the heart of Thuringia and Saxony, the Elector of which had united 
himself, after some hesitation, to Prussia. The first engagement at Saal- 
feld, where the gallant prince Louis found his death, went against the 
Prussians ; but the defeat suffered by the army under the command of the 
old duke of Brunswick, in the great double battle of Jena and Auerstadt, 
was terrible and fatal. It decided the fate of the countries between the 
Rhine and the Elbe. The former presumption of the officers and young 
nobles was suddenly turned into despondency, and the greatest confusion 
and helplessness took possession of the leaders. Hohenlohe, with 17,000 
19* 



290 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

men, laid down his arms at Prenzlow ; the fortresses of Erfurt, Magdeburg, 
Spondau, Stettin, etc., surrendered within a few days, with such wonder- 
ful celerity, that the commandants of many of them were suspected of 
treachery, so utterly unaccountable did such cowardice and such entire 
want of self-reliance appear. Bliicher alone saved the honor of Prussia by 
the bloody combat in and around Lubeck, though he could not prevent the 
horrible storming of this slightly-fortified town ; in Colberg, also, Gneise- 
nau and Schill, supported by the brave citizen, Nettlebeck, courageously 
resisted the superior force of the enemy. Thirteen days after the battle of 
Jena, Napoleon marched into Berlin, and issued his mandates from thence. 
The Elector of Hesse, who wished to remain neutral, and who had with- 
drawn his forces from the contest, was obliged to surrender both land and 
army to the enemy, and to seek for protection as a fugitive in a foreign 
land. He took up his residence in Prague. The duke of Brunswick, who 
had been severely wounded, and who was carried into his capital on a lit- 
ter after the battle of Jena, was compelled to seek for refuge in Denmark to 
die in peace. Jena and East Friesland were united to Holland ; the Hanse 
towns as well as Leipsic, were oppressed by the deprivation of all English 
wares, and by severe military taxes ; and treasures of art and science, and 
the trophies of former victories, were carried away from all quarters. It 
was only to the Elector of Saxony, whose troops had fought at Jena, that 
Napoleon showed any favor. He set the Saxon prisoners at liberty, and 
granted the Elector a favorable peace ; upon which the latter, dignified 
with the title of king, joined the Confederation of the Rhine, like the oth- 
er Saxon dukes. From this time, Frederick Augustus, to the misfortune 
of himself and his people, felt himself bound by the ties of gratitude to the 
French emperor. 

The king of Prussia had fled to Konigsberg, where he vainly attempted 
to obtain peace. Napoleon's demands rose with his fortunes. In his ne- 
cessity, Frederick William turned to his friend Alexander, who immediate- 
ly despatched a Russian army under Benningsen and others into East Prus- 
sia, to prevent the French passing the Vistula. Upon this, Napoleon issued 
a proclamation to the Poles, pretendedly in the name of Kosciusko, by which 
these misused people were summoned to fight for liberty and independence. 
The Poles willingly made the greatest sacrifices, and strengthened the 
ranks of the French by their brave soldiers under the command of Dom- 
browski. Napoleon marched into Warsaw amidst the rejoicings of the peo- 
ple ; but the Poles discovered, only too soon, that the foreign potentate 
was more intent upon the gratification of his own ambition and love of power, 
than upon the restoration of their empire. Murderous battles were now 
fought upon the banks of the Vistula, and torrents of blood shed at Pultusk 
and Morungen. But the great blow was struck in the battle of Preuss-Ey- 
lau, February 8, 1807, when the marshal spirit of the French and Russians 
gave rise to a contest which in loss of men equals any event of the sort in 
the world's history. Both parties claimed the victory, and their efforts and 
exhaustion were so great, that the war suffered an interruption of four months. 
During this interval, negotiations were again renewed ; but much as the 
king, who was waiting with his family in Memel, might desire the termi- 
nation of the war, that he might free his subjects from the dreadful exact- 
ions of the French, he was too honest to dissever his own cause from that 
of his ally. But when the Silesian fortresses on the Oder, Glogau, Brieg, 



DEPAKTMENT OF HISTORY. 291 

Schweidnitz, and Breslau, fell into the hands of the French by the coward 
ice of their commandants, and even Dantzic was surrendered to the marshal 
Lefebvre by the gallant governor Kalkreuth, the king lost all confidence 
in the successful issue. When, after the recommencement of hostilities, 
the French gained a brilliant victory over the Russians in the battle of 
Friedland, on the anniversary of the battle of Marengo, and took possession 
of the field of Konigsberg, the allied monarchs, after a personal interview 
with Bonaparte on the Niemen, thought it prudent to consent to the peace 
of Tilsit, oppressive as were the conditions. 

Portugal, in consequence of her refusal to close her ports against the 
English, was occupied by a French army under Junot, who assumed the 
title of Duke of Abrantes, and proclaimed himself regent in the name of 
the French Emperor, after the departure of the Portugese royal family for 
Brazil. In pursuance of his favorite object, the destruction of English 
commerce, Napoleon not only extended his continental system to Portugal 
and Italy (as far as the latter country was dependent on France), but 
even formed a plan for the subjugation of Spain ; and under pretense of 
protecting that country against an English invasion, crossed the Pyrenees 
at the head of 100,000 men. Charles IV, who a short time before in con- 
sequence of an insurrection against his contemptible favorite, Godoy, 
Prince of the Peace, had resigned his crown in favor of his son, Ferdinand 
VII, no sooner witnessed the entry of the French into Madrid, than he 
desired to recall his abdication. Under pretense of settling the dispute, 
Napoleon invited the whole party to meet him at Bayonne, and having 
made himself master of their persons, compelled the Bourbon family to re- 
sign the Spanish crown, and placed his brother Joseph on the throne. 
The vacant kingdom of Naples was then conferred on Murat, and the grand- 
duchy of Berg destined for the Crown Prince of Holland. Against the 
sovereign thus treacherously imposed on them, the whole Spanish nation 
rose as one man ; and Joseph, after an unsuccessful attempt to conciliate 
his new subjects by granting them a liberal constitution, was compelled to 
quit Madrid and retire to Burgos. 

An English army, commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley, landed in Por- 
tugal, and drove the French out of that country ; the means of returning 
to France being secured to Junot and his army by the Convention of Cin- 
tra. At the same time, another French army, under Dupont, was sur- 
rounded and captured in the south of Spain. The French had already 
fallen back on the Ebro, when Napoleon (to whom the Emperor Alexan- 
der, in a personal interview at Erfurt, had promised assistance in the event 
of a war with Austria) appeared in Spain at the head of 335,000 men. 

After a victorious progress from the Ebro, the French Emperor entered 
Madrid, and immediately abolished the inquisition, the feudal system, and 
the Council of Castile (which had recalled its consent to the abdication of 
Charles IV), and reduced the number of convents to one-third. Having, 
in conjugation with Soult, compelled the English to evacuate Portugal, 
Napoleon returned to France to make preparations for a fresh war with 
Austria. On the 21st February, 1809, the fortress of Saragossa which 
had been twice heroically defended by the Spanish General Palafox, with 
the loss of 53,000 men, surrendered to the French ; and the cause of 
Spanish independence seemed utterly ruined ; for the brilliant victory 
of Talavera 27th and 28th of July, obtained by Sir Arthur Wellesley over 



292 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

King Joseph, was neutralized by the defeat of an army recently raised by 
the Junta of Seville, which was almost annihilated by Soult, at Ocano. 

The monks, to whose influence King Joseph attributed the general in- 
surrection of the Spanish nation against the French, were punished by the 
suppression of all the monastic orders. Whilst the French, although per- 
petually harrassed by swarms of irregular troops, called Guerillas, were 
still advancing steadily towards the south, the Junta had retired to Seville, 
and assembled the Cortes (1810), which drew up and proclaimed in 
(1812), a new constitution, by which the monarchical power was greatly 
restricted. The repeated attempts of the French, especially under Massena, 
to regain a footing in Portugal, were as unsuccessful as their attacks on 
Cadiz, which was strongly fortified and protected by a combined Spanish 
and English fleet. In the year 1812, the French force in Spain having 
been reduced to 168,000 men, by the withdrawal of a large number of the 
best soldiers and generals for the Russian campaign, the whole population 
of several provinces were encouraged to take the field, and the Guerillas 
under Mina, the Curate Merino, Mendizabal, etc., became daily more nu- 
merous and daring. The fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz were 
stormed by Lord Wellington, who spared the armies of Marmont and Soult, 
defeated the former near Salamanca, compelled Joseph to quit Madrid, and 
then, on the approach of the French, retreated to the Portuguese frontier. 
Soult having been recalled from Spain by Napoleon, after his disastrous 
campaign in Russia, the English general compelled King Joseph a second 
time to abandon his capital, and retire to the Ebro, and in the year 1813 
decided the fate of Spain, by a brilliant victory over Jourdan at Vittoria. 
Joseph escaped being taken prisoner, by a precipitate flight into France. 
Soult, who had reentered Spain by command of Napoleon, was compelled 
to recross the Pyrenees by Lord Wellington, and the war was terminated 
by the battle of Toulouse, in April, 1814, the Emperor Napoleon having 
previously abdicated, and Ferdinand VII being released from his imprison- 
ment at Valencay. 

Soon after his coronation, Napoleon had conceived the idea of depriving 
the Pope of his temporal power, and transporting him to Paris, where the 
influence of the Sovereign Pontiff might be advantageously employed for 
the promotion of his own ambitious designs. After a succession of annoy- 
ances and threats, Napoleon demanded that the Pope should accede to the 
continental system, close his ports against the English, and conclude an 
alliance, offensive and defensive, with France, at least against the Infidels, 
by which title he designated the Turks and all the Protestant powers. 
On the refusal of the Pope to entertain this proposal, the Emperor took 
possession of Rome, and annexed to the kingdom of Italy four provinces 
belonging to the States of the Church. These measures were speedily 
followed by the publication of a decree dated from Schonbrunn, in which 
the temporal authority of the Pope was declared to be at an end; and in 
the following year 1810 the rest of the States of the Church were incorpo- 
rated into the French empire. Pius VII, who had excommunicated the 
the originators and perpetrators of these acts of violence, was carried off 
by force to Grenoble, and thence removed to Savona, where he remained 
three years a prisoner, refusing with exemplary firmness- to resign his tem- 
poral authority, and establish his residence at Paris. In the summer of 
1812, he was removed to Fontainebleau, for the purpose of negotiating a 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 293 

fresh concordat, and returned to Rome after the abdication of Napoleon, 
in 1814. 

After the peace of Tilsit, an attempt was made by the Austrian govern- 
ment to reestablish its political influence in Europe. With this view the 
army was reorganized ; and when Napoleon, in consequence of this move- 
ment, called on the members of the Rhenish Confederacy to hold them- 
selves in readiness, the Austrians resolved to anticipate his attack. A 
proclamation was accordingly issued by the Emperor's brothers, the Arch- 
dukes Charles and John, as commanders-in-chief of the army destined to 
act in Bavaria and Italy, calling on the German nation to cooperate with 
Austria in her struggles for the liberty of their common fatherland ; but 
scarcely any effect was produced by this appeal. The army commanded 
by the Archduke Charles, which had entered Bavaria, was defeated in a 
series of engagements, which lasted from the 19th to the 23d of April at 
Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmuhl, and Ratisbon, by a force composed al- 
most entirely of Germans, and compelled, after sustaining immense loss, to 
cross the Danube, and retreat towards Bohemia. 

On the 13th of May, Vienna was a second time taken by the French ; 
Napoleon, who had advanced by forced marches for the purpose of pre- 
venting the relief of Vienna by the archduke Charles, was defeated on the 
21st and 22d of May, near the villages of Aspern and Esling. He then 
formed a junction with the Italian army under Eugene Beauharnais, a sec- 
ond time crossed the Danube, and defeated the archduke Charles in the 
sanguinary battle of Wagram, on the 5th and 6th of July. The two arm- 
ies met again at Znaim, in Moravia, and victory had already begun to in- 
cline to the side of the French, when hostilities were suspended by the ar- 
rival of Prince Lichtenstein, who was empowered by the Emperor to arrange 
the terms of an armistice. After this battle, and an unsuccessful attempt 
of the English to effect a diversion by landing on the island of Walcheren, 
in Holland, the Austrian war was terminated on the 14th of October by 
the peace of Vienna. By this treaty Austria lost 2000 square miles of 
territory, with three and a half millions of inhabitants. 

In the hope of obtaining an heir to his throne, and of imparting in some 
sort, a legitimate character to his dynasty, Napoleon divorced himself from 
Josephine, and married Maria Louisa, daughter of the Emperor Francis of 
Austria. On the 20th of March, 1811, the new Empress was delivered 
of a son, who was immediately created king of Rome. His brother Louis 
having declared his readiness to abdicate in favor of his son, rather than 
ruin Holland by enforcing a rigid observance to the continental system, 
Napoleon annexed the whole of that country to France. Under the same 
pretext, and in the face of his own repeated declaration that he wished the 
Rhine to be the boundary of his dominions, the Emperor incorporated into 
the French empire the maritime provinces of northern Germany, a great 
part of the kingdom of Westphalia, the Hanse Towns, the grand duchy of 
Berg, Oldenburg, and East Friesland : as he had already annexed Tusca- 
ny, the States of the Church, and the Canton of Vallais in Switzerland. 
The empire at this time numbered 130 departments, and extended along 
the coast of western and southern Europe, from the mouth of the Elbe to 
the Trieste and Corfu. The imperial government now became every day 
more absolute : the sittings of the legislative body, which had long since 
been a mere farce, were suspended : the duties of the senate were confined 



294 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, 

to the appearance of its members on great occasions in the suite of the Em- 
peror, and the passing of acts confirmatory of his decrees for the annexa- 
tion of fresh territory. 

The conviction that the continental system would be ruinous to her com- 
merce, and that Napoleon would never rest until he had destroyed her in- 
fluence as a first-rate European power, was soon forced on Russia, which 
had wrested Finland from Sweden in 1808, and extended her dominions to 
the Pruth, by the peace of Bucharest, concluded in 1812, after a six years' 
war with the Turks. The first coolness between Alexander and Napoleon 
was occasioned by the annexation of Galicia to the duchy of Warsaw, a 
measure which was regarded with suspicion by the Russian Emperor, as 
tending towards the reestablishment of Poland as a kingdom. Other causes 
of offense followed in rapid succession ; on the one side, Napoleon, who 
had already annoyed the Emperor by depriving the duke of Oldenburgh, 
husband of Alexander's aunt by the mother's side, of his dominions, now 
demanded the rigid enforcement of the continental system by Russia ; 
whilst, on the other, the union of Warsaw, as a province, with Saxony, and 
the evacuation of the Prussian dominions, were strongly urged on France 
by the Russian government. The refusal of each party to accede to the 
demands of the other, at length produced a war, which was commenced in 
1812 by Napoleon, who collected an army of 400,000, or, according to 
some writers, 600,000 men, from almost every country in south-western 
Europe. To oppose this formidable armament, the Russians assembled 
372,000 men. With his accustomed rapidity of movement, Napoleon cross- 
ed the Nieman into Lithuania, and advanced by forced marches to Smo- 
lensk, with scarcely any opposition on the part of the Russians, who were 
unwilling to hazard a general engagement until they had formed a junc- 
tion with the troops from the interior. Ahev defeating the Russians at 
Smolensk, and Borodino, on the Moskwa, Napoleon, on the 14th of Sep- 
tember, entered Moscow, which was entirely abandoned by the inhabitants ; 
and soon after his arrival a fire broke out, occasioned probably by the Rus- 
sian governor Rostopchin, which raged six days, and destroyed nine-tenths 
of the city. Notwithstanding this calamity, Napoleon lingered five weeks 
among the ruins of Moscow, endeavoring to negotiate a peace ; but dis- 
covering his error when it was too late, he broke up his quarters on the 
18th of October, and commenced his retreat with an army now reduced to 
104,000 men. The winter had already set in with a severity almost un- 
precedented at that early season, and the whole of the country between 
Moscow and Beresina, an extent of 150 German miles, presented the ap- 
pearance of a desert, the inhabitants of the villages having removed or de- 
stroyed all their agricultural produce. At length the army, reduced by 
famine and the unceasing attacks of the Russians and Cossacks to 30,000 
men capable of bearing arms, reached the Beresina, where the passage of 
the river was forced by Ney and Oudinot, with 8,500 men, in the face cf 
25,000 Russians. The retreat now became a flight, in consequence of the 
intensity of the cold, and the abandonment of the army by Napoleon, who 
had placed himself in a sledge, when all was lost, and proceeded to Paris 
(arrived 18th December,) where his presence was rendered necessary by 
the unsettled state of public affairs. General Ney, who had distinguished 
himself in the battle of the Moskwa, and done good service by the master- 
ly manner in which he had conducted the "etreat, was created Prince of 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 296 

the Moskwa. The first step towards the emancipation of Prussia, was the 
conclusion of a convention of neutrality between the Prussian general Die- 
bitsch and general York, who was sent to cover the retreat of the left wing 
of the French army under Macdonald. This proceeding on the part of the 
Prussian general was stigmatized by Napoleon as an act of the grossest 
treachery, and the chief cause of his subsequent misfortunes. 

Frederick William III of Prussia, after issuing from Breslau a manifes- 
to, in which he called on his people to rise and defend their liberties against 
the encroachments of the French, now concluded an alliance with Russia 
for the reestablishment of the Prussian monarchy, and having been subse- 
quently joined by Sweden and England, commenced his preparations for 
the formation of a national militia in Prussia. 

In the month of March, the Prussian grand army under Blucher, marched 
through Silesia to Dresden, where it awaited the arrival of a Russian force 
commanded by Kalish. A second Russo-Prussian army was also sent from 
Berlin to join the two other corps. The allied army, under Wittgenstein, 
now numbered 85,000 men, and that of the French 120,000, most of whom 
were raw conscripts. 

Towards the end of April, Napoleon reappeared in Germany, and ad- 
vanced to Leipzic, where he was compelled to engage the enemy at Gross- 
gorschen, or, as he himself named the battle, at Liitzen, on the 2d of May : 
but notwithstanding the disadvantage under which they labored, in being 
unprepared for the attack, and the heavy loss which they sustained in the 
battle, the French were victorious ; and the allies retreated by way of 
Dresden into Lusatia. Sharnhorst died at Prague of the wounds which he 
had received in the battle. Soon afterwards Napoleon appeared at Dres- 
den, and compelled the wavering king of Saxony to place the resources of 
his kingdom at the disposal of the French. On the 20th of May Napoleon 
attacked the allies at Bautzen, forced the passage of the Spree, and com- 
pleted his victory on the following day, at Wurschen, where he sustained a 
considerable loss in killed and wounded. As the allies directed their re- 
treat towards Silesia instead of Berlin, in order to effect a junction with the 
Austrians, the conqueror, who wished to prevent a meeting of the three 
powers, as well as to gain time for fresh levies, consented to an armistice 
from 4th of June to 10th of August, in the hope that Austria would event- 
ually join the French. A short time previously to these events, the city 
of Hamburg, which had been abandoned by the French officials on the ap- 
proach of a Russian army, under Tetterborn, was retaken by Davoust, and 
mercilessly pillaged, because the inhabitants were unable to pay a forced 
contribution of 48,000,000 francs. 

The congress of Prague having terminated unsatisfactorily, in conse- 
quence of the unreasonable demands of Austria, and the unwillingness of 
England to become a party to a treaty of peace, war was declared by the 
Austrian government against Napoleon, whose subsequent overtures were 
treated with contempt. The allies had made the best use of the breathing 
time allowed them by the armistice. A subsidy of eleven millions, grant- 
ed by England, enabled them to equip at least 600,000 men, who formed 
three divisions, viz, 1. The grand army of Bohemia, under Schwarzenberg, 
in whose camp were the three allied monarchs and General Moreau. 2. 
The army of Silesia, under Blucher. 3. The army of the North, under 
the Crown Prince of Sweden, Charles John Bernadotte. Against this 



296 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

enormous force Napoleon brought into the field about 350,000 men; and 
notwithstanding his inferiority in point of numbers, commenced hostilities 
with an attack on the army of Silesia, which retreated beyond the Katz- 
bach. Meanwhile, Schwarzenberg had marched upon Dresden, and Napo- 
leon was compelled to proceed by forced marches to that city, leaving Gen- 
eral Macdonald in Silesia. On the 26th and 27th of August, Napoleon 
gained his last victory at Dresden, on German ground, amidst torrents of 
rain. Moreau was mortally wounded in this battle, and died soon after- 
wards. This advantage gained by Napoleon, was however almost neutral 
ized by the failure of the other divisions of the French army. 

The Silesian and northern armies having crossed the Elbe where Ber- 
trand was defeated by York, near Wartemberg, in order to effect, if pos- 
sible, a junction with the army of Bohemia in Napoleon's rear, the French 
Emperor quitted Dresden, and drew together all his forces at Leipzic, 
where the great '■battle of the nations'' was fought on the 16th, 17th, and 
18th October. Towards the end of this battle, the Saxons and Wurtem- 
bergers went over to the allies. On the first day Napoleon engaged the 
main body of the allies, under Schwarzenberg, on the plain southwards of 
Leipzic, near Wachau, but without any decisive result ; whilst at the same 
time Bliicher defeated Marmont, on the northern part of the city, near 
Mockern. On the 17th there was no general engagement, Napoleon hav- 
ing communicated to the Emperor of Austria his willingness to purchase 
peace, by the relinquishment of his sovereignty over Warsaw, Illyria, and 
the Rhineland, and to withdraw his troops to the other side of the Rhine, 
as soon as an armistice was concluded. Meanwhile, however, a reinforce- 
ment of more than 100,000 men had joined the allied army, which now 
numbered 300,000, whilst the French had scarcely 130,000. Under 
these circumstances the battle was renewed on the 18th of October. After 
losing more than 30,000 men (including Prince Poniatowsky, a nephew 
of the last King of Poland, who was drowned in the Elster), the defeat- 
ed army, which still numbered 100,000 men, commenced its retreat, and 
fought its way to the Rhine, where 70,000 men crossed the river at Mainz. 
During this retreat, the French were attacked on the Unstrut by York, 
and at Hanau by the Bavarians, under Wrede, and were incessantly har- 
assed by bands of Cossacks. The immediate consequences of this victory 
were — 1. The breaking up of the Rhenish confederacy. 2. The disso- 
lution of the kingdom of Westphalia and the grand duchies of Frankfort 
and Berg. 3. The surrender of all the French garrisons as prisoners of 
war, with the exception of the garrison of Hamburg, which held out, under 
Davoust, until the 26th of May, 1814. 4. The re-conquest, by Biilow, of 
Holland, where the people, who had been more forward than any other 
nation in their resistance to the continental system, proclaimed the Prince 
of Orange sovereign of the Netherlands. 5. Denmark, on account of its 
alliance with Napoleon, was invaded by the crown prince of Sweden, and 
compelled, after a short winter campaign, to cede Norway to Sweden in 
exchange for Swedish Pomerania and Riigen. 6. Illyria and the Tyrol 
were restored to Austria after a long and bloody struggle. In the south, 
Murat, King of Naples, the Emperor's brother-in-law, formed an alliance 
with the Austrians for the expulsion of the French from Italy, the Empe- 
ror of Austria undertaking to guarantee to him the undisturbed posses- 
sion of his dominions. On the other hand, Switzerland, too feeble as yet to 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 297 

throw off the French yoke, concluded a treaty of neutrality with Napoleon, 
who deemed this the best mode of protecting his weakest frontier. 

Wellington, being now prepared to enter France from Spain, and the 
allied army from the Rhine, Napoleon, who had rejected the offers of peace 
made to him by the allies, demanded a fresh conscription of 300,000 men, 
and prorogued the legislative assembly, which had ventured to present him 
an address describing, in strong language, the misery and exhaustion of 
France. At the commencement of the year 1814 the allies entered France, 
the grand army of Schwarzenberg traversing a portion of neutral Switzer- 
land, and crossing the frontier at Basle, whilst the force under the com- 
mand of Bliicher crossed the Rhine, on new year's eve, at Mannheim, 
Caub, and Coblenz. In the hope of preventing a junction, Napoleon at- 
tacked Bliicher near Brienne, and forced him to retreat ; but, in spite of 
this check, the united armies attacked the French at la Rothiere, and 
drove them across the Aube. The two corps then separated, the grand 
army under Schwarzenberg proceeding along the banks of the Seine, and 
the army of Silisia along the Main, in the direction of Paris. No sooner 
was Napoleon aware of this separation, than he several times attacked the 
army of Silesia, and compelled it to retire northwards, and then defeated 
the grand army at Montereau. A congress was now held at Chatillon, 
but without any result except the temporary suspension of hostilities. In 
order to prevent Napoleon from following the grand army, Bliicher con- 
tinued his march on Paris, and defeated the French near Laon. Then 
Napoleon attacked the grand army at Arcis-sur-Aube, and being compell- 
ed to retire before a superior foroe, conceived the desperate design of 
leaving the road to Paris open, attacking the enemy in the rear from Lor- 
raine, and drawing together all the garrisons of the eastern fortresses for 
a final struggle. With equal courage the allies continued their march to- 
wards the capita], and after defeating Marshals Marmont and Mortier, at 
la F£re Champenoise, and storming the heights of Montmartre, entered 
Paris, in consequence of a capitulation, on the 31st of March, with the 
Emperor Alexander, King Frederick William, and Prince Schwarzenberg, 
at their head. No sooner had the capital fallen, than the senate was per- 
suaded by Talleyrand to declare the throne forfeited by Napoleon and his 
family, and the nation absolved from its oath of allegiance. 

Napoleon, who had reached Paris a few hours too late, signed his abdi- 
dation on the 11th of April, at Fontainebleau, renouncing for himself and 
heirs all claims to the throne of France, Italy, or any other country; the 
allies, on their side, engaging to confer on him the sovereignty of the 
island of Elba, with a pension of two millions of francs, to grant to his 
wife the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, with succession to her 
son and his desendants, and to provide for his relations. 

On the very day of Napoleon's landing at Elba (14th of May), Louis 
XVIII entered Paris, replaced the constitution hastily drawn up by the 
provisional government by another formed on the English model, with two 
chambers, one of peers and one of deputies, and concluded with the allies 
the peace of Paris, by which it was settled that the boundaries of France 
should be the same as they were before the Revolution, with the exception 
of some unimportant extensions towards the east and north-east. 

For the definitive settlement of European affairs, especially as regarded 
Germany, a Congress was held at Vienna (1st of November, 1814 — 9th 



298 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of June, 1815), which was attended by the Emperors of Russia and 
Austria, the Kings of Prussia, Denmark, and Wiirtemberg, and several 
other princes, statesmen, and generals. 

A spirit of disaffection had already begun to manifest itself in France, 
in consequence of the mal-administration of the government, and the inso- 
lence of those classes which had enjoyed peculiar privileges before the 
Revolution. Encouraged by the reports which he received of the preval- 
ence of discontent, especially among the soldiers, and the difficulties in 
which the Congress of Vienna was involved by the Polish and Saxon 
questions, Napoleon escaped from Elba, landed with 2000 men at Cannes 
on the 1st of March 1815, and being joined by all the troops sent to oppose his 
progress, and by Marshal Ney, entered Paris on the 20th, amidst the accla- 
mations of the people, and immediately established his head quarters at the 
Tuileries. Meanwhile Louis XVIII had fled to Ghent. 

Napoleon, by a proclamation dated from Lyons, had already summoned 
the electoral colleges of the empire to hold an extraordinary meeting 
(Champ de Mai) in Paris, for the improvement of the constitution ; but 
the popularity obtained by this apparent concession to the wishes of the 
people, was in a great measure lost in consequence of these ameliorations 
being eventually decreed by the emperor himself, without the intervention 
of a representative body. Notwithstanding repeated attempts on the part 
of Napoleon to reopen negotiations with the emperors of Austria and 
Russia, the Congress of Vienna proclaimed him an outlawed traitor on the 
13th of March, renewed their alliance for the restoration of Louis XVIII, 
and engaged to raise a force, which eventually amounted to 900,000 men. 
On the other hand, Napoleon was unable to complete the number which he 
had intended to bring into the field (560,000 men). 

Napoleon now determined to commence hostilities by attacking simul- 
taneously the allied troops (English, Dutch, Belgians, Hanoverians, Bruns- 
wickers, Nassauers, etc.), which were dispersed through Belgium under 
the command of Wellington, and the Prussians under Blucher ; and thus 
preventing a junction of the two armies. The Prussian army, which had 
not yet had time to concentrate itself, was defeated at Ligny ; whilst Ney 
meanwhile marched northwards as far as Quatrebras, for the purpose of 
preventing the advance of Wellington to relieve the Prussians. Here an 
indecisive battle was fought, in which Duke William of Brunswick lost his 
life. Instead of falling back on Namur, as Napoleon had expected, the 
Prussians now endeavored to effect a junction with Wellington by Wavre. 
Having dispatched Marshal Grouchy to intercept Bliicher, Napoleon at- 
tacked Wellington on the 18th of June, at Waterloo, where the English, 
after bravely fighting throughout the day, were beginning to waver to- 
wards evening, when Blucher who had left Thielemann to oppose Grouchy 
at Wavre, appeared on the field, and, in conjunction with Wellington, com- 
pletely routed the French army, which fled in disorder, pursued by the 
Prussians. After a succession of victorious skirmishes, Blucher arrived, 
on the 22d of June, at Paris, where Napoleon had a second time abdi- 
cated, in favor of his son. Napoleon then fled to Rochefort, with the in- 
tention of embarking for America ; but finding the harbor beset by English 
cruisers, he surrendered himself to Capt. Maitland, of the Bellerophon, 
and was conveyed a prisoner to St. Helena, where he died, after nearly 
six years' suffering, on the 5th of May, 1821. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 299 

Before his return to Paris, Louis XVIII had issued a proclamation 
from Cambray, granting a free pardon to all who had taken part in the 
Revolution, with the exception of its chief authors, and constituted a libe- 
ral administration under Talleyrand ; which, however, was speedily over 
thrown by the court party, headed by the king's brother, the Compte d' 
Artois. An act was then passed by the ultra-royalist majority in the 
chambers, excluding from the amnesty, and condemning to perpetual ban- 
ishment, all who had taken part in the murder of Louis XVI. 

Ney was arraigned before the chamber of peers, found guilty of high 
treason and shot. Louis XVIII having been persuaded to dissolve the 
chambers, some projects of law, of a more liberal character, respecting 
elections, liberty of the press and person, etc., were carried through the 
new chambers by the Due de Richelieu, who also obtained at the congress 
of Aix la Chapelle, 1818, the withdrawal of the army of occupation, and 
a remission of some portion of the debt still due from France to the allies. 
In return for these concessions Louis XVIII joined the holy alliance. 

The ultra-royalists now exerted themselves to obliterate every trace of the 
Revolution, and reestablish the privileged classes in all their former splen- 
dor ; a plan which they pursued with great zeal and success under Charles 
X. But the indignation of the people was at length excited by the perti- 
nacity with which they endeavored to increase the influence of the priest- 
hood, and by their granting an indemnification to the extent of 1,000,000,- 
000 of francs to the emigrants, whose estates had been confiscated by the 
revolutionary governumet. 

The ministry persuaded the king to sign the fatal Ordonnances of 25th of 
July, by which the liberty of the press was suspended, the recently elect- 
ed chamber dissolved, the number of deputies diminished, and the mode of 
election altered. This open violation of the constitution produced the 
Revolution of July, 1830. 

Some of the royal troops having joined the revolutionists, and the re- 
mainder been driven out of the city after three days' hard fighting (27th 
— 29th of July), Charles X abdicated at Rambouillet on the 2d of Au- 
gust, in favor of his grandson, the Due de Bordeaux. Several unsuccess- 
ful attempts had already been made to proclaim a republic : and on the 
30th of July the peers and deputies who happened to be resident at Paris, 
had met and nominated as regent the Duke of Orleans (descendant of a 
brother of Louis XIV), by whose representations Charles was induced to 
quit the kingdom, and seek an asylum in Scotland. On the 7th of Au- 
gust, the Duke of Orleans was proclaimed hereditary "King of the 
French" by the chambers, and on the 9th swore fidelity to the charter of 
1830, in which the sovereignty of the people was fully recognized. The 
national guard was reestablished and placed under the command of 
Lafayette. 

The first care of Louis Philippe was to obtain the recognition of his title 
by foreign powers ; an object which was effected without much difficulty, as 
he founded his claim on his legitimate right to the throne (the elder branch 
of the Bourbons having abdicated) rather than the choice of the people. 
But this disavowal of the principle on which he had been chosen king of 
the French, however satisfactory to foreign cabinets, was exceedingly dis- 
tasteful to the people, and the cause of serious disturbances. His minis- 
ters, who were repeatedly changed, were engaged in a perpetual contest 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

with the Republicans on the one side, and the adherents of the ancient dy- 
nasty (Legitimists or Carlists) on the other. 

The Carlists or Legitimists, who considered Henry V the Duke of Bor- 
deaux the rightful sovereign of France, had many adherents, especially in 
la Vendue, where the Duchesse de Berri, who personally exerted herself 
on behalf of her son, was arrested and banished the country. On the 
other hand, the Republicans, endeavored to effect the overthrow of the 
ministry, if not of the throne itself, by means of societies, trades-unions, 
conspiracies, and emeutes in Paris, Lyons, and other cities. Several at- 
tempts were also made to assassinate the king (Fieschi's infernal machine, 
Alibaud, Meunier, Hubert, Darmds, Henry). The appearance of Louis 
Napoleon, a son of the ex-king of Holland, at Strasburg, in 1837, and at 
Boulogne in 1840, produced no important results. In order to preserve 
peace with foreign powers, Louis Philippe adopted a system of non-interven- 
tion, which he was compelled to violate on several occasions by the clamors 
of the opposition party. 

The manner in which the mediation of France was employed in a dis- 
pute between the Pacha of Egypt and the Porte afforded Thiers an oppor- 
tunity of attacking the foreign policy of the government so fiercely, that 
the king was obliged to dismiss his advisers, and form a liberal administra- 
tion (1840), which well nigh involved France in a war with the four great 
powers, on account of the Eastern question. Louis Philippe then formed 
a new administration (Soult-Guizot), which directed all its efforts towards 
the maintenance of peace, and persuaded the chambers to sanction the 
fortification of Paris. 

The attempts of Louis Philippe to render himself independent of the 
nation, his selfishness with regard to the Spanish marriage, and the close- 
ness of his political connection with the absolute European powers, had 
rendered it impossible for him to obtain a majority in the chambers, except 
by bribery ; and as this could only be effected as long as the number of 
electors was limited, he resisted with his usual obstinacy every proposal 
for the extension of the franchise. This policy disgusted all who looked 
to a reformed system of election as the only means of improving the ad- 
ministration, and greatly increased the number of the moderate Repub- 
lican party. 

Even the eyes of those who had been slow to credit the corruption of 
the government, were at last opened by the trial of two ex-ministers, Cu- 
bieres and Teste, for bribery, and the desire for reform became universal. 
An order of the government for the suppression of reform dinners, founded, 
as they pretended, on a law passed at the beginning of the first revolution 
(1790), and especially an attempt on the part of the police to prevent ty 
force the holding of a reform banquet at Paris, provoked the opposition par- 
ty, headed by Odillon Barrot, to propose the impeachment of ministers, a 
motion which was carried in the chamber of deputies after a stormy de- 
bate. The national guard and some of the troops of the line having re- 
fused to act against the people who had taken up arms on the 22d of 
February, Louis Philippe dismissed the Guizot ministry on the 23d, and 
tranquillity seemed to be completely restored ; but on the evening of the 
eame day fresh disturbances broke out, in consequence of some troops 
stationed in front of the foreign office having fired on the unarmed popu- 
lace. Throughout the whole of that night the inhabitants of Paris were 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 301 

occupied in constructing barricades, and making preparations for active 
resistance on the morrow. Meanwhile, however, the king, alarmed at the 
increasing disaffection of his troops, and fearing an attack on the Tuileries, 
had abdicated in favor of the Comte de Paris, and quitted his palace, 
which was immediately plundered by the populace. 

The Duchess of Orleans, accompanied by her two sons, having proceeded 
to the chamber of deputies for the purpose of obtaining their recognition 
of the Comte de Paris as king, and herself as regent, an armed multitude 
burst into the hall, and compelled the deputies to sanction the establishment 
of a provisional government, which proclaimed a republic at the Hotel de 
Ville, and again on the Place de la Bastille, subject to the approbation of 
the great body of the people. 

The provisional government commenced its proceedings by calling to- 
gether the electoral colleges and constituent assembly. The elective fran- 
chise was extended to all Frenchmen who had attained their twenty-first 
year, and all above twenty-five years of age were declared eligible as 
deputies, of whom about 900 were returned to the chamber. The con- 
stituent assembly having met on the 4th of May, and the republic having 
been again proclaimed, the provisional government dissolved itself, and was 
succeeded by an executive commission composed of five of its members, 
Arago, Gamier, Page's, Marie, Lamartine, and Ledru Rollin. The most 
formidable opponents of these commissioners were the workmen and the 
leaders of the communists Barbes, Blanqui, Louis Blanc. The revolution- 
ists of February had pronounced it to be the duty of the state to provide 
employment for the citizens, and had followed up this declaration by the 
establishment of national workshops, with a view to the ' organization of 
labor.' The tailure of this impracticable scheme produced great discontent 
among the workmen ; and after a fruitless attempt on their part to over- 
throw the government and extort contributions from the wealthier classes, 
the workshops were closed, and the men sent into the provinces. A san- 
guinary struggle ensued, in the course of which the Archbishop of Paris 
was shot, whilst addressing words of peace to the insurgents from one of 
the barricades. After four days' hard fighting the malcontents were ut- 
terly defeated by General Cavaignac, formerly governor of Algiers. The 
city of Paris was then declared m a state of siege, and the powers of the 
executive commission transferred to Cavaignac, who immediately formed an 
administration, of which he declared himself president. More than 4000 
of the insurgents were banished to the French settlements beyond seas, 
the national workshops suppressed, and the public clubs placed under the 
surveillance of the police. 

By the new Constitution, France was declared to be a democratic repub- 
lic, one and indivisible. The legislative authority was committed to a 
single assembly of 750 members, elected by all Frenchmen who had attain- 
ed their twenty-first year. All citizens above twenty-five years of age 
were eligible as representatives, with the exception of paid government 
functionaries. The executive authority was vested in a ' President of the 
Republic,' who was required by the constitution to be thirty years old, 
and a native of France. Louis Napoleon was chosen for four years, by 
the direct suffrages of all the electors, on the 10th of December 1848. 

Arrived at this hazardous position, he sought to strengthen his hold on 
the French by reviving, whenever opportunity offered, the most igreeable 



302 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Bouvenirs of his uncle's rule ; while, at the same time he incessantly disa 
vowed all ambitious sentiments, and complained of the suspicion of them 
as an injury. He made a pilgrimage to Ham, and in the neighborhood of 
his former prison expressed his repentance of the attempts of Strasbourg 
and Boulogne. Having thus combatted the preparations which a few con- 
stitutionalists were inclined to make against a possible coup d'etat, he play- 
ed with the parliament until December 2d, 1851, in the morning of which 
day, before sunrise, he swept into prison every statesman of Paris known 
for public spirit and ability, dissolved the assembly, seized the most distin- 
guished generals, and proclaimed himself dictator. A number of officers who 
had served in Africa, were sent into the streets with picked regiments, to 
shoot down remorselessly all who should raise an arm for the constitution ; 
and so, having by the aid of 100,000 soldiers completely subdued the cap- 
ital, and possessed himself of all power, he offered himself to France for 
ten years' election to the office of president. As no other candidate was 
allowed to come forward he of course was returned, and subsequently pro- 
claimed a constitution, which gave him more power than any European 
monarch, except the Czar of Russia, pretends to exercise. 

A decree was issued October 19th, summoning the Senate to meet on 
the 4th of November 1852, to consider the question of changing the form 
of government and reestablishing the empire. 

Prince Jerome Bonaparte presided and opened the session by briefly 
stating its object. A committee of ten was appointed which subsequently 
made a report, closing with the draft of a senatus consultum, declaring ; 
' The Empire is reestablished, and Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is Emperor, 
under the title of Napoleon III.' Two decrees were immediately issued ; 
the one convoking the French people, in its primary assemblies, to accept 
or reject the empire ; and the second convoking the legislature for the 
purpose of verifying the regularity of the votes, and of counting them out 
and declaring the result. On the 1st of December, the vote was report- 
ed to be 7,864,189 for the empire, and 253,145 against it; 63,000 votes 
were canceled as illegal. There was no hesitation on the part of foreign 
powers to acknowledge the empire. 

In March 1854, England and France announced to the world their in- 
tention of aiding Turkey in her struggle with Russia. The Queen's dec- 
laration of war appeared in the Gazette on the 28th, and on the preced- 
ing day, at Paris, the Minister of State read to the legislative corps a 
Message from the Emperor, announcing ' that the last resolution of the 
cabinet of St Petersburg had placed Russia in a state of war with respect 
to France — a war, the responsibility of which belonged entirely to the 
Russian government.' The military operations of the commencement of 
this war have been described in the preceding pages. [See History of 
England — Reign of Victoria.] 



HISTORY OF SPAIN. 



Abo'it the opening of the fifth century, when Alaric, the terrible king 
of the Visigoths, had sacked and burned the City of the Seven Hills, his 
brother, Adolph, crossing the Pyrenees, penetrated into Spain, and found- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 303 

ed, in that secluded province of the Roman Empire, a kingdom, of which 
the capital was Toledo — situated on a steep rock, which was washed on three 
sides by the waters of the Tagus. 

The Gothic monarchy, thus established, lasted for three centuries, when 
Roderick, who wore the crown of Spain, ravished the daughter of a Count 
named Julian, and thus created an implacable foe. Boiling with resent- 
ment, and panting for vengeance, Count Julian crossed to Barbary, and in- 
voked the aid of the adventurous Moors ; and forthwith the sound of Moor- 
ish horns, and the neighing of war-steeds, and the waving of the Crescent, 
announced that a Saracenic host had invaded the sunny fields of Spain. 

King Roderick encountered the Moors in several battles ; and at length, 
in the summer of 711, a decisive conflict took place at Xeres. There the 
king and the flower of his chivalry perished ; and the cities quietly yield- 
ing to the turbaned victors, a splendid Moorish monarchy was instituted un- 
der princes of the line of Omeyades. They exercised a temporal as well 
as spiritual authority, selected Cordova as their seat of empire, and adorn- 
ed that city with magnificent palaces, colleges, libraries, hospitals, mosques, 
bridges, and fountains. 

The vanquished Spaniards, so far from being harshly treated, enjoyed so 
much civil and religious liberty, that many remained in their native re- 
gions ; and the Spanish women freely availed themselves of the invitation 
to intermarry with the conquerors. Such of the proud barons, indeed, as 
disdained to submit, escaped to neighboring countries ; while others, de- 
parting from Andalusia, with its sunny skies and fair landscapes, moved 
northward, and formed themselves into petty states, at such mortal enmity 
with each other, and so exposed to the predatory incursions of the Arab 
cavalry, that the chieftains were under the necessity of keeping their fol- 
lowers in harness night and day. 

Notwithstanding their internal feuds, the eyes of the Spaniards were 
perpetually turned, with the longing of exiles, toward the land of corn and 
wine of which they had been dispossessed ; and they contemplated, with 
fierce indignation, the Crescent glittering on mosques under which their 
sires had worshiped the Christian's God. Invoking as their patron St. 
James, on his white steed, bearing the banner of the Cross, they deemed 
themselves the champions at once of their country and Christendom ; and 
the Spanish nobles, thus trained from infancy to serve against the Moors, 
were continually advancing southward, and in the stern school of adversity 
regained among the mountains of Gallicia so much of their ancestral valor 
as to render them formidable foes. 

In the thirteenth century the Cordovan empire had been reduced to the 
little province of Granada, in the midst of which stood the beautiful city of 
that name, on one of whose hills rose the far-famed Alhambra ; while the 
kingdom of Castile was not only receiving the homage of other states, but 
even the homage of the Moorish king, who pledged himself to pay an annu- 
al rent, to serve in war with a certain number of knights, and to attend 
the Cortes, or legislative assembly, when summoned. 

A hundred years later, Castile was the scene of fierce civil war. Pe- 
dro, surnamed the Cruel, had rendered himself unpopular by the severity 
with which he treated his enemies ; and his illegitimate brother, Henry of 
Trastamare, conceived the idea of seizing the throne. With this view, he 
applied to Charles V of France, who sent to his aid several companies of 



804 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Free Lances, commanded by Bertrand Du Guesclin, one of the most val- 
iant warriors of the age. These terrible adventurers, after passing Avig- 
non, and compelling the Pope to bestow upon them gold and his blessing, 
entered Spain. Pedro disbanded his troops and sought shelter in Gascony, 
at the court of Edward the Black Prince, by whom he was honorably re- 
ceived ; while his rival was proclaimed king in his stead. 

Henry of Trastamare transmitted the crown of Castile to his descend- 
ants, whose disputed title was decidedly favorable to public liberty, and 
rendered them deferential to public opinion, till the reign of Henry IV, 
who ascended the Castilian throne with the promise of a crusade against 
the Moors of Granada. The preparations made by him for that purpose 
were attended by results so inadequate, that he fell into contempt with 
friends and foes. 

In the year 1465, on a plain outside the walls of Avila, a platform was 
erected ; and thereon was placed, in royal robes, an effigy of Henry, with 
the crown on his head, the sceptre in his hand, and the sword of justice by 
his side. A sentence of deposition was pronounced : the archbishop of To- 
ledo tore off the crown ; one Count snatched away the sword ; another re- 
moved the sceptre ; a third tumbled the figure headlong to the ground ; 
and proclamation was made that Don Alphonso was king of Castile and 
Leon. But Alphonso died in 1468 ; and Henry, though reduced to the 
depths of despair, continued to reign till his decease in 1474. 

His daughter Joanna not being considered worthy of occupying the throne, 
his sister Isabella was recognized as heir to the deceased sovereign. The 
young queen, one of the most interesting characters in history, was highly 
endowed both in mind and person. Intelligence beamed in her mild blue 
eye, and was displayed in a manner which, though modest, was particular- 
ly gracious and dignified. In her nineteenth year she had been united to 
Ferdinand, the hereditary sovereign of Arragon, in conjunction with whom 
she now began to reign over the united kingdoms. They were not, howev- 
er, undisturbed ; for Alphonso, king of Portugal, whose victories over the 
Barbary Moors had gained for him the cognomen of ' the African,' having 
been affianced to the princess Joanna, invaded Castile to vindicate her 
claim to the crown. Ferdinand^ by a herald, challenged the invader to 
fight with his whole army or by single combat, and the hostile ranks en- 
countered. Castilian valor prevailed ; the standard of Portugal was torn 
to shreds ; the king escaped to a fortified castle, and soon after he with- 
drew with his youthful bride into Portugal ; but the Pope having forbid- 
den their marriage, the hapless princess sought consolation in a con- 
vent. 

Ferdinand and Isabella, being now secure, introduced several important 
reforms for the observance of law, the administration of justice, and the 
regulation of trade. The Moorish kingdom of Granada was so tempting a 
prize, that they determined on annexing it to their dominions. Hitherto 
the two nations, in spite of their natural enmity, had enjoyed much, and 
not unimportant, friendly intercourse. The Spaniards had acquired some- 
thing of Arabian gravity of demeanor, magnificence of air, and reserve in 
conversation, from communicating with their Saracenic neighbors. As 
late as 1463, Henry had held a personal interview with the king of Gra- 
nada, under a splendid pavilion erected in the vega, at the foot of the Al- 
hambra, and after an exchange of presents, the Spanish sovereign had been 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 305 

escorted to the frontiers by Moorish cavaliers ; but in 1476, when the an- 
nual tribute was demanded, the Moorish king proudly replied, that the 
mints of Granada coined gold no longer, but steel ; and he soon after at- 
tacked and carried off the population of the town of Zahara. At this cri- 
sis the high-spirited Moor died, and was succeeded by his nephew, the 
weak and unfortunate Boabdil. Thereupon Ferdinand, entering Granada 
with the whole force of Arragon and Castile, besieged the city for eight 
months. The Moorish king then came to the gates, and presenting the 
keys on a cushion to Ferdinand and Isabella, implored their protection. 
The valley of Piorchena was assigned him as a residence ; but being dis- 
contented with his lot, he after a little delay went over to Barbary. On 
Friday, the 6th of January, 1492, Ferdinand and his queen made their 
entrance into Granada ; the Moslem crescents were plucked from the min- 
arets of the Alhambra, and the arms of Castile and Arragon were displayed 
in their stead. 

The conquest of Granada made Ferdinand master of the fairest province 
in the Peninsula ; and, assuming the title of King of Spain, he recovered 
from France the districts of which Louis the Crafty had taken possession. 
He then established the Court of Inquisition, which consigned thousands 
of his subjects to the flames for heresy, and was put in force against the 
Jews, who fled by thousands, with their industry and intelligence, to the 
other states of Europe. For these services, Ferdinand and Isabella were 
rewarded by the Pope with the title of Catholic Majesties. 

About this time Christopher Columbus received from the court of Spain 
the encouragement which led to discoveries so important. A native of Ge- 
noa, he had unsuccessfully applied to the Government of that state for aid 
in his daring project of sailing to the East Indies by the west, and then 
made proposals to the Kings of England and Portugal, which were rejec- 
ted. In 1486 he came to urge his schemes upon the sovereigns of Spain ; 
but after six years of fruitless entreaty, was on the point of leaving the 
country, when Isabella, at the instance of her confessor, summoned the suitor 
to her presence. At this interview, the solemn aspect, grave air, and dig- 
nified appearance of Columbus, made so favorable an impression on the 
Queen that she ordered a fleet of three vessels to be fitted out at Palos. 
At that port, with a hundred and twenty companions, Columbus embarked 
on the 3d of August, 1492 ; and on the 12th of October, after thirty days' 
sail from Canary, came in sight of land, which proved to be one of the Ba- 
hama Islands. When the sun rose, the adventurers, manning their boats, 
rowed ashore, playing martial music, and displaying the royal standard. 
Columbus, in a scarlet dress, and bearing a naked sword, set his foot on 
the soil of the new world, and after taking possession of the island on be- 
half of the Castilian sovereigns, gave it the name of San Salvador. The 
natives gazed on in silent surprise, and in the simplicity of their hearts be- 
believed the Spaniards to be preternatural beings. 

Pursuing his career of discovery, Columbus took possession of Cuba 
and St. Domingo, and then returned in triumph to Spain. At Barcelona 
he was received by Ferdinand and Isabella, with the utmost favor, and de- 
sired to sit covered, like a grandee of the realm. A fleet of seventeen 
ships was fitted out, and he undertook a second voyage, which ended in 
disappointment ; but during a third, on the 1st of August, 1498, he discov- 
ered the continent of America, and carried six of the natives to St. Domin- 
20* 



306 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

go, as evidence of his success. But the great navigator was doomed to 
humiliating reverses : his enemies prevailed at Madrid ; he was displaced 
from his offices, and sent home in chains. Being set at liberty on arrival, 
he undertook a fourth expedition, from which, after being shipwrecked on 
the island of Jamaica, he arrived in Spain in 1505 ; but Isabella having 
meantime died, he was allowed by Ferdinand to drag out his career in ob- 
scurity at Valladolid. 

Ferdinand, after taking an important part in the Italian wars, where his 
general, Gonsalvo de Cordova, the Great Captain, signalized his military 
skill against the French, died in 1516, and an Austrian prince ascended 
the Spanish throne. 

Mary of Burgundy, daughter and heiress of that fiery Duke who fell 
fighting against the Swiss, became wife of Maximilian, afterward Emperor 
of Germany. In the month of February, 1482, that noble lady was hold- 
ing her court in the city of Bruges, in Flanders, then a great commercia. 
emporium of Europe ; and, mounting her palfrey one day, she rode forth, 
with a small retinue, to fly her hawks at the herons, which abounded in the 
vicinity. While pursuing the sport and leaping a fence, the girths of her 
saddle burst, and she was thrown violently against a tree. Dying from the 
effects of the accident, Mary left a son, named Philip, who espoused Fer- 
dinand's daughter, Jane the Foolish, and had a son Charles, born at Ghent 
in 1500. On the demise of Isabella, Jane, as her daughter, became Queen 
of Castile ; but immediately after, the sudden death of Philip bereft his 
young widow of her reason. Her case was hopeless ; and on Ferdinand's 
death, young Charles of Austria was associated with his insane mother on 
the Spanish throne, while the aged Cardinal Ximenes, a consummate states- 
man, grasped the reins of government with vigor and dexterity. Three 
years later, on the death of his grandfather Maximilian, the ambitious King 
of Spain was elected Emperor of Germany ; and thus becoming the most 
powerful monarch in Europe, he commenced that long and arduous strug- 
gle with Francis I of France, which has been previously sketched. 

At the time when Charles received the imperial crown there was resi- 
ding on the island of Cuba a Spaniard, named Hernando Cortez, the scion 
of an ancient and honorable family. He had left the mother country at 
nineteen, became proprietor of a flourishing plantation, married a young wo- 
man of beauty and excellence, and acquired high favor with Velasquez, 
governor of the colony. Yet, though apparently destined to a prosperous 
and peaceful career, so adventurous was the spirit of Cortez, that he sought 
and obtained the command of a squadron which the governor was fitting out 
for a voyage of discovery to the American continent. Dreading the bold 
and ambitious nature of Cortez, the governor recalled this promise, and ap 
pointed another as captain ; but Cortez got under way in the night, with the 
ships half-stored and equipped, and sailed from Cuba, never more to re- 
turn. Arriving in the river Tabasco, he landed in spite of a desperate 
resistance, made the natives swear allegiance to the King of Spain, caused 
mass to be celebrated in the principal temples, formed an alliance with the 
Tlascalans, a warlike Indian tribe, and rolled the tide of conquest toward 
the capital of Mexico. 

Montezuma, the Mexican Emperor, received the strangers with venera- 
tion, swore fealty to Spain, placed himself in the custody of Cortez, and 
assigned a temple as a Christian place of worship. This last concession 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 307 

was too much for his heathen subjects, who, instigated by their priests, 
declared that the Spaniards must perish on the altars they had violated. 
Cortez was preparing for a fierce struggle, when informed that a fleet had 
anchored off the coast, commanded by Narvaez, commissioned by the Gover- 
nor of Cuba to supersede him. Aware that his only chance lay in a sudden 
stroke, Cortez, with seventy picked men, set out for the camp of Narvaez, 
and after arresting his rival in a dark night, allured the soldiers to his stand- 
ard, and returned to the capital. There the fury of the Mexicans had become 
so great, that Montezuma in vain attempted to allay the storm ; and mortified 
at his loss of authority, the Emperor expired, while the streets were throng- 
ed with countless multitudes, who for successive days besieged the palace 
where the Spaniards were lodged. 

In this terrible situation, Cortez resolved to cut his way to the territory 
of his Tlascalan allies ; and on a July night, after hearing mass, he led his 
followers from their quarters in the centre of the city. After a bloody 
fight on the causeway he effected an escape, and reached the open country ; 
but there his little army was suddenly attacked by an overwhelming force. 
The position of the Spaniards seemed desperate, when Cortez, ever cool 
and courageous, suddenly penetrated to where the enemy's banner was 
displayed, killed with his own hand the Mexican general, and instantly 
changed the fortune of the day. Resting from his fatigues till the autumn, 
he returned to the capital, where Gautemozin now reigned as Emperor, 
and commenced warlike operations. But in May, 1521, Cortez, hopeless 
of otherwise accomplishing his object, took the terrible resolution of destroy- 
ing every house as he advanced. Burning palaces and temples, he gradu- 
ally made his way into the market-place, and then reluctantly gave orders 
for a general assault. The battle, which lasted for two days, was decisive: 
the youthful Emperor, being taken in a canoe, was executed : and the in- 
dependence of Mexico was extinguished. 

Soon after the conquest of Mexico, Francis Pizarro, landing in Peru 
with a formidable force, subdued that large, powerful, and flourishing em- 
pire, compelled the Peruvians to work the mines for their advantage, and 
added the conquered territory to the possessions of the Spanish crown. 

While his gallant subjects, stimulated by the desire of wealth, were win- 
ning for Charles an empire on which the sun never set, war was carried on 
in Europe ; and his great rival, Francis, taken at Pavia, was lying at his 
mercy in Madrid. But though the might of the Emperor overshadowed 
the princes of Europe, the Spaniards, regarding him as a stranger and 
foreigner, revolted in defense of their political rights; the civil wars of 
the Communeros were the consequence ; and Charles, having excluded the 
grandees from the representation, succeeded in withering by his despotism 
the free spirit that had long animated the ancient institutions of Castile 
and Arragon. 

While the religious reformation was agitating the other states of Europe, 
the Spanish nation remained unmoved by the shock, and out of it came 
Ignatius Loyola, destined not only to rescue the imperiled Papacy, but to 
breathe new life into the expiring system by which Rome had for centu- 
ries held the human intellect in sacerdotal bondage. 

Eight years after his rival Francis had gone to the grave, Charles, in 
1556, abdicated the Spanish throne in favor of his son Philip, and a few 
months later, weary of war and disgusted with grandeur, he resigned the 



308 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

imperial crown to his brother Ferdinand, and retired to indulge his melan- 
choly mood in the monastery of St. Just, on the frontiers of Castile. While 
there he is reported to have enacted no less extraordinary a scene than 
the celebration of his own funeral obsequies. After causing a tomb to be 
erected in the chapel, and making his attendants walk thither in procession, 
the ex-Emperor followed in his shroud, and was laid in his coffin. The 
monks then chanted the service for the dead, prayed for the repose of his 
soul, and shed tears for his departure. This singular ceremony is said to 
have thrown Charles into a fever, of which he expired in his fifty-ninth 
year. 

Philip II, inherited one of the wealthiest and most magnificent empires 
on which the sun ever shone, and he sought to increase his hereditary in- 
fluence by espousing Mary, queen of England, who loved him with the 
utmost tenderness. But, notwithstanding her displays of affection, Philip, 
tiring of the society of a spouse so destitute of attractions, and indignant 
that her subjects would not allow England to be made a fief of Spain, es- 
caped to his Continental dominions. However, when the Pope, jealous of 
the King's enormous power, formed an alliance with Henry II of France, 
to detach Milan and the Sicilies from the crown of Spain, Philip consider- 
ed it expedient to feign some esteem for his Queen, and paying her a visit 
at Greenwich, obtained the aid of England in his struggle. His army was 
victorious over the French, led by the Constable Montmorency, at St Quen- 
tin; and at Gravelines the Count Egmont vanquished the old Marshal 
Thermes ; after which the King of France, by the Treaty of Cambresis, 
surrendered to Spain eighty-nine fortified towns in Italy and the Low 
Countries. 

Philip was destined to deal with a sovereign infinitely less accommoda 
ting : for, ere the treaty of peace was signed, Queen Mary had breathed 
her last, and been succeeded on the English throne by a princess whose 
policy baffled his schemes, and whose courage defied his vengeance. After 
in vain soliciting the coveted hand of Elizabeth, Philip wedded a daugh 
ter of Catherine de Medici ; and becoming disquieted on the score of reli 
gion, he resolved to gratify his natural bigotry by extirpating from his 
dominions every species of heresy. He began with the Netherlands, where 
the Reformed doctrines had made considerable progress, and established 
the Inquisition with plenary power ; but this alienated the hearts of the 
inhabitants, who, choosing as their leader William of Orange, a Count of 
the Empire, bravely resisted the power of Spain. Philip proscribed, and 
set a price on the head of, the Prince of Orange, who was soon assassina- 
ted ; but his son, Maurice, appeared as his successor, and, with the aid of 
Queen Elizabeth, ere long secured the independence of the United Prov- 
inces. 

Philip, exasperated by the assistance which the English Queen had 
afforded to the revolted Netherlands, having meantime seized on Portugal, 
commenced fitting out the Invincible Armada for the invasion of England ; 
and preparations were in full progress when suddenly Sir Francis Drake 
made a dash at Cadiz, and after destroying thirty vessels, scoured the Span- 
ish coast, burning and shattering many castles and ships. The King's 
naval operations were thus delayed till May, 1588, when the Armada, 
consisting of a hundred and thirty sail, left the Tagus under the command 
of the Duke of Medina, who hoped to steer through the Channel to Flanders, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 309 

and form a junction with the Duke of Parma. But being attacked by the 
English Admiral, and after several engagements driven toward Orkney, 
the fleet was so effectually scattered by a tempest, that the Puke returned 
to Spain with not more than sixty shattered vessels. 

In 1596, war being formally declared, the Spaniards seized Calais, with 
other walled towns ; and in alarm Queen Elizabeth dispatched a fleet to 
Cadiz, under the young and accomplished Earl of Essex. Landing ,in 
spite of the fire from the forts and battlements, the English forced the 
town to capitulate, made the inhabitants pay for their lives, razed the for- 
tifications, and burned the houses. In revenge, Philip sent ships to threaten 
the English coast, though without any success ; and at length, satiated with the 
blood which had been shed in promotion of his various ambitious designs, he 
signed the Peace of Vervins. On the eve of the battle of St. Quentin, Philip 
vowed, in the event of victory, to build, in honor of St. Lawrence, a church, a 
monastery and a palace, and in fulfillment of this vow, he erected near Madrid 
the magnificent palace of the Escurial, which contained the residence and 
mausoleum of the sovereigns of Spain. Expiring in 1598, he was laid in 
the cemetry which 'he had formed beneath the pavement of the church ; 
and his son, Philip III, ascended the throne. 

From that period Spain declined in power and importance, though her 
empire was long, to outward appearance, great and magnificent. The new 
king, who was not less bigoted than his gloomy sire, prosecuted the war 
against the United Provinces, but, in 1609, was forced to conclude a trea- 
ty at the Hague, which secured civil and religious freedom to the new re- 
public, and restored the confiscated estates of the house of Orange. Yet, 
untaught by experience, and under the inspiration of his minister, the Duke 
of Lerma, he issued an edict, ordering the Morescoes, or descendants of 
the Moors, to leave the kingdom within thirty days, and thus farther enfee- 
bled a state which war and emigration had previously deprived of so many 
energetic and industrious inhabitants. The Morescoes had been conspic- 
uous for their skill and ingenuity in arts and manufactures, and this depop- 
ulation produced a most baneful effect. 

Philip IV succeeded, on his father's decease, to an empire more exten- 
sive indeed than the realms of the Grand Monarch, but corrupt in all its 
parts, and in a state of hopeless prostration. The result soon appeared. 
Brazil was taken by the Dutch ; Catalonia revolted to France ; and to 
suppress the rebellion, the Portuguese were intrusted with arms. The lat- 
ter turning against their oppressive governors, placed the Duke of Bragan- 
za on the throne ; and Philip was one of the last personages in Europe who 
heard of the important event. Shut up in the recesses of the Escurial, 
he was indulging in licentious dissipation, when one day his able and art- 
ful minister, Olivarez, craved an audience. * I bring,' said he, ' good news 
to your majesty. The Duke of Braganza's whole fortune is yours. He has 
presumptuously got himself declared King of Portugal, and, consequently, 
you are entitled to the forfeiture of all his estates.' Philip, lost in luxuri- 
ous enjoyment, only replied, ' Let the sequestration be ordered.' And 
Portugal was lost to him beyond the hope of recovery. 

A war which broke out with France was terminated, in 1659, by the 
Peace of the Pyrenees, which was negotiated by the crafty Mazarin ; and 
by this treaty it was stipulated that Louis XIV should espc use the King's 
eldest daughter, she renouncing all claim to the succession. 



310 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

In 1665, Philip expired, and his son Charles succeeded. The kingdom 
was in a deplorable state, and its ruler a prey to listless melancholy and 
extravagant superstitions ; so the Kings of France and England, seeing 
that Charles had no heirs, and that his days were numbered, agreed to a 
treaty of partition. This roused the languishing monarch into temporary 
indignation, which Louis, though the chief offender, succeeded in turning 
entirely against the other powers. Thus it happened, that while the 
Spanish ambassador was so insolent in his remonstrances at the court of 
St. James, that William commanded him to leave England, Charles, in 
making a destination of his territories by will, after numerous consultations 
with the Pope, the Spanish Universities, and his own Council, nominated 
as his heir Philip, duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin of France, 
and grandson of Louis. Having thus laid the foundation of a memorable 
war, Charles died on the 3d of November, 1700. 

When it was publicly announced that the kingdom of Spain had been 
bequeathed to the Duke of Anjou, Louis, with an unscrupulous disregard 
of the obligations he had incurred by treaties, acknowledged his grandson 
as Philip V, and rejoiced in the thought of all the rich possessions of the 
crown of Spain being transferred to the house of Bourbon. Philip has- 
tened to take possession of the magnificent legacy ; his brothers accom- 
panied him to the frontier ; and Louis made use of the vain, but signifi- 
cant words — ' The Pyrenees exist no longer.' 

Ferdinand V, a prince of a mild and pacific disposition, succeeded his 
father in 1746, and gave much encouragement to arts, commerce and man- 
ufactures ; but the death of his Queen overwhelmed him in such grief that 
he died in 1759. His brother Don Carlos, ascending the throne with the 
title of Charles III, was induced to sign, with France, that family compact 
which stipulated for reciprocal aid between the different branches of the 
Bourbons, and denounced as the enemy of all, any power that might here- 
after be at war with one. 

Ferdinand and his subjects had soon cause to repent of this temerity ; 
for the Seven Years' War began, and the arms of England were signally 
triumphant. Havana was taken by the English in 1762, and Spain suffer- 
ed enormous losses, till the Treaty of Fontainebleau put an end to the war, 
and restored her possessions. 

Charles was once more drawn into war with England; and in 1779 com- 
menced that siege of Gibraltar, which for two years was persisted in with- 
out effect. At length, in 1782, when the defense had been intrusted to 
General Elliot, a grand attack was resolved upon, and King Charles in- 
quired every morning on waking, 'Is it taken ?' On the 13th of Septem- 
ber a mighty effort was made ; a French engineer had constructed floating 
batteries which he said could neither be sunk nor set on fire ; and four 
hundred pieces of the heaviest artillery were brought to bear on the for- 
tress. But the red-hot balls fired by the garrison were irresistible in their 
effect ; the hostile batteries were destroyed, the ships sunk, and most of 
the besiegers with them. Elliot, for his gallant and memorable defense, 
was ennobled, with the title of Lord Heathfield, and peace was concluded 
next year. 

Soon after this failure, King Charles made an attempt to reform the 
dress and manners of his subjects, and carried his measures to so impru- 
dent a length, that an insurrection occurred at Madrid, and he was under 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 311 

the necessity of dismissing his favorite minister, Squillace. The earthly 
career of Charlos closed in 1788, and he was succeeded by his son, Char- 
les IV. 

When, in 1793, a confederacy was formed against the French Repub- 
lic, Charles joined in the league ; but a French army being sent into 
Spain, he changed sides, and was soon inspired with a high admiration of 
the Emperor Napoleon. His subjects being still animated by their ancient 
hatred toward England, Charles was not averse to minister to Napoleon's 
ambition, and in 1805 they declared war in concert ; but their united fleets 
were destroyed in the great battle of Trafalgar. 

Still it was in Bonaparte's power to exercise a sovereign influence over 
Spain, without infringing on that national spirit which, a century earlier, 
had resisted the allies of the House of Austria ; till the dissensions in the 
royal family stimulated his ambition. Charles, a feeble prince, entirely 
under the influence of Godoy, the Queen's favorite, had fallen into con 
tempt. His son, Ferdinand, was the idol of the nation ; and Napoleon 
was entreated to arbitrate in regard to their differences. He seized the 
occasion to send an army across the Pyrenees under Murat, who suddenly 
took possession of Barcelona and several strongholds. Soon after, Napo- 
leon demanded a surrender of the provinces on the left bank of the Ebro. 
Charles and his spouse were dumb with surprise ; Godoy advised the King 
and Queen to embark for their American dominions ; and preparations were 
made with that view. But their son, Ferdinand, opposing the step, sum- 
moned the populace, raised an insurrection, in which the royal troops took 
part, caused Godoy to be arrested, kept the King prisoner, and after pro- 
curing an abdication in his own favor, entered Madrid in haughty triumph 
as Sovereign of Spain. 

Brief was his ovation ; for on the following day Murat marched his army 
into the capital, and Charles protested against his compulsory abdication ; 
but though Murat refused to acknowledge the royalty of Ferdinand, he 
administered no comfort to Charles — 'Napoleon alone,' he said 'can de- 
cide between the father and the son. ' 

What that meant was ere long beyond all doubt ; for the Emperor going 
to Bayonne, summoned thither the King as well as his undutiful heir. He 
then decided the matter by making Charles abdicate in his own favor, by 
imprisoning Ferdinand in the Chateau of Valencay, and by assigning that 
of Compiegne as a residence for the deposed monarch. 

Murat, meanwhile, retained possession of Madrid ; and, under French 
influence, the Council of Castile demanded as King the Emperor's eldest 
brother, Joseph. The latter, resigning the crown of Naples to Murat, 
hastened to Bayonne, where he was acknowledged as sovereign of Spain 
by various deputations. But, ere his entry into Madrid, the Spanish pea- 
santry had indignantly taken up arms ; the clergy had inflamed their en- 
thusiasm by representing Napoleon as Antichrist ; the royal troops joined 
the insurgents ; a cry of vengeance arose throughout the land ; and at Ca 
diz the French fleet was seized and the crew slaughtered. The victory of 
Bessieres opened the gates of Madrid to King Joseph ; who, however, was 
fain, when Dupont capitulated at Bayleu, to leave the city within a week 
of his triumphant entry ; and he soon possessed in all Spain no more than 
Navarre, Biscay, and Barcelona. 

Ambitious of subjugating Spain, the Emperor summoned thither his still 



312 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

unconquered legions, and placing himself at their head, was victorious in 
three engagements. Entering Madrid, he tempted the inhabitants with 
promises of franchises and the abolition of feudalism ; but their ears were 
closed against all offers. 

The Spaniards were resolutely rising in organized bands, and the Eng- 
lish army was approaching, when the news arrived that Austria had form- 
ed a new coalition with England. Bonaparte withdrew to the Rhine, while 
the Spaniards hailed their ancient enemies as deliverers, and the English 
defeated King Joseph in the battle of Talavera. The victory of Welling- 
ton over Marmont at Salamanca, in 1812, and that over King Joseph at 
Vittoria, in 1813, brought the English to the Pyrenees ; and Spain was 
irreclaimably lost to the Empire of the French. 

Emerging from his prison at Valencay, Ferdinand VII returned to take 
possession of his ancestral throne ; but the princes of restored dynasties are 
the most infatuated of beings, and the new King of Spain did not escape 
the general doom. Instead of granting liberal institutions, he, at the insti- 
gation of the priests, reestablished the hateful Inquisition, and practiced 
his tyrannies so ruthlessly, that, in 1820, the endurance of his subjects was 
at an end. Riego, rising in arms, proclaimed the Constitution which the 
Cortes had adopted in 1812 ; and, though he was unsuccessful, the great- 
er part of the nation rose. The army joined the insurgents, and, though 
Ferdinand announced his intention of convening the Cortes and granting 
reforms, his offers were despised. The populace thronged and clamored 
around his palace ; and the wretched King was fain to proclaim the Con- 
stitution. 

At that time, the Congress of Verona convoked to consider the affairs 
of Greece, found the Spanish revolution a much more exciting topic ; a 
French army on the frontier was ready to aid Ferdinand, but the Duke of 
Wellington, as representative of England, objected to intervention. Nev- 
ertheless, in 1823, the troops, under the Duke of Angouleme, crossed the 
Pyrenees, and entered Madrid. Ferdinand, who had previously been de- 
posed by the Cortes, on being restored by French arms annulled every act 
of the Constitutional Government, and Riego was hanged on a very high 
gibbet, without being permitted to address the people. 

In 1833, Ferdinand, from indulging to excess in eating, died of apoplexy, 
having previously nominated his Queen as Regent during the minority of 
her daughter, Isabella II, then three years of age. The new reign began 
with civil strife, for Don Carlos, uncle of the youthful sovereign, aspired 
to the crown, and on his return from exile the Carlist war for years deso- 
lated the unfortunate country. 



. HISTORY OF GERMANY AND AUSTRIA. 

The Empire of the West, which Charlemagne had constructed at so much 
cost of blood and treasure, fell to pieces after he had gone to the grave ; 
and the crown of Germany, being separated from that of the Frankish 
monarchy, was worn by one branch of the Carlovingian race, while the 
members of another were enacting the part, without exercising the au- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 313 

thoritj, of kings on the banks of the Seine. But in 911, the various princes 
of Germany, assuming an attitude of independence, elected Conrad of 
Franconia to the Imperial throne ; and he, after a reign rendered troub- 
lous by the inroads of the Hungarians, was succeeded by Henry of Saxo- 
ny, surnamed the Fowler. 

Previous to the time of Charlemagne, the Germans considered it indica- 
tive of servitude to live in cities, and argued that even the fiercest animals 
lost their courage when confined. The prejudice had gradually worn 
away ; and Henry, in order to resist the Hungarian horsemen, induced his 
subjects to build towns, surrounded them with ramparts, fortified them with 
towers, and enjoined a certain number of his nobles, albeit their favorite 
occupation was hunting, to reside within the walls. 

Otho the Great, son of Henry, becoming emperor in 938, checked the 
indefatigable Hungarians, rendered Bohemia tributary to the Imperial 
crown, forced the Danes to receive baptism, and, on the invitation of the 
pope, marched to settle the affairs of Italy. At Rome he was crowned 
emperor, dignified with the title of Caesar Augustus, and invested with the 
right of nominating the pope. 

The son and grandson of Otho having successively enjoyed the Imperial 
dignity, it was, on the decease of the latter, conferred on his nephew, Hen- 
ry of Bavaria, who asserted by arms his claim to the sovereignty of Italy. 

Conrad II, duke of Bavaria, or the Salic, next enjoyed the crown, and 
rendered fiefs hereditary. By his wife, Gisella of Swabia, he had a son, 
who succeeded him, in the person of Henry III, surnamed the Black ; and 
he, being a prince of spirit and ability, vindicated his right to create popes, 
nominated three in succession, and departing this life in 1056, left an in- 
fant son of his own name, under the care of his widow, Agnes of Gui- 
enne. 

Henry IV succeeded to the Imperial throne on the eve of a great and 
momentous struggle, to which he was sacrificed from his youth upward. 
Being carried off from his widowed mother and intrusted to intriguing pre- 
lates, his young mind was deliberately corrupted ; and he was encouraged 
to indulge in vicious courses. He was then commanded by pope Alexan- 
der to appear before the tribunal of the Holy See, and answer for his de- 
baucheries. Henry treated this mandate with contempt ; but soon after, 
Alexander died, and the papal throne was ascended by Hildebrand, one of 
the most remarkable men Europe ever saw. 

Hildebrand, the son of a carpenter in a little town of Tuscany, had risen 
to be prior of Clugny, and in that capacity had become conspicuous for 
austerity and self-denial. On the nomination of Leo IX to the papal chair, 
he had pursuaded that pious prelate that an emperor had no right to cre- 
ate a pope, and even prevailed on Leo's successor to confer on the College 
of cardinals the exclusive right of voting at papal elections. For his ser- 
vices to the church, Hildebrand had successively been appointed cardinal 
and chancellor of the Holy See ; and in 1073, he was elected as pope by 
the Sacred College. But before assuming the tiara, he obtained the 
youthful emperor's assent, and then assuming the title of Gregory VII, he 
prepared to throw off his mask, and execute his mission of ' pulling down 
the pride of kings.' 

Meantime the Saxon subjects of the emperor, on the verge of revolt, 
sent deputies to demand an audience of him, and explain their grievances. 



314 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

The deputies found Henry engaged with a game of hazard, and he con- 
temptuously bade them to wait till it was finished. The Saxons indignant- 
ly rose in arms under Otho of Nordhim, and in a few hours the emperor 
was a fugitive. A Diet, or Assembly of the States, was held to depose 
him, and bestow the crown on Rodolph of Swabia ; but a display of exces- 
sive loyalty on the part of the citizens of Worms caused the dissolution of 
the Diet, and Henry, panting for vengeance, led, in the depth of a severe 
winter, his gallant army to the Saxon frontier. There, however, he found 
the insurgent forces of Otho so much superior to his own, that he was un- 
der the necessity of capitulating ; but at this point, the great feudatories 
of the empire taking up his quarrel, Henry, with the whole strength of 
Germany, encountered the rebellious Saxons on the banks of the Unstrut, 
and, at a fearful cost of life, gained a bloody victory. 

Meanwhile, Gregory, having enacted a law forbidding priests to marry, 
and another precluding kings from the right of investing spiritual dignita- 
ries, sent two legates to cite Henry to appear before him for his delinquen- 
cies, in continuing to bestow and sell investitures. This brought the dis- 
pute between the pope and the emperor to a crisis, for the legates being 
unceremoniously dismissed, and a Diet held at Worms having deposed 
Ilildebrand, he, in retaliation, excommunicated the emperor, and released 
all that prince's subjects from their oath of allegiance. 

It was about the opening of the year 1076, that Henry, returning to 
CJtrecht from a campaign against the revolted Saxons, became aware that 
he was under the papal ban ; and in autumn a Diet held at Tribur decided 
that, in the event of the emperor not being received into the bosom of the 
(Jhurch by the following February, a Diet should be held at Augsburg, 
and his crown given to another. Henry, thereupon, took up his residence 
at Spire, where, deserted by his courtiers, he was consoled by his injured 
but forgiving wife — the pure and faithful Bertha. When months had 
worn away, and the pope still refused to receive him in Italy as a penitent, 
the proud emperor, assuming the garb of a pilgrim, and accompanied by 
Bertha, with their infant child in her arms, undertook, in the midst of a 
singularly severe winter, to cross the Alps, which, after the utmost danger 
and fatigue, they almost miraculously accomplished. 

About the end of January the emperor appeared as a humble suppliant 
at the gate of the castle of Canossa, in whose feudal halls the pope was 
enjoying the hospitality of his faithful adherent, Matilda, countess of Tus- 
cany. In the trenches of that Italian fortress, while the Aphenines were 
covered with snow, and the mountain streams with ice, Henry, cold, fast- 
ing, barefoot, and unclad, save with a scanty woolen garment, stood for 
three whole days, imploring, with tears of agony and cries for mercy, the 
pity of Ilildebrand. As the third day was drawing to a close, the pope re- 
laxed, admitted the humiliated emperor to his presence, and after subject- 
ing the royal victim to the depth of debasement, revoked the papal anath- 
ema. 

The degradation to which the emperor had been exposed so galled his 
subjects, that they meditated a removal of the imperial crown to the head 
of his infant son, Conrad ; the Saxons having elected Rodolph as their sov- 
ereign, defeated Henry in two battles ; and Hildebrand once more pro- 
nounced against him the sentence of excommunication. But the emperor 
had his revenge ; for his rival, Rodolph, having fallen in battle by the hand 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 315 

of Godfrey of Bouillon, and the pope's Norman allies being absent in the 
East, the banners of Germany were suddenly displayed before the walls of 
Rome. In the spring of 1084 the besiegers entered the Eternal City. 
Gregory took refuge in the castle of St. Angelo, and Clement III, a rival 
pontiff, placed the Imperial crown on Henry's brow. But the return ai 
the warlike Normans caused the Imperial troops to retreat with precipita- 
tion ; while the Roman citizens rising against his allies compelled Hilde- 
brand to fly for shelter to Salerno. There, broken with time and trouble 
he expired ; and his last words were, ' I have loved righteousness anc 
hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile.' 

Henry returned to Germany, where he reigned for a while undisturbed 
by civil war ; but Pope Pascal, aspiring to follow in the footsteps of Hilde- 
brand, incited Henry, the Emperor's eldest son, to rebellion ; and the youth 
declaring that he could not acknowledge as king or father a man who was 
excommunicated, treacherously imprisoned his sire, and assembling a Diet 
was proclaimed in his stead. Two prelates were sent to demand the rega- 
lia from the deposed Emperor ; he, receiving them in his symbols of sov- 
ereignty, refused ; but, laying violent hands on him, they dragged him 
from his chair, and forcibly divested him of the regal robes. Poor and 
distressed, Henry escaped from prison, and raised a considerable force to 
assert his rights ; but he died at Lidge in 1106, before active operations 
commenced. His body, denied a resting-place in consecrated ground, was 
interred in a cave near Spire. 

Henry V, though indebted to the Pope for support in his parricidal re- 
bellion, was no sooner established on the Imperial throne, than, reviving 
the claim of investiture for which his father had contended, he invited the 
Pope to Germany, that they might settle the dispute. But Pascal having 
appealed to the King of France, and a fruitless conference having been 
held at Chalons, Henry entered Italy with eighty thousand men, and after 
a tedious interview in the church of St. Peter, ordered his guards to take 
Pascal into custody. The populace of Rome rushed to the Pope's rescue ; 
a battle was fought under the walls ; and the carnage was so terrible that 
the waters of the Tiber were stained with blood. Pascal, taken prisoner, 
crowned the Emperor, and confirmed the right of investiture ; but hardly 
had Henry departed when the Pope changed his tune, and pronounced a 
sentence of excommunication. The Emperor once more entered Rome, 
chased the Pope to the territories of the Norman princes, and marched to 
take possession of Tuscany, which Matilda, during Hildebrand's visit to 
Canossa, had bequeathed to the Church. Meanwhile Pascal died, and the 
States of the Empire having implored Henry to make peace with the new 
Pope, a Diet was held at Worms, and the matter accommodated. In 1125 
a pestilential disease carried Henry to the grave ; and the Imperial dignity, 
after being enjoyed till 1138 by Lothario II, was bestowed upon Henry's 
nephew, Conrad, duke of Franconia. A rival appeared in the person of 
the haughty Duke of Bavaria, whose followers called themselves Guelphs, 
from his family name ; while the adherents of the Emperor adopted the 
appellation of Ghibelines, from Hihghibelin, the village of which Freder- 
ick, the brother of Conrad, was a native. Both parties took up arms, and 
during the contest a romantic incident occurred at the siege of Weinsberg. 
The Guelphs in the castle, after being long besieged, yielded on condition 
that the Duke of Bavaria and his officers should be allowed to retire un- 



316 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

molested : but the noble Duchess, apprehending a breach of faith, stipula- 
ted that she and the other women in the castle should be allowed to come 
forth and be conducted to a place of safety, with as much as each of them 
could carry. Conrad, who expected to see the ladies loaded with jewels, 
gold, and silver, was in no small degree surprised when the Duchess and 
her fair comrades appeared carrying their gallant husbands ; and he was 
so touched at this display of conjugal affection, that he granted most favor- 
able terms to the Guelphs. 

The preaching of St. Bernard, though in French, and therefore unin- 
telligible to the Germans, had nevertheless a powerful effect on the latter ; 
and Conrad, resolving to take part in the second Crusade, embarked with 
a mighty army : but being betrayed by Greek guides in Asia Minor, his 
forces were surprised and defeated amidst the defiles of Laodicea. The 
defeated Emperor, returning to Europe, died in 1151, and was succeeded 
by his nephew, Frederick Barbarossa, who was soon involved in a struggle 
with Henry the Lion duke of Saxony, with the Italian cities, and with an- 
other enemy infinitely more formidable than either. 

Early in the twelfth century, Nicolas Breakspear, an English mendicant, 
was strolling about from place to place, when chance directed his vagrant 
steps to the convent of St. Rufus, in Provence, where the canons received 
him as a servant. Being afterward admitted as a monk, Nicolas rose to 
the rank of Abbot. In 1154, by personal merit and good fortune, the 
Anglo-Saxon beggar was placed in the papal chair as Adrian IV, and be- 
fore crowning Frederick he insisted that the Emperor should on bended 
knee kiss his foot, hold his stirrup, and lead his white mule by the bridle 
for nine paces. Frederick reluctantly consented to perform the ceremony 
at Venice ; but purposely mistaking the stirrup, he remarked with a sneer, 
1 1 have yet to learn the business of a groom.' 

The Emperor proved himself an able politician and a stout soldier. To 
abridge the power of the martial nobles, he followed the example of Louis 
VI, of France, and conferred charters of community, which enfranchised 
the people and formed them into corporations. 

Going to the third Crusade, this great ruler was drowned in crossing 
the river Seneff, and was succeeded on the Imperial throne by his son, Henry 
VI, who was speedily involved in Italian wars. 

A few years earlier the throne of Sicily had been filled by William, a 
king of the Guiscard line, who had espoused Joan, a sister of Richard of 
England, without being blessed with heirs. William, however, had an 
aunt, named Constance, whose chance of being queen appeared so certain, 
that Henry, who was at once poor and avaricious, wedded, with great 
pomp, the princess, though she was thirty-two — an advanced age for a 
royal Italian bride. But when William died, so strong was the prejudice 
against a female sovereign, that his illegitimate son Tancred was proclaim- 
ed King. Henry prepared to assert his claim, but the lion-hearted King 
of England, on his way to Palestine, arrived at Sicily, and indignant to 
find his sister deprived at once of her dower and her freedom, commenced 
aggressions. Subsequently, however, Richard concluded with Tancred a 
league, offensive and defensive, and the Emperor, however he might have 
dealt with the Sicilian King, had no fancy for playing at the game of car- 
nage with Richard Cceur de Lion. He therefore waited till the English 
King's departure, and entering Italy, laid siege to Naples in the summer 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 317 

of 1091 ; but when a fever, which carried off a large portion of his army, 
prostrated himself, the Emperor, in alarm, raised the siege, and executed 
an inglorious retreat. But he treasured up his malice, and his day of tri- 
umph came. 

When Richard had been seized, imprisoned, and forced to pay an enor- 
mous ransom, Tancred died, and his son was placed on the throne. Avail- 
ing himself of the money extorted from Richard, Henry — who had mean- 
while incorporated into a regular order the Teutonic knights, originally 
destined for the service of the sick in Palestine, and built for them a house 
at Coblenz — announced his resolution of undertaking a Crusade. But 
instead of going to the Holy Land, he marched into Sicily, the throne of 
which he seized, after perpetrating revolting cruelties. At length, one of 
the Norman princes having been tied naked to a chair of red-hot iron, and 
crowned with a circle of the same burning metal, the Empress in disgust 
turned against her husband, incited the inhabitants to rebel, and imposed 
upon him the most humiliating conditions. Henry died at Messina, poison- 
ed, as was said, by his Italian spouse, and his son, Frederick II, was plac- 
ed on the Imperial throne ; but the German princes, indignant at seeing 
the crown become hereditary, held a Diet at Cologne, and elected Otho, 
duke of Brunswick, son of Henry the Lion. Civil war arose between the 
princes, and Otho IV was crowned at Rome by the Pope ; but Frederick 
allied himself with Philip Augustus, king of France, who at the village of 
Bovines, in 1214, totally defeated and ruined the rival. Upon this disaster 
Otho retired to Brunswick, where he became a devotee ; while Frederick, 
having been crowned with unwonted magnificence, afterward undertook a 
Crusade without the papal sanction, and on his return was excommunica- 
ted by Gregory IX. From that period his life was one long and vexatious 
struggle with the Popes ; the Dominican friars preached a holy war against 
him ; a defeat before Parma made him retire to recruit his army in Sicily ; 
and there he died in the year 1251. 

His son Conrad, last Emperor of the house of Swabia, assumed the Im- 
perial title ; but after his death, in 1254, there was an interregnum of 
several years, during which Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry 
III of England, spent large sums to secure his election as King of the 
Romans, which he deemed a certain step to the Imperial dignity ; but sev- 
eral of the Electors being favorable to Alphonso, king of Castile, Richard's 
aspiration was not fulfilled. 

At length, in 1274, the German princes, though impatient of subordina- 
tion, willing that the throne should be occupied by an emperor whose influ- 
ence was not such as to excite their jealousy, elected Rodolph of Hapsburg, 
a Swiss baron ; but the king of Bohemia, of whose household Rodolph had 
been steward, unable to brook the sovereignty of his former inferior, not 
only refused homage for his fiefs, but seized on the Duchy of Austria. He 
was soon compelled to give up Austria and do homage for Bohemia and 
Moravia, but bargained for the latter ceremony being performed in private. 
To gratify him in this particular, a close pavilion was erected on the small 
island of Cumberg, and thither came the Bohemian, decked with gold and 
jewels, while the Emperor appeared in plain and simple habiliments. The 
Bohemian was nervously anxious to avoid a public scene ; but at a critical 
moment the curtains of the pavilion, falling aside, revealed to thousands of 
soldiers the proud King on bended knee before his former steward. Incit- 



318 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA 

ed by a haughty spouse, he renounced his allegiance ; but the Emperor 
taking the field, slew the hapless King in battle, and, to aggrandize the 
house of Hapsburg, bestowed Austria on his second son, Count Albert. 

Adolph of Nassau being next elected Emperor, Count Albert of Austria, 
incited by Philip IV of France and supported by a minority of the Elec- 
tors, rose in arms, slew Adolph in a battle at Spire, and was soon after 
crowned as Emperor. Thereupon Pope Boniface summoned him to answer 
for Adolph's murder ; but a bitter feud arising between the French King 
and the Pope, the latter found it convenient to court Albert's alliance, and 
transferred to him the sovereignty of France. However, Albert soon had 
his hands full at home ; for having, as hereditary sovereign of several 
Swiss cantons, made an attempt to seize the whole of the provinces, the na- 
tives combined, and with a small army won successive victories. 

The end of Albert was particularly tragical. In 1309 he was walking 
one day on the banks of the Russ, when his companion, a nephew, whose 
patrimony he had unjustly retained, drawing his sword, inflicted a mortal 
wound ; and the Electors raised to the throne Henry of Luxembourg, the 
most renowned knight of an age which boasted of Robert Bruce and Giles 
de Argentine. The martial Emperor having avenged his predecessor's as- 
sassination, fought his way to Rome, imposed a tribute on the Italian States, 
and died in 1814 ; poisoned, as was supposed, by emissaries of the Pope. 
Louis of Bavaria was then elected ; and, after a long dispute, defeated and 
captured Frederick the Handsome, of Austria. But successive Popes 
proved his mortal foes ; and though the death of his Austrian competitor 
left Louis without a rival, Benedict XII, who resided at Avignon, vindic- 
tively pursued him to the grave. His subjects were made to choose be- 
tween their sovereign and the pontiff: discord and disorder loosened the 
frame-work of society ; and the fraternity known as the Friends of God, 
by the spread of their doctrines, prepared the way for that religious refor 
mation which was accomplished in the following century. 

On the death of Louis, in 1348, the king of Bohemia, favored by the 
Pope, obtained the vacant throne, with the title of Charles IV. This 
Emperor issued the celebrated Golden Bull, which limited the number of 
Electors to seven, because of the seven mortal sins and the candlestick 
with seven branches. The publication was signalized by an ostentatious 
ceremony, in which the Electors took their appropriate parts as hereditary 
officers. The Archbishops of Mentis, Cologne, and Triers, carried the 
Imperial seals of Germany, Italy, and Gaul ; the Duke of Luxembourg, 
as proxy of the Bohemian King, officiated as cupbearer, and poured wine 
from a golden flagon into the Emperor's golden cup ; the Duke of Saxony, 
as grand-marshal, appeared with a silver measure of oats; the Elector of 
Brandenburg presented the Emperor and Empress with water in basins of 
gold ; and the Count Palatine, in presence of the great officers of state, 
served up the viands in dishes of the most precious metal. 

The Emperor Maximilian, known as the Moneyless, described Charles 
as ' the pest of the empire, ' and not without cause ; for he first dissipated 
the Imperial territories in Italy, and in 1376, to secure the election of his 
son, Wenceslaus, as King of the Romans, he promised each of the Electors 
a hundred thousand crowns. Unable to pay so large a sum, he alienated 
the ample Imperial domain which stretched along the banks of the Rhine 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 319 

from Basil to Cologne, and dying in 1378, was succeeded by the son for 
whom he had made so great a sacrifice. 

Wenceslaus proved himself the most cruel and vicious of mankind. 
He is said to have walked the streets with an executioner, to put to death 
such persons as incurred his dislike, to have drowned in the Moldau a 
monk who refused to reveal the confessions of his wife, the Queen of 
Bohemia, and even to have, in an hour of intoxication, ordered his cook 
to be roasted alive. The tyrant was, in consequence of his gross inca- 
pacity, deprived of the Imperial crown, which was given to Robert, the 
Count Palatine ; and he, in his turn, was succeeded by Sigismund, brother 
of Wenceslaus, and King of Hungary. 

Christendom was at that period scandalized by the great scnism of the 
West, produced by the cardinals having elected three rival popes — each 
considering himself endowed with all the attributes which Hildebrand had 
claimed for the Vicar of Christ ; and Sigismund, eager to settle the con- 
troversy, visited England to consult Henry V. But finding that hero 
wholly occupied with French wars, the Emperor returned, and in 1418 
summoned the Council of Constance, which settled the dispute by degrad- 
ing the three rivals and electing Martin V. 

The new pontiff was installed by an imposing ceremony. Arrayed in 
pontifical vestments, he mounted a richly-caparisoned mule, which was led 
by the reins, with due solemnity, by the Emperor and the Elector of 
Brandenburg. A magnificent canopy was held over the Pope's head by 
four Counts ; several princes walked around ; and forty thousand equestri- 
ans took part in the procession. The Council then went to more serious 
work, and summoned John Huss, a disciple of Wicliffe. Huss, after de- 
fending the articles of his faith, was declared a heretic, stripped of his 
sacerdotal habit, crowned with a mitre of paper, on which were painted 
three devils, and condemned to be burned with his writings. The victim 
died praising God, and was followed to the stake by Jerome of Prague. 

When Sigismund went down to his tomb in 1436, his son-in-law, Albert 
of Austria, who inherited the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, was raised 
to the Imperial throne ; and after dividing Germany into six circles, each 
regulated by a Diet, he was succeeded by his cousin, Frederick III. At 
the beginning of this long and languid reign, while war was raging be- 
tween the Turks and Hungarians, John Guttenberg invented at Strasburg 
the art of printing, which brought into operation the power of the pen ; 
and that potent weapon being, on the revival of learning, directed first 
against spiritual, and then against temporal despotism, materially influ- 
enced those revolutions which have gradually removed ancient landmarks, 
and changed the face of Continental Europe. 

Maximilian I succeeded his brother Frederick in 1493, and, to termi- 
nate the calamities created by private feuds, instituted, at the stately city 
of Frankfort, the Imperial Chamber, consisting of a president appointed by 
the Emperor, and sixteen judges, chosen by him and the States ; and he 
prevailed on the Diet to consent to the Aulic Council as the Emperor's 
Court, and without appeal. After wearing the crown with honor, and ex- 
hibiting much enthusiasm for science and literature, Maximilian, in 1519, 
disappeared from the stage of affairs on the eve of great events ; and his 
grandson Charles, the juvenile King of Spain, who inherited Austria, be- 
came a candidate for the Imperial dignity. In this he was opposed by 



320 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Francis I, whose ambassadors impressed upon the Electors the necessity 
of showing that the empire was not an heir-loom in the house of Austria ; 
and the Electors, with whom it was a rule not to select any prince already 
occupying an important position, caring little for either candidate, laid the 
diadem at the feet of Frederick of Saxony, a man of great prudence and 
popularity. Frederick, however, declined the distinction, and recommend- 
ed them to choose the King of Spain, who was accordingly elected on 28th 
June, 1520, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in the following October. 

Thirty-seven years before that important event, the wife of a miner, 
named Luther, (a worthy, studious, and stubborn man), had, in the little 
town of Eisleben, become the mother of a bo}', who was named Martin, 
from having been born on St. Martin's Eve. Removed in infancy to 
Mansfeld, on the banks of the Vipper, young Luther, while standing by 
his father's forge, or accompanying his mother to gather fagots in the forest, 
indulged in the anticipation of becoming a scholar, and being sent, after 
some preparatory training, to Erfurt, he excited by his intellectual powers 
the admiration of the whole university. One day, while reading keenly 
in the library, he came upon a Latin copy of the Bible, the pages of which 
he perused with breathless interest ; and resolving upon a monastic life, he 
entered the Convent of St. Augustine at the age of twenty-one. After 
spending three years in the cloister, Luther accepted a professorship in the 
University of Wittemberg, which Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, had 
founded. And in 1512 being sent as envoy to Rome, where Pope Julius 
then reigned, and his monastic illusions vanishing into air, he commenced 
his career as a Reformer, and was excommunicated by Leo X, who did 
not like his hunting, shooting, and fishing to be disturbed by heretics. 
Luther retaliated by publishing the ' Babylonish Captivity ;' and the book 
being burned, he, in 1520, publicly committed to the flames the Pope's 
bull and decretals. 

The popular spirit in Germany was m Luther's favor ; for though, from 
the days of Louis of Bavaria, the Emperors had acknowledged the ascen- 
dancy of the Popes, the people had exhibited an increasing dislike to the 
yoke of Rome, and in 1512 the populace of the Rhenish provinces had 
displayed their discontent by forming the League of Shoes. Maximilian, 
it appears, had not manifested any dislike to the new faith ; but Charles 
V had inherited enough of Spanish bigotry to decide his opinions, and in 
1521 he summoned Luther to appear before the Diet of Worms, and an- 
swer for his doctrines. The bold Reformer soon arrived from Wittemberg 
in a wagon, defended himself with great spirit, and afterward escaped into 
Saxony, where, secured by his friend the Elector in the fortress of Wart- 
berg, while branded by the Pope as ' a viper of hell, ' he commenced his 
translation of the Bible. And matters did not rest here, for the mind of 
Europe was in agitation. 

While, in England, Henry was attacking alike the Catholics and Pro- 
testants ; while, in Scotland, Cardinal Beaton was feasting his eyes with 
the burning of heretics; ^hile, in France, the brave and glory-loving 
Francis Avas sullying his fame by consenting to the villages of the Vaudois 
being converted into a desert waste ; the Emperor Charles was by no means 
indifferent to the interest of the Romish Church within the Imperial do- 
minions. And when freed by the death of his impetuous rival from appre- 
hensions of war, he gained, at Muhlberg, a victory over the Confederates 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 321 

at Smalcalde, which placed the venerable Frederick of Saxony in ln3 power. 
Strangely, at that crisis, the Lutherans turned for aid to Henry II of 
France, who, though bent on persecution at home, on certain conditions 
proclaimed himself their champion. But ere his services could be render- 
ed, Maurice of Saxony, to whom Charles had given the Electorate, prefer- 
ring to be a chief of the Protestants to figuring as the Emperor's creature, 
after much dissimulation marched on Inspruck, and almost succeeded in 
capturing Charles, who, after escaping over the Alps in a litter, sick and 
solitary, signed the Convention of Passau, which was converted into a 
definitive peace in 1552 — the era of religious liberty in Germany. 

At the close of this war, weary of the world, the great Emperor, having 
previously abdicated the Spanish throne in favor of his son Philip, resigned 
the Imperial crown to his brother Ferdinand, king of the Romans. After 
a reign of eight years, that prince was succeeded by his son, Maximilian 
II, who died in 1500, while preparing to support his election as King of 
Poland. 

Rodolph II, son of Maximilian, was so entirely devoted to the study of 
astronomy and astrology that he saw with indifference his dominions usurp- 
ed by his brother Matthias, who, succeeding to the Empire in 1612, pro- 
cured the election of his cousin Ferdinand to the thrones of Hungary and 
Bohemia. Both nations revolted, and the Hungarians were appeased ; but 
Ferdinand was a pupil of the Jesuits, and the Bohemian Prote3tant3, to 
whom he was obnoxious, advanced in arm3 to the gates of Vienna ; and, 
while Matthias was on his dying bed, commenced that terrible conflict 
known in history a3 the Thirty Years' War. 

Ferdinand, though elevated to the Imperial throne, wa3 sternly rejected 
by the Bohemians, who offered their crown to Frederick, the Elector Pala- 
tine, and son-in-law of the first James of England. Frederick, proceeding 
to Prague, accepted the gift, but rashly, as it soon appeared ; for in No- 
vember, 1620, the Imperialists coming thither, under Tilly, inflicted a de- 
feat, which made the Elector and hi3 fair spouse, whom men called the 
Queen of Hearts, fly to the Hague, while their friends surrendered town 
after town in the Palatinate to the Italian general Spinola. The Duke of 
Batavia, ere long, took possession of the Electorate ; and it3 hereditary 
sovereign, homeless and houseless, in spite of the alliance of the King of 
D3.rmark, remained a pensioner on Dutch bounty at the Hague. 

The tyranny of Ferdinand speedily led to the confederacy of Leipsic, 
of which Gustavus Adolphus, the heroic King of Sweden, was chief. Af- 
ter bearing the banner of Protestantism in triumph through Germany, that 
Lion of the North fell in. the battle of Lutzen, and the fortunes of the 
Elector seemed desperate. But when the Emperor had closed his check- 
ered career, and been succeeded by his son Ferdinand III, and when 
Germany was suffering from famine and poverty, the consequence of the 
long war, the Protestants, with the aid of France, found matters assuming 
a more favorable aspect. Turenne won the battle of Sommerhausen ; 
Wrangel captured Prague ; and the great Conde's victory at Len3, where 
the Archduke Leopold, brother of the Emperor, had his army routed, 
compelled Ferdinand to consent to the Peace of Westphalia, by which the 
Palatine family were restored and religious equality decreed. 

The peace was grateful to the inhabitants after their long struggle. 
Their losses were gradually repaired, their land3 cultivated, and their towns 

21* 




KING OF DENMARK 



324 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

rebuilt ; but on the death of Ferdinand, and the accession of his unamia 
ble son, Leopold, in 1658, the Hungarians rose in insurrection, made 
Tekeli their prince, and called in the Turks to their aid. The reigning 
Sultan, in 1683, raised the most formidable force ever sent against Chris- 
tendom ; and Lorrain, the Imperial general, retired before the Turkish 
crescent. Leopold and his household fled from Vienna ; two-thirds of the 
inhabitants followed ; the city was besieged, and it would have fallen but 
for the timely arrival of John Sobieski, king of Poland, who defeated the 
invaders, and took the famous standard of Mohammed, which was sent as 
a present to the Pope. Fearful was the vengeance which Leopold now 
took on the Hungarians. A scaffold, erected in the market-place of Epe- 
ries, stood there so many months, that the executioners were weary of 
victims. At length, the Hungarian nobles having been summoned to Vi- 
enna, declared the crown hereditary : the States at Presburg confirmed 
the decree ; and the Emperor's son, Joseph, at the age of nine, was ac- 
knowledged as King of Hungary. 

When Charles, king of Spain, breathed his last, without heirs, and Louis 
XIV sent his grandson Philip V to Madrid, Leopold, whose mother was 
daughter of Philip III, claimed the Spanish throne for his second son, the 
Archduke Charles. England supported the Austrian claim, and the war 
was still raging when, in 1705, Leopold dying, was succeeded on the 
Imperial throne by his son Joseph, who seized Mantua and Milan, assailed 
the temporal power of the Pope, and made everything bend to his 
power. In the midst of his successes he expired, in 1711, and Charles 
VI, whom the allies were attempting to place on the Spanish throne, having 
obtained the Imperial crown, the treaty of Utrecht terminated the War of 
Succession. To that treaty Charles at first refused his assent ; but when 
a French army under Marshal Villars had passed the Rhine, he acceeded 
to the views of the allies, and obtained Milan, Naples, and the Netherlands. 

One of the greatest and most successful captains of that age was Prince 
Eugesne. His father being a member of the house of Savoy, and his moth- 
er a niece of Cardinal Mazarin, he applied to Louis XIV first for an 
abbey, and then for a regiment. The Grand Monarch, little understanding 
the applicant's character, refused in both cases. Prince Eugene, taking 
service with the Emperor, was associated with the illustrious Marlborough 
in those brilliant victories that have made the name of the ' handsome En- 
glishman ' immortal, had the distinction of expelling the French from Italy, 
and in 1717, undertook the memorable siege of Belgrade, the strongest castle 
in Europe. Surrounded in his camp by a hundred and fifty thousand 
Turks, he routed them with immense slaughter, and captured the place, 
which remained in possession of Austria for twenty-two years. 

Charles, anxious that the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria 
should be settled on his daughter, the celebrated Maria Theresa, obtained 
the assent of the European powers to a pragmatic sanction. But hardly 
had his eyes closed in 1740, when events verified the observation of Prince 
Eugene : ' The best guarantee in this case would be an army of a hund- 
red thousand men.' Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, claimed Sele- 
sia, captured Breslau, after winning the battle of Molwitz ; while Charles 
of Bavaria, whom Louis XV had caused to be crowned as King of Bohe- 
mia, was chosen Emperor, with the title of Charles VII. But Maria 
Theresa, though deserted by her allies, was a woman of too high spirit to be 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 326 

daunted by adverse circumstances. She convoked the States of Hungary, 
and taking her infant son in her arms, addressed the assembly in Latin, the 
idiom of the States — ' I place in your hands,' she said, ' the daughter and 
son of your kings. They look to you for succor, and depend on you for 
safety.' 

The Hungarian nobles, too chivalrous to resist such an appeal from such 
lips, drew their glittering swords, and exclaimed with one accord, * we 
will die for our Queen,' and levied an army which brought her enemies to 
reason. At length, after an English army had won the battle of Dettingen, 
and Charles VII had been removed by death, peace was restored, and the 
husband of the popular Queen was raised, in 1745, to the Imperial throne, 
with the title of Francis I. But, in 1756, the Seven Years' War break- 
ing out between France and England, Maria Theresa, regretting the 
cession of Selesia to the Prussian King, flattered the vanity of Madame 
Pompadour, and secured the aid of France. The skill and intrepid cour- 
age of Frederick prevailed, and after seven bloody campaigns, he signed a 
peace with the Empress-Queen. 

On the death of his father, Joseph, the son of Maria Theresa, ascended 
the Imperial throne, and issued some oppressive edicts against the Nether- 
lands, which his grandfather had acquired at the close of the Spanish war. 
The inhabitants had been contented under the rule of Maria Theresa, but 
revolted at Joseph's tyranny ; and terrible was the punishment. Their 
houses were ruthlessly entered at midnight ; women and their infants were 
slain with one bayonet, and their husbands were, without trial, carried off 
prisoners to Vienna on the banks of the Danube. These cruelties prompt- 
ed the Netherlands to declare themselves forever released from Austrian 
sway, and to treat every offer of indemnity with contempt. 

This Emperor's conduct was otherwise praiseworthy ; he abolished the 
system of torture, with servitude and villeinage, granted a liberal toleration 
in religion, and was easy and affable in communicating with his subjects. 
He was succeeded in 1790 by his brother Leopold, who, during his brief 
reign, restored tranquillity in the Netherlands, and was hesitating about 
the course he should pursue toward revolutionary France, when he died 
in 1792. 

Francis II then succeeded his father, and took a conspicuous part in the 
struggle, as has already been related. But in 1806, when fourteen 
princes of Germany formed the Confederation of the Rhine, and acknowl- 
edged the victorious Napoleon as their protector, Francis, finding himself 
deprived of all his honors as head of the Germanic body, abandoned the 
ancient title, and styled himself Emperor of Austria. 

When Napoleon, after making the kings of the earth bow down before his 
mighty energies, fell in 1814, Vienna, the capital of the new empire, was 
the scene of one of the most important assemblies of modern days. There 
the Emperors of Austria and Russia, the King of Prussia, and many of 
the Germanic princes, met the representatives of England and France, to 
establish the territorial limits of the Continental States upon recognized 
principles of international policy. That was the celebrated Congress of 
Vienna ; and while withholding the Netherlands from Austria, it restored 
Lombardy, and added thereto all the ancient possessions of the far-famed 
Venetian republic. The Germanic Confederation was likewise dealt with, 



326 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and something done toward harmonizing the interests of the independent 
states into a nationality. 

The Emperor Francis died in 1835, after an eventful reign of forty- 
three years, leaving his dominions to his son Ferdinand, under the auspices 
of the profound Metternich. But during the revolutionary epoch of 1848, 
while the Hungarians were in arms to assert their independence, he abdi- 
cated ; and his brother declining to accept the Imperial crown, it came to 
the son of the latter, Francis Joseph, who thereupon assumed the titles of 
Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 

While England, under the first of her Scottish kings, was falling from 
the high estate she had occupied under her native princes ; while in France 
the genius of Richelieu was making itself felt; while the glory was depart- 
ing from the Spanish monarchy ; while the Thirty Years' War was begin- 
ning to desolate Germany ; while the illustrious career of Gustavus Adol- 
phus was opening upon Sweden ; and while the warriors of Turkey were 
yet terrible to the nations of Europe, Michael Theodoriwitz, earliest of the 
dynasty of Romanoff, became Czar of Muscovy. His dominions were 
uncultivated, his subjects barbarous, and the country was in the utmost 
disorder ; for on the extinction of the male line of the former Czars — the 
posterity of John Basilowitz, who had redeemed Russia from the Tartars — 
no fewer than five pretenders had aspired to the vacant throne, and in- 
volved the realm in civil war. But Michael, proving worthy of his eleva- 
tion, reigned for more than thirty years, maintained his position with 
dignity, and beqeathed the crown to his heir. 

Alexis, the son of Michael, succeeded in 1645, and applied himself with 
vigor to the harsh duties of reform. The necessity was indeed pressing ; 
for Muscovy was still little better than a ferocious anarchy ; and the capital 
was kept in perpetual consternation by the capricious violence of the 
Strelitzes — a militia formed in imitation of the celebrated Turkish Janiza- 
ries. But the new Czar proved himself an able ruler, and did much to 
create order. He published a code of laws, purified the courts of justice, 
restrained the power of the boyards over their serfs, and afforded much 
encouragement to agriculture and manufactures. 

Toward the close of his reign Alexis was deprived by death of his first 
wife ; and though he had a family of sons and daughters, the Czar deter- 
mined upon a second matrimonial speculation. According to the fashion 
then pursued by the rulers of Russia, Alexis issued a proclamation inviting 
all the most beautiful damsels in his dominions, irrespective of their social 
condition, to repair to Moscow that he might select a fitting bride. Among 
the rest came a lady named Natalie. She, having attracted the eye of 
Alexis, was forthwith exalted to the dignity of Czarina ; and, in due time, 
she became the mother of a prince who afterward rendered himself famous 
as Peter the Great. 

When Alexis expired in 1676, he left, besides Peter, then a mere child, 
two sons, Theodore and Ivan, and a daughter, Sophia, who ere long played 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 327 

a conspicuous part in Russian affairs. Theodore, a sickly youth, inherited 
his father's crown, but did not survive to wear it more than a few years. 
On his death-bed he summoned the boyards to his presence, and recom- 
mended them to set aside Ivan on account of his bodily infirmities, and in- 
trust the sceptre to the youthful Peter. To this scheme Sophia, who united 
much personal beauty with a strong will and a vaulting ambition, was 
vehemently opposed ; and her smiles so completely won over the Captain 
of Strelitzes, and fascinated the populace, that the incapable Ivan was 
seated on the throne, while she assumed the functions of government. The 
widowed Czarina and her son, after being besieged in their palace, fled 
from the city, and sought an asylum in the Convent of Trinity ; but they 
had scarcely taken refuge within its walls, when the soldiers of Sophia were 
heard clamoring at the outer gate. At this crisis a lucky thought crossed 
the agitated brain of the trembling Czarina. She placed her son on the 
high altar ; and when the soldiers effected an entrance, the Superior of the 
Convent, pointing to the boy, exclaimed, 'Behold him! there he is with 
God.' The soldiers were touched with awe, till one of them, less scru- 
pulous than his fellows, after a pause stepped forward, and brandished his 
weapon to strike the child. But a monk, arresting his arm, thrust him 
back, saying with calm solemnity, ' Not in this sacred place.' At that 
moment the tread of cavalry was again heard, and the Superior having 
exclaimed, ' Here come our friends at last ; let the enemies of God and 
the Czar tremble,' the edifice was speedily cleared of intruders, and the 
royal boy's life providentially saved. 

The son of Natalie had other perils to encounter on the threshold of life. 
At an obscure village, situated at a distance from Moscow, he was sur- 
rounded by a number of most profligate youths to corrupt his morals and 
debase his mind. But, instead of falling into the snare, Peter persuaded 
his comrades to have recourse to manly sports and martial exercises ; he 
formed them into a small military force ; and in this juvenile regiment, 
taking rank only as a private, he wrought his way gradually to command. 

About this time Le Fort and Gordon, two adventurers of mark and like- 
lihood, appeared in Russia. Le Fort was a native of Geneva, and had 
been originally destined for commercial pursuits ; but with a soul above 
such matters, he had followed the bent of his inclination, and betaken 
himself to a military career. Gordon was of a different stamp, being the 
cadet of a Cavalier family in Scotland, who had in youth left his native 
soil to win fame and fortune, and who had served with the Swedes and 
Poles. Peter now attached these distinguished soldiers of fortune to his 
cause ; and they rendered him most valuable aid in his schemes for the 
creation of that power which is now regarded as one of the most pernicious 
elements in European society. 

When Peter had attained his seventeenth year he took to himself a wife ; 
and this step so alarmed the aspiring Sophia, that in her haste she assumed 
the title of Empress, and dispatched a force to arrest the bridegroom. But 
her indications of enmity created such a ferment among the young hero's 
friends, that, in 1689, they compelled the haughty princess to abandon the 
struggle and retired to a convent, while Peter was installed as Czar. 

Ambitious of learning the art of governing his people and of ameliora- 
ting their condition, Peter, in the company of Le Fort, who figured as 
ambassador, left his dominions to acquire information in foreign lands. 



328 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

After visiting Berlin, he repaired to Holland, studied commerce at Am- 
sterdam, and wrought as an ordinary shipwright in the docks of Saardam. 
He then passed over to England to complete his knowledge ; and carried 
with him from Deptford, which he visited as a simple mechanic, sailors and 
artificers, whom he afterward promoted to places of honor and command in 
Russia. 

On returning home it became the chief object of the Czar Peter to teach 
his barbarous subjects the art of civilized war, and to form a regularly 
disciplined army. And in Charles XII of Sweden he found an antagonist 
whose courage and enthusiasm called forth all his genius. In their first 
conflicts the Swedish monarch was triumphant, but Peter did not therefore 
blanch. ' I knew,' said he, after being defeated at Narva, ' that the 
Swedes would beat us ; but in time they will teach us to become their 
conquerors.' He soon after recovered Narva by a skillful assault, and 
then applied his energies to the building of that remarkable town so inti- 
mately associated with his celebrity as a ruler. 

The Czar, in realizing his project, made choice of a singular site. Be- 
tween Finland and Ingria was a marshy island, which during summer was 
a heap of mud and in winter a frozen pool. Growling bears and howling 
wolves had hitherto haunted the spot ; but, resolute in his purpose, the Czar, 
bringing men from all parts of his realm, cleared forests, formed roads, 
erected mounds, and laid the foundation of St. Petersburg. Though in- 
undations demolished the works, and fever carried off the workmen, the 
Czar persevered in the undertaking ; and in 1714 he removed the council 
thither from Moscow, the ancient capital. 

A few years passed over ; and Peter assuming the title of Emperor of 
all the Russias, was formally acknowledged as such by the various powers 
of Europe. He established order throughout his dominions, provided edu- 
cation for youth, and adopted many useful reforms. But his temper was 
still so despotic, and his nature so fierce, that when Alexis, his son and heir, 
offended him by a dissolute life, and by opposing his schemes of civilization, 
the Czar ordered that he should suffer death. Peter himself expired in 
1725, and was succeeded on the throne by his second spouse, the Czarina. 

Catharine, originally a Livonian captive, exercised the functions of gov- 
ernment with credit for the next three years, and was succeeded by Peter 
II, a son of the murdered Alexis. This Czar only reigned for a brief 
period ; and the male line of the Romanoffs thus becoming extinct, the 
Russians elevated to the vacant throne Anne, duchess of Courtland, the 
second daughter of the Czar Peter's brother. The reign of Anne was hap- 
py and prosperous ; but on her decease there took place a struggle for the 
succession, which terminated in the proclamation r f Elizabeth, a daughter 
of Peter the Great, and in the imprisonment of her rivals. Her reign was 
particularly fortunate. A war with Sweden was brought to a satisfactory 
conclusion, and the Czarina's fleets and armies were every where victorious. 
Russia, under the auspices of Elizabeth, took an important part in the Seven 
Years' War, and the position of Frederick the Great had gradually become 
one of the extreme peril, when the Empress died in 1762, and the throne 
was inherited by her nephew Peter III. 

Peter who was animated by an enthusiastic admiration of the Prussian 
King's talent and courage, immediately consented to a peace, and the new 
reign commenced auspiciously. The nobles and gentry were freed from 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 329 

vassalage, and placed on an equality with those in other countries ; and the 
laborers were, to some extent, relieved from the burden of taxation. But 
being a Lutheran, Peter shocked the clergy by his contempt for the Greek 
Church, while he offended the army by his partiality for the Holstein 
Guards, and thus raised up a host of foes. The unfortunate Emperor had 
made another enemy, still more uncompromising. Before coming to the 
throne he had espoused Catharine, a princess of Anhalt Zerbst, a woman of 
great ability and boundless ambition. Their tastes, habits, and dispositions, 
were, however, utterly dissimilar ; and fierce quarrels arising between them, 
Peter became so deeply enamored of the Countess of Woronzoff, that ere 
long a rumor crept about of his intention to shut up the Empress in prison 
and raise the Countess to share his throne. The rumor cost him dear ; for 
while he was seeking consolation in the society of the lady of his heart, 
Catharine marched against the devoted Czar at the head of a strong party, 
proclaimed that he had ceased to reign, and threw him into prison, where 
he soon after breathed his last, under suspicious circumstances. 

The masculine Empress then ascended the Russian throne with the title 
of Catharine II, and commenced her reign by flattering the prejudices which 
her illfated husband had so fatally wounded. But a large share of her at- 
tention was speedily bestowed upon the affairs of Poland. When Augustus, 
king of that illfated country, expired at Dresden in 1763, the Empress, by 
the influence of Russian bayonets, procured the election of Stanislaus Au- 
gustus, one of her former favorites. Almost from the opening of the reign, 
Poland was the scene of disorder aud desolation ; for Catherine, having 
transported to Siberia a number of senators hostile to her designs, roused 
the indignant spirit of the nation. A band of patriotic Poles, seizing on 
Cracow and Bar, formed a league for their deliverance from a foreign yoke, 
and implored assistance from Louis XV. Fifteen hundred Frenchmen, 
under Dumouriez, marched to the assistance of the confederates, and Tur- 
key took part in the quarrel. But the Russians were completely victorious ; 
Bender was captured ; the Turkish fleet was destroyed ; and the Crimea 
was annexed to Catherine's dominions. Flushed with success, and unscru- 
pulous by nature, the Empress projected the dismemberment of Poland, 
forced her scheme upon Maria Theresa, and in 1772 entered into a treaty 
of partition with the rulers of Austria and Prussia. The Polish Diet was 
intimidated by menaces ; and the several provinces, about one-third of the 
Polish territory, which had been allotted to the spoilers, were surren- 
dered. 

Scarcely had the Russian Empress perpetrated this piece of ruthless 
injustice, when she was alarmed by the serious rebellion of a Cossack, who, 
assuming the name and character of her dead husband, pretended that he 
had escaped from the hands of those employed to assassinate him. The 
Cossack bore a striking resemblance to the deceased Czar, and was success- 
ful in arraying a considerable band of followers under his banner. He 
boldly took the field, and, possessing both skill and valor, was for a time 
victorious over the generals of Catherine. But at length he was totally 
defeated, taken prisoner, carried to Moscow in an iron cage, and beheaded 
as a traitor. 

Danger soon arose from another quarter. After undertaking one of the 
most pompous processions on record to be crowned at Cherson, Catharine, 
on her return to St. Petersburg, was disturbed by a declaration of war on 



330 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the part of Turkey : but the Ottoman power lo3t considerably by the ope 
rations, and the Dneister was henceforth recognized as the frontier of the 
hostile empires. 

Soon after this Catharine was startled with the outbreak of the French 
revolution, and against it she issued a strong declaration. But she re- 
frained from taking any active part in opposition to its promoters ; for 
while other countries were binding themselves up for the fierce struggle 
that ensued, the Czarina seized the occasion to make a second onslaught 
on devoted Poland. In 1788 the Poles, in their aspirations after liberty, 
increased their army, and framed a new constitution, which rendered the 
crown hereditary in the family of the Elector of Saxony. The Empress 
thereupon sent an army into Poland, under pretense of maintaining the 
settlement of 1772, but in reality to complete the subjugation of the un- 
happy country, which, in 1793, she effected, with the aid of the King of 
Prussia. The Polish nobles, however, took up arms to rescue their native 
land, and, under the brave Kosciusko, were at first victorious, but the de- 
feat and captivity of their general rendered further resistance unavailing. 

Warsaw still holding out, and refusing to surrender, the Russians, under 
Suwarrow, assailed the town ; and there ensued a fierce conflict, in which 
the Poles perished by thousands. After a resistance of eight hours they 
laid down their arms ; but even then a multitude of unarmed and defense- 
less human beings were mercilessly sacrificed by fire and sword. Suwar- 
row entered with the pride of a victor ; and the Te Deum was sung to 
celebrate his triumph. Next year Stanislaus made a formal resignation of 
his thorny crown. ' I can cheerfully,' he said, ' surrender what has brought 
me so much calamity.' 

With insatiable ambition the Czarina next cast her eyes longingly on 
Courland, and allured its Duke to her court. During his absence the no- 
bles of that fertile and populous district assembled the states, to annex their 
country to Russia. To this scheme there was at first serious opposition ; 
but a Russian general suddenly appearing in the assembly silenced all 
objections, and the deposed Duke retired to extensive estates which he had 
purchased in Prussia. 

Iti 1796, after a successful war with Persia, Catherine was summoned 
to another state of existence ; and the empire which she had rendered so 
extensive, was inherited by her son Paul. The deceased Czarina had con- 
fined herself to verbal denunciations in her hostility to revolutionary 
France ; but her successor, eager to signalize his ascension by some bril- 
liant exploit, entered — with singular zeal for the cause of sovereigns — 
into a confederation against the Republic. After setting the brave Kosci- 
usko at liberty, and making peace with Persia, he took an active part in 
the war against France, and sent a powerful force into Italy to the aid of 
Austria. Under Suwarrow the Russian army afterward entered Switzer- 
land, and menaced that Republic ; but the veteran conqueror of Poland 
was there utterly unsuccessful, and, depressed with the loss of renown, he 
returned with his shattered army to die of despair, under the frowns of his 
despotic sovereign. 

Jealous of the maritime greatness and naval ascendency of England, 
and swayed by a chivalrous admiration of Napoleon, the capricious Czar 
changed his politics, allied himself with France, seized the British ships in 
his ports, and organized the Northern Confederacy, which was dissolved 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 331 

by the victory of Copenhagen. But ere the news of that event could 
reach his ear, Paul had met a terrible fate ; for his tyrannies had so pro- 
voked his courtiers, that they declared his death to be essential to the 
welfare of the empire. At dead of night, in March 1801, the Emperor, 
in his regimentals, was reposing on a sofa, when the conspirators glided 
into his apartments. A hussar, who kept guard, opposing their entrance, 
was cut down with the stroke of a sabre ; and the Emperor, awakening at 
the noise, sprang to his feet, and endeavored to intrench himself behind 
chairs and tables. Finding his assailants resolute, the Emperor implored 
mercy, and even promised to make them all princes; but observing that 
they were inexorable, he sprang forward to escape through a high win- 
dow. At length a blow prostrated him on the floor, and a young Hano- 
verian, twining his sash round the victim's neck, and giving one end to an 
accomplice, twisted with all his might till the life of the miserable Em- 
peror was extinct. The conspirators then retired, without molestation, 
from the palace. At early morn the intelligence was bruited about that 
Paul had died of appoplexy ; and, in the course of the day, his eldest son, 
Alexander, was proclaimed Emperor of all the Russias. 

The new Czar, for awhile, maintained neutrality between contending 
nations ; but in 1804, when the Duke d'Enghien was seized at Ettenheim, 
carried to Paris, and shot in the wood of Vincennes, he assumed an atti- 
tude of hostility toward Bonaparte, formed a coalition with Austria and 
England, and undertook a campaign. The rapid successes of the French 
so bewildered Mack that he capitulated at Ulm ; and Napoleon, after his 
entry into Vienna, marching into Moravia to meet the Russians, encoun- 
tered their army, with the remains of the Austrians, at Austerlitz, and 
obtained one of the most glorious victories on record. Another coalition 
was soon formed ; and Napoleon, appearing in Poland, fought at Eylau a 
battle bloody and indecisive ; but at Friedland he completely vanquished 
the Russians, and forced the Czar to sue for peace. On a raft on the 
river Niemen, a conference was held between Napoleon and the vanquished 
sovereigns of Prussia, Russia, and Austria. This resulted in the Peace 
of Tilsit, in the erection of the Duchy of Warsaw, and in the acknowl- 
edgment of the elector of Saxony as its sovereign. 

Continental Europe was now at Napoleon's feet ; but against his prodi- 
gious power and inordinate ambition another confederation was formed ; 
and, in this league, Russia took a conspicuous part. The Emperor of the 
French thereupon repaired to Dresden, and fruitlessly attempted to lure 
back the Czar to his interests. But failing in that object, Napoleon took 
the field at the head of four hundred thousand men, crossed the Niemen, 
and advanced to Wilna. The Diet of Warsaw, after proclaiming the lib- 
eration of their country, demanded that the invader should recognize the 
independence of Poland ; and Napoleon, returning an evasive answer, 
drove the Russians before him to Smolensko, where preparations had been 
made to arrest his progress. 

On the 16th of August, 1812, Napoleon was before the ancient city, 
and at noon next day the conflict began. The French, at the point of the 
bayonet, drove the Russians within the walls, and the battle raged fiercely 
till sunset ; but, when night set in, the city was in flames. Next morning 
the French, entering without resistance, found the place abandoned, save 
by men who were yielding their latest breath amidst the glare of the con- 



332 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

flagration ; and Smolensko was soon a heap of ruins. The Russians, laying 
waste the country, retreated towards Moscow, and the command of their 
army was transferred to Prince Kutosoff, a hoary and experienced general, 
whose arrival was hailed with delight. He announced that no more retro- 
grade movements should be made, encouraged the troops by his presence, 
and exhorted them to defend Moscow to the last. This place was the an- 
cient and venerable capital of their Empire ; and its vast suburbs, its mag- 
nificent buildings, its towers, its domes, its spires, and its terraces, render- 
ed Moscow one of the most interesting places in Europe, and the pride of 
the Russian Empire. 

Both leaders exercised their utmost ingenuity, and made their disposi- 
tions with military skill. Along the Russian lines priests bore the sacred 
relics that had been saved at Smolensko, and inspired the soldiers with re- 
ligious enthusiasm ; and while their breasts were yet glowing with excite 
ment, Prince Kutosoff implored them, in lofty and inspiriting words, ' to 
think of their wives, their children, and their Emperor, and to write their 
faith and fealty on the field of their country with the life's blood of the 
invader and his legions.' 

On the morning of the 7th of September, Napoleon, who, aware of his 
veteran antagonist's genius, had become more cautious in his operations, 
issued from his tent, and addressed his officers and soldiers in befitting 
terms. The hostile armies then met at Borodino, and the contest was main- 
tained for hours with desperate valor. At one time the victor of Auster- 
litz had the mortification to see the choicest of his troops driven from the 
field. Bayonets and sabres flashed, and artillery thundered till night ar- 
rived, when both parties laid claim to the victory. But the Russian general 
decided on leaving Moscow to its fate ; the inhabitants precipitately aban- 
doned their houses ; and the governor formally evacuated the city at the 
head of forty thousand persons. 

Next morning the French, glowing with exultation, presented themselves 
at the gate, and forced an entrance ; but scarcely had they done so, when 
they became aware that Moscow was in a blaze. The Exchange, an ex- 
tensive building, containing warehouses stored with valuable merchandise, 
was first consigned to the flames, and, subsequently, a strong wind prevail- 
ing, the whole city was a sheet of fire, and the sky was obscured by vol- 
umes of smoke. The pillage soon commenced, and Napoleon's camp in the 
fields was filled with rich spoil. 

But now, deprived of the prospect of wintering at Moscow, the position 
of the Emperor of the French became perilous in the extreme ; for he had 
penetrated into the heart of a hostile country ; the cold season was approch- 
ing ; and the ruined city offered no asylum from the rigor of the climate. He, 
therefore, humbled his pride so far as to commence negotiations with Alex 
ander ; but finding his efforts fruitless, after forty days he abandoned his 
scheme of conquest, and issued orders for a retreat. But the Russians, 
believing the conqueror of Europe to be at length in their power, were 
bent upon revenge ; and Kutosoff remarked — 'The French have proclaimed 
the campaign terminated at Moscow, but on our part the warfare is about 
to begin.' 

The retreat of Napoleon was disastrous beyond all precedent. The 
Russian armies seized every opportunity of attacking his troops ; the winter 
set in with unusual severity and the troops were paralyzed with cold. 



)EPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 333 

The Cossacks, whose sole delight was war, under their celebrated leader, 
the Hetman Platoff, now mercilessly assailed the retiring legions, wrought 
fearful havoc, broke down bridges in the line of march, and harassed 
them on all sides. Scarcely had the French, after a day's toilsome march, 
stretched themselves on the ground to enjoy a little repose, when these 
vigilant foes rushed impetuously into the camp, and, ere the sleepers could 
resist, slaughtered them in heaps, and carried offstores and artillery. A scene 
of unparalleled horrors ensued ; and the situation of the French forces be- 
came quite desperate. Cold and famine preyed upon the troops ; flights 
of ravens hovered over their line of march ; and troops of dogs followed in 
the rear to consume their remains. The horses perished by thousands ; 
the cannon and wagons were abandoned ; and all military order was at 
an end. 

With his army in this evil plight, Napoleon, on the 23d of November, 
had to cross the Beresina.in presence of the enemy, and a scene, replete 
with horrors, occurred. The river, though covered with floating ice, was 
not yet frozen over, and rafts had to be constructed and launched under 
the enemy's fire. Multitudes were engulfed in the waters; and the pas- 
sage of the Beresina proved more fatal than the most sanguinary field. 

On the 5th of December, Napoleon, mortified and sick at heart, aban- 
doned the miserable wreck of his once magnificent army, and repaired to 
Paris. 

Though the mighty Emperor had been defeated more by the elements 
than the Russian foe, the result of the campaign was to raise the renown of 
the Czar's arms ; and Alexander, to complete the work thus begun, called 
upon the other powers of Europe to vindicate their independence against 
his former ally. The invitation was not unavailing ; for with the reverses 
of the French arms commenced the defection of Napoleon's allies. A tri- 
ple alliance was formed between Russia, Austria, and Prussia; the Empe- 
ror of the French was designated as the common enemy ; the allied sove- 
reigns undertook their campaign for the liberties of Europe, and their army 
marched triumphantly into Paris. 

The Congress of Vienna assembled in 1814 ; and while Prussia was 
bent on the acquisition of Saxony, Alexander applied his energies to ob- 
taining the duchy of Warsaw, which was still occupied by his troops. He 
was successful in his object; and what remained of Poland was handed 
over to the Czar, on condition of his ruling it by a special and constitutional 
government. 

Ten years passed over; Alexander, in 1825, died of a fever at Tagan- 
rog ; Constantine, the next son of the murdered Paul, a man of savage 
spirit, renounced his hereditary claim to the crown, and the vacant throne 
was ascended by his younger brother, Nicholas. That daring autocrat, 
within a year of his accession, undertook against Persia a war, which ter- 
minated in his favor; and, in 1828, he availed himself of the temporary 
weakness of Turkey to commence hostilities, to cross the Balkan moun- 
tains, and to impose upon the Sultan, among other hard terms, the Protec- 
torate of the Danubian Principalities. 

Meanwhile, the policy of Nicholas, and the personal character of the 
Grand Duke Constantine, rendered the condition of the Poles intolerable ; 
a general insurrection took place in 1830; and the Czar, deeming that this 
outbreak released him from his engagements, determined upon the extir- 



834 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

pation of Polish nationality. His army marched with that object into Po- 
land ; the nobles of the unhappy nation were exiled to Siberia ; the patri- 
cian ladies were given as helpmates to the invading soldiers ; and their in- 
fants were conveyed away to be educated with Russian ideas, and inspired 
with Russian sentiments. The constitution of Poland was then withdrawn; 
her laws were ahrogated; and the ancient nation, over which John Sobi- 
eski had reigned, and for which Kosciusko had fought, was declared an 
integral part of an Empire that had been fostered into importance by the 
genius of Peter the Great, extended in its limits by the lawless appropria- 
tions of the second Catherine, and aggrandized by the unscrupulous ambi- 
tion of her despotic descendants. The death of Nicholas took place in 
1855, at the time when the combined armies of Turkey, England, and 
France, were besieging Sebastopol, the details of which are given in the 
preceding pages. He was succeeded by his son Alexander II. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

COLONIAL HISTORY 

North America, with the exception of Mexico, was not colonized by 
Europeans so early as the southern part of the Continent. The discoveries 
of Cabot, a. d. 1497, had given England a valid claim to the whole coast 
from Labrador to Florida ; but the country presented none of the allure 
ments that had incited and rewarded the Spanish adventurers. Fertile 
and well wooded, indeed, intersected by noble rivers, and inclosing safe and 
capacious harbors and bays, it seemed a promising region for permanent 
settlements and agricultural industry, but offered only a faint prospect of 
wealth to be obtained from gold and silver mines, or from plundering the 
native inhabitants. A party of French Huguenots attempted to colonize 
Florida ; but the Spaniards, who claimed the country, surprised the infant 
settlement, and massacred nearly all its inhabitants, not sparing even the 
women and children, a. d. 1564. This slaughter was soon avenged by a 
Frenchman, Dominique de Gourges, who captured Fort Carolina, where 
the victors had established themselves, and hanged all his prisoners ; but 
he made no attempt to form another colony, and did not even disturb the 
little Spanish city of St. Augustine, which remained, but did not flourish, 
as the only permanent settlement of Europeans on the coast north of the 
Gulf of Mexico during the sixteenth century. 

The English, under the direction of Sir Walter Raleigh and his half- 
brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, attempted to create a settlement on the 
coast of what was subsequently called North Carolina. Three parties of 
colonists were sent thither, a. d. 1583-1587, but they were few in num- 
ber, and ill provided with necessaries ; one returned, and the other two 
perished, either from starvation or the hostility of the natives. Early in 
the seventeenth century, the French, under de Monts and Champlain, ex- 
plored the country around the Bay of Fundy and that bordering on the 
St. Lawrence, laying claim to Acadie (Nova Scotia) and Canada, which 
together were called New France. In 1609, the Dutch sent out Henry 
Hudson, who explored the American coast for a considerable distance, 



\ 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 33t) 

entered New York harbor, and sailed up the river which now bears his 
name. Stimulated by a feeling of rivalry with the French, the English 
renewed their attempts at colonization on a larger scale. James I granted 
the whole country, from Cape Fear to Passamaquoddy Bay, to two com- 
panies of merchants and adventurers. The southern portion, from the 
thirty-fourth to the forty-first degree of latitude, was given to the London 
Company ; and the northern part, from the thirty-eighth to the forty-fifth 
degree, was to be colonized by the Plymouth Company. 

Virginia. The first band of colonists sent out by the London Company, 
A. D. 1607, established themselves on a spot which they called Jamestown, 
on the James river, about fifty miles above its entrance into Chesapeake 
Bay. The direction of affairs had been given to a council, consisting of 
seven persons, nominated by the Company in England. John Smith, a 
military adventurer of great courage, enterprise, and sagacity, was one of 
them ; and the incompetency of his colleagues soon becoming manifest, he 
gradually assumed the lead, and several times rescued the feeble settle- 
ments from the imminent perils of savage warfare and famine. Half of 
the emigrants perished during the first six months ; and if the colony had 
not been fed by frequent supplies of food and additional settlers from Eng- 
land, the enterprise must soon have been abandoned. In spite of Smith's 
remonstrances, the settlers wasted their time in seeking for gold and silver, 
instead of cultivating the ground ; and they actually sent a vessel to Eng- 
land laden with dirt, in which glittering specks had been discovered, which 
they mistook for gold. Smith explored the country, and coasted the bay 
in an open boat, entering the principal rivers and inlets, and thus obtaining 
the requisite information for the construction of a chart, which was trans- 
mitted to England and published. In one of these expeditions, he fell into 
the hands of the savages, and was on the point of being put to death, when 
he was rescued by the chieftain's daughter, Pocahontas, and after an 
imprisonment of a few weeks, was sent back to Jamestown. But the colony 
was soon deprived of his invaluable services ; in 1609, he was severely 
injured by the accidental explosion of his powder bag, and was compelled 
to return to England for surgical aid. After his departure, the affairs of 
the colony again declined, and the settlers more than once determined to 
abandon the undertaking, and return home. But they were prevented by 
the seasonable arrival of ships, bringing fresh supplies and a reinforcement 
of men, whose broken fortunes in their native land made them eager to 
brave the perils of a desperate enterprise. Thus often rescued from the 
brink of ruin, the colony struggled on, till its members at last became 
inured to their novel situation, and acquired the habits of life which alone 
could meet its exigencies. Novel recruits were sent out from time to time 
to keep up their numbers. In 1619, ninety young women arrived, of ir- 
reproachable character, who were sold at the price of their passage, to 
become wives to the planters. Many cargoes of vagrants, thieves, and 
jail-birds also came, to serve as indented servants for a term of years, and 
afterwards to become free colonists. Then a more lasting impression was 
made on the future character and fortunes of the settlement by the intro- 
duction of twenty negro slaves, who were brought by a Dutch trading 
vessel, and readily purchased by the settlers. Tobacco had now become 
the staple product of the colony, and slaves were profitably employed in its 
cultivation. 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 337 

The savages had occasionally given much trouble, and in 1622, they 
were nearly successful in a plot -which they had formed for the entire de- 
struction of the settlements. In one day, they killed three hundred and 
forty-seven of the whites. A furious war succeeded, in which the Indians, 
indeed, were defeated and driven back with great slaughter, so that they 
never became formidable again. But the colony had received a fearful 
blow, from which it recovered with slowness and difficulty. The number 
of settlements was reduced from eighty to eight, and a famine ensued that 
destroyed many lives. The first colonial assembly was called by Governor 
Yeardley in 1619, and two years afterwards, a special ordinance confirmed 
the right of holding such a local legislature. 

The proceedings of the Company in England had now awakened the 
jealousy of the crown ; and these misfortunes gave King James the pretext 
that he wanted for depriving them of their charter, and taking the govern- 
ment into his own hands. Of course, it was administered on the arbitrary 
principles which were then in favor at court. Complete legislative and 
executive power was given to a governor and council of twelve persons, all 
nominated by the crown ; and this power was tyrannically exercised. Yet 
the General Assembly, though not formally authorized, was still permitted 
to meet, though it was much restricted in the exercise of its functions. At 
one time, in 1635, the patience of the settlers gave way, and they seized 
their governor, Sir John Harvey, and sent him a prisoner to England to 
answer for his misconduct. With the native obstinacy of his character, 
Charles I resented this act as savoring of audacity and rebellion, and sent 
back the obnoxious governor, with a fresh commission, under which he 
ruled more tyrannically than ever. Still, the prevailing sentiment in the 
colony was eminently loyal, and during the English Civil War, they took 
sides, as long as they durst, with the king, against the Parliament. Many 
of the settlers were decayed gentlemen and unportioned sons of noble 
families, in whose minds the prejudices of rank w T ere rather heightened 
than diminished by the want of fortune. The Church of England was 
established by law, regular stipends being allotted to its ministers in every 
parish, and the preachers of any other persuasion were not allowed to 
exercise their functions. The English law of primogeniture and entail 
regulated the descent of property ; and the wealthier colonists, directing 
the labor of many indented servants and slaves, lived apart on their plan- 
tations, affecting something of the state of a landed aristocracy. After the 
ruin of the king's cause at home, in 1645, many of the disbanded cavaliers 
found refuge in Virginia, bringing with them their sentiment of chivalrous 
attachment to Church and King. 

In 1671, Governor Berkeley estimated the population of the colony at 
40,000, including 2,000 negro slaves, and 6,000 indented white servants. 
The character of his administration may be inferred from a communication 
made by him, this year, to the English Privy Council. ' I thank God,' 
he wrote, ' there are no free schools or printing, and I hope we shall not 
have any these hundred years ; for learning has brought disobedience, and 
heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels 
against the best government. God keep us from both !' Yet a few years 
afterwards, discontent had become so general that a rebellion broke out, 
and for a few months the insurgents had entire control of the government. 

22* 



340 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



Nathaniel Bacon, a young lawyer, distinguished for his talents and activity, 
was the popular leader in this movement. 

In the midst of his successes, Bacon was suddenly taken sick and died ; 
and no proper person being found to take his place, the army was disper- 
sed, and the insurrection abandoned. Berkeley punished the rebels with 
great rigor, some of their leaders being condemned and executed and oth- 
ers were sentenced to pay heavy fines. He then went to England, where, 
instead of the praise and rewards that he expected, he was severely cen 
sured for his cruelty. He died a few months afterwards, as it was reported, 
of chagrin. An act of general pardon and oblivion was sent out from Eng- 
land, and other mild and popular measures soon wiped out the memory of 
Bacon's rebellion. Needy and covetous governors still provoked occasional 
discontent ; but the spirit of the people was eminently loyal, so that they 
were tardy and reluctant to acknowledge the revolution of 1688, and only 
after repeated commands was a proclamation issued announcing the suc- 
cession of William and Mary to the English throne. 

Far different was the character of the emigrants who founded the New 
England Colonies, under grants from the Plymouth Company. These were 
Puritans of the straitest sect, Independents in their notions of Church gov- 
ernment, and now fast verging toward republicanism, in consequence of 
their long continued opposition to the constituted authorities of Church and 
State at home. The intolerant spirit of the English hierarchy and the ar- 
bitrary proceedings of the court made their residence in England uncom 
fortable, if not perilous ; and they looked to voluntary exile for deliverance. 
A company of them, under the Rev. John Robinson as pastor, and 
William Brewster as ruling elder, embarked for Holland in 1608, carrying 
their wives, children, and little property along with them. They were 
kindly received by the Dutch, who were Protestants, and they remained 
over ten years in peace at Leyden. But Puritans as they were, they were 
still Englishmen; they disliked the sound of a foreign language, and the 
prospect that their children would intermarry with the Dutch, and forget 
their English parentage and the customs of their forefathers. The greater 
part of them, therefore, determined to emigrate to America, and for this 
purpose, returned first to England, where they easily procured the prom- 
ise of a grant of land from the London Company, as they intended to es- 
tablish themselves within what were then the limits of Virginia. They 
sailed from Plymouth in the ship Mayflower, and after a tedious and stormy 
voyage of over two months, arrived at Cape Cod, nearly two degrees north 
of the place they had aimed at. The lateness of the season, however, the 
the fatigues of the voyage, and the perils of coasting along a shore which 
had been but imperfectly explored, preventing them from putting to sea 
again, they sought a spot for their settlement in that neighborhood. But 
as they were then without the limits of the Virginia Company, and the 
Crown had refused to grant them a charter, they deemed it necessary, be- 
fore leaving the vessel, to sign an agreement, promising to submit to what- 
ever 'just and equal laws and ordinances might be thought convenient for 
the general good.' They selected Plymouth, which offered a tolerable 
good harbor in the southwestern part of Massachusetts Bay, as a suitable 
place for the commencement of a colony ; and on the 22d of December, 
1620, the Pilgrims, as they might now well be termed, landed there, num- 
bering only one hundred and one, including the women and children. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 341 

John Carver was chosen the first governer, and Miles Standish their mili- 
tary leader, as they had some apprehensions of the savages. Divided into 
nineteen families, they immediately began to fell trees and construct hous- 
es, in which to find shelter against the rigors of winter. But their exposure 
was necessarily great, and they had but a slender stock of provisions and 
other necessaries. Sickness came upon them, and during the first five 
months, they lost more than half of their number. 

One of their associates, who had been left behind in England, obtained 
for them a grant of land from the Company which was now incorporated, 
under a new charter, as 'The Council established at Plymouth, in the 
County of Devon, (England,) for the Planting, Ruling, Ordering, and 
Governing of New England in America.' This grant authorized the colo- 
nists to choose a governor, council, and general court, for the enactment 
and execution of laws. Strictly speaking, however, the Company had no 
right to give them any thing more than the property of the soil. A char- 
ter from the Crown was necessary to complete their political organization ; 
and this they never obtained. But the necessity of the case compelled 
them to act as if they had received full powers ; and their remoteness and 
insignificance prevented the authorities at home from questioning their 
right. The agreement which they had signed on board the Mayflower was 
the basis of their legislation ; and for some time, all the settlers came to- 
gether in a general assembly, to enact the necessary laws. Thus, in its 
origin, the colony was the purest democracy on earth. Time showed the 
inconveniences of such an arrangement, and the legislative power was 
then delegated to an Assembly, composed of representatives from the sev- 
eral towns. Land and other property were at first held in common, the 
Company in England being entitled to a specified share of the total profits. 
But this experiment turned out like the similar one in Virginia ; finding 
that industry was discouraged by it, the Colonists succeeded in purchasing, 
on credit, the share of the London partners. A division was then made 
of the land and movable property, and henceforth each one reaped the fruits 
of his own toil. The people were united in religious faith, and wished not 
to be disturbed by theological controversies ; so, when one Lyford, a cler- 
gyman of the Church of England, was sent out to them as a suitable pas- 
tor, in place of Robinson, who had died at Leyden, they refused him, and 
exercised their undoubted right of ownership of the soil, by expelling him, 
and two who adhered to him, Oldham and Conant, from their territory. 
These banished persons established themselves at Nantasket, just beyond 
the limits of the Plymouth colonists. The soil around Plymouth was thin 
and poor, and the people had brought but few worldly goods along with 
them; thus, the progress of the settlement was slow. Some of their old 
companions, who had been left behind in Holland, now came out to join 
them ; and a few others, attracted by similarity of worship, and by the pros- 
pect of driving a little traffic in fish and peltry, were added to their num- 
ber. But ten years after the landing at Plymouth, the population numbered 
only three hundred. Their territory, indeed, was but small, being bounded 
on the land side by a line drawn northerly from the mouth of Narraganset 
river, till it met one carried westerly from Cohasset rivulet, ' at the utter- 
most limits of a place called Pocanoket.' 

But encouraged by the growth of this colony, feeble as it was, the 
Council of New England proceeded to make lavish grants of their remain- 



344 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA 

ing lands, and to send out other bands of emigrants, taking little care to 
define the boundaries of the new grants, or to avoid ceding to one company 
or individual the very tract already bestowed upon another. This negli- 
gence was the cause of much subsequent dispute and difficulty. A few 
persons also established themselves at various points along the coast, who 
had no formal title to any land, but who were afterwards generally admitted 
to have an imperfect right, founded on occupancy and prescription. Some 
few fishing settlements were thus established ; but their inhabitants had 
not the disposition to toil, the habits of order and self-denial, or the indom- 
itable perseverance which characterized the Puritans. All their establish- 
ments were subsequently absorbed by the Massachusetts colony, which 
became the chief agent in the settlement of New England. 

The persecution of all who would not conform to the Established Church 
still continuing in England, and king Charles having avowed his purpose 
to govern without a Parliament, many of the wealthier class of Puritans 
now determined to emigrate to America. A company was formed at the 
instigation of Mr. White, a clergyman of Dorchester; among its members 
were John Humphrey and Isaac Johnson, two brothers-in-law of the Earl 
of Lincoln, John Winthrop, a gentleman of landed property in Suffolk, 
Sir Richard Saltonstall, John Endicott, Thomas Dudley, William Codding- 
ton, Richard Bellingham, Matthew Cradock, and other merchants and 
lawyers of wealth and influence in London and some of the northern and 
midland counties. They obtained from the Council for New England a 
grant of a tract of land, bounded by two parallel lines running westward 
to the Pacific Ocean, one drawn three miles north of any part of the Mer- 
rimac river, and the other, three miles south of any portion of the Charles, 
Soon afterwards, their organization was completed by a charter from the 
Crown, which incorporated them under the title of the ' Governor and Com- 
pany of Massachusetts Bay in New England,' with power to admit what 
new members or freemen they might choose. They were supposed to be a 
private trading corporation, resident in England, where they were to make 
laws and regulations for the government of their colony in America. A 
governor, deputy-governor, and eighteen assistants were to have the man- 
agement of their affairs ; and these officers were to be chosen, and all im- 
portant laws enacted, at a ' Great and General Court' of all the freemen, 
to be held quarterly. A company of sixty or seventy persons, under John 
Endicott, were sent out in 1628, who commenced a settlement at Salem ; 
and these were followed, the next year, by six ships, bringing about two 
hundred colonists, of whom many were indented servants, together with a 
stock of cattle and other necessaries. It was soon manifest, however, that 
a colony, to be prosperous, must have the management of its own affairs, 
without being obliged to wait for orders from a distance. John Winthrop 
and many other leading stockholders offered to emigrate, if they were al- 
lowed to carry the charter and the government along with them. The 
legality of such a measure was at least doubtful ; but the urgency of the 
case removed all scruple, and the colonists probably hoped that the remote- 
ness of their new home would screen their procedings from public notice. 
New officers were therefore chosen from those who were disposed to emi- 
grate ; and in 1630, a fleet of fifteen ships, equipped at an expense of 
£ 20,000, sailed from the Isle of Wight, having on board Winthrop and 
Dudley as governor and deputy-governor, together with most of the assis- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 345 

tants, and a company of about one thousand persons. They began a set- 
tlement at Charlestown, but soon removed to the neighboring peninsula of 
Trimountain, which they named Boston, after the English town whence 
some of the chief emigrants came. The hardships of the first winter, 
which was a severe one, caused disease to break out among them, and over 
two hundred died, among whom were Isaac Johnson, and his wife, Arabella. 
But after this period, the order and industry which prevailed in the colony, 
the commencement of trade with Virginia and the Dutch at Manhattan 
(New York), and the rapid influx of settlers, driven away from England 
by the religious and political persecution which still raged there, laid the 
foundations of steady growth and permanent prosperity. During the first 
ten years after the settlement of Massachusetts, about twenty-five thou- 
sand persons left their native land to find a home in New England. 

The government of the colony was theocratic in many of its features, 
modified at first by an aristocratic or patriarchal element, which was soon 
eliminated, however, by the force of circumstances, that set strongly to- 
wards republican institutions. The few men of wealth and consideration, 
who were the leaders of the emigration, naturally strove to retain the chief 
power and influence in their own hands, and to govern according to their 
notions of what religion and the word of God required ; and in this attempt 
they were strongly seconded by the ministers of the churches. At first, 
the people, with the instinctive respect of Englishmen for rank and station, 
gave way to them, and conferred the whole power of legislation on the 
governor and the assistants, who were familiarly known as 'the magistrates.' 

Even a council for life at one time was instituted, but it continued only for a 
few years, and the freemen also resumed the power of enacting laws. Still, 
they were moderate in the exercise of their functions ; and persons once 
chosen to the board of magistrates were usually reappointed, no one being 
left out but for some extraordinary cause. Purity of faith and worship 
was the chief motive for establishing the colony. The people wished to be 
free, not only from persecution, but from the presence of other sects and 
from theological controversies. Only such persons were to be admitted to 
be freemen, or voters, as those who were already freemen should designate ; 
and this privilege was soon confined by law to those who were members 
of the churches. But as there was little difference among them in point 
of religious opinion, and as most of the adult males, or at least, nearly all 
the heads of families, were church members, this exclusive privilege created 
no general discontent. The magistrates exercised their large powers res- 
olutely to keep out heretics and schismatics, and to maintain religious wor- 
ship and practice in all their purity. Those who did not agree with them 
were required to go elsewhere, and establish a colony for themselves. 
Roger Williams, and some followers of Mrs. Hutchinson, did so, and 
founded a new settlement in Rhode Island. Others took refuge in New 
Hampshire ; but Massachusetts claimed the land there as a part of her own 
territory, and from 1640 to 1680, the claim was made good. A few Qua- 
kers gave great annoyance by their fanatical and outrageous conduct ; they 
were once and again dismissed, with threats in case they returned. They 
did come again, and then three of them were hanged. The magistrates, 
on this occasion, published a defense of their conduct, dwelling especially 
on the case of Mary Dyre, who was a third comer, and had been once re- 
prieved when already on the gallows, as a proof they desired, not the death, 



346 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

but the absence, of the Quakers. Some adherents of the Church of Eng- 
land, who had come out without invitation to join them, were summarily 
sent back to the mother country. Two hundred years ago, the principles 
of religious toleration were but little understood ; yet as the Company 
owned the territory, and had emigrated for the avowed purpose of forming 
a religious community by themselves, it is perhaps harsh in us to charge 
them with intolerance. They had a right to expel intruders. 

Of course, great severity of manners and punctiliousness of religious 
observances were enjoined. Various sumptuary laws were enacted ; the 
Sabbath was observed with Jewish strictness ; blasphemy, witchcraft, and 
adultery, were punished with death ; slanderers were whipt, cropped, and 
banished. But except in these particulars, and a few others of no great 
importance, the Mosaic law was not established in the colony. The peo- 
ple had good sense enough to see that it was not adapted to the circum- 
stances and the times. No restriction was imposed upon them except that 
contained in the Charter, that no laws should be made repugnant to the 
laws of England ; and this was construed, very liberally, to mean that no 
part of the English law was in force there till it was expressly reenacted. 
At first the magistrates governed without any other rule than their own 
sense of right and their interpretation of the law of God. But the people 
becoming jealous of so large a discretion, a code, or ' Body of Liberties,' 
was established in 1641, consisting of one hundred articles, drawn up with 
singular brevity and clearness, embracing many of the best and most liberal 
provisions of the English Common Law, and, in some respects, in advance 
both of English and American law of the present day. This code became 
the basis of legislation, not only in Massachusetts, but throughout New 
England, the other colonies adopting many of its most important provisions. 
In one important respect, the Mosaic rule was followed in preference to the 
English law ; the estates of persons dying without a will were divided 
equally among the children, except that the eldest son received a double 
share. This law, favoring the distribution rather than the aggregation of 
property, made the establishment of a territorial aristocracy impossible, 
kept up the idea of equality among the people, and tended strongly to the 
development of republican sentiments. 

Another circumstance, which silently fostered the democratic spirit of 
the people, was the great extent of their territory in comparison with their 
numbers, and the disposition that has characterized them from that day to 
this, to spread themselves over the face of the country, instead of remaining 
together on one spot. When as yet they were only a few hundred in 
number, instead of seeking protection against the savages and other perils 
of the wilderness by union and concentration, they colonized a dozen or 
twenty distinct townships, the extremes of which were some thirty miles 
apart. Eight townships were represented in a General Court held only 
two years after Winthrop landed ; and before the colony was ten years 
old, or contained in all more than 15,000 settlers, at least twenty distinct 
settlements were formed. But the most remarkable instance of this ten- 
dency to segregation took place as early as 1634, when Mr. Hooker and 
his whole church at Newtown petitioned for leave to remove to Connecticut, 
the avowed reason for this step being the want of pasturage for their cattle ; 
and ' it was alleged by Mr. Hooker as a fundamental error, that the towns 
were set so near to each other.' The settlements being thus scattered, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 347 

and the colony as a whole being imperfectly organized, each town was 
obliged from the first to direct its own expenditures and manage its own 
affairs. The inhabitants held town-meetings, levied taxes to provide for 
their common wants, chose executive officers, afterwards termed ' select- 
men, ' and in fact created a little republic nearly complete in organization. 
It is now generally admitted, that the tone of American politics and the 
general character of American institutions have been more controlled by 
the influences of the township-system of New England than by all other 
causes united. 

In the main, also, there was great equality among the colonists in point 
of fortune and social position. Many English gentlemen and wealthy mer- 
chants, as we have seen, favored the emigration, and some embarked in it. 
But the happy and the powerful do not often go into exile, and the perils 
and hardships of a home in the wilderness prevented many persons of wealth 
from joining in the enterprise, and caused others to leave it after a brief so- 
journ in New England. Humphrey, Saltonstall,Vane and Vassal returned to 
their native land after a short stay, and the Johnsons died. The great 
bulk of the colonists were middling and lower classes of English society ; 
very few were wealthy, nearly all were dependent on the labor of their 
hands. Equality of social claims was the natural basis of equality of 
political rights. There was a germ of republicanism in the colony from 
the outset, — a natural tendency towards universal eligibility and uni- 
versal suffrage. 

The first care of the settlers of Massachusetts was to provide for univer- 
sal education and worship. The several townships that were organized 
were so many distinct churches, which admitted their own members, chose 
their own pastors, and managed their own affairs. Each town, either by 
levying a tax or by voluntary contributions, provided buildings for public 
worship and salaries for their ministers. When Boston was but six years 
old, the General Court passed an order, appropriating a sum, equal to the 
amount raised by a year's taxation to defray all the public expenditures of 
the colony, for the establishment of a college at Newtown ; and two years 
afterwards, John Harvard, a clergyman of Charlestown, bequeathing half 
of his estate for the same object, Harvard College was founded. Free 
schools were established in several of the towns; and in 1649, a general 
system of popular education was established throughout the colony, each 
township being required to maintain a free school for reading and writing, 
and every town of a hundred householders a grammar school, ' to fit youths 
for the university.' The preamble of this law declares that the mo- 
tive for passing it was to provide ' that learning may not be buried in the 
grave of our fathers,' — 'it being one chief project of that old deluder, 
Sathan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures ; as in former 
times keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by per- 
suading men from the use of tongues.' The grim Puritan of those days 
believed his child's soul would be in danger if he were not enabled to 
read the Bible for himself; and thus care for general education naturally 
grew out of care for the interests of religion. As the democratic spirit 
spread among the people, they reclaimed the legislative authority for them 
selves ; and a body of representatives, consisting of two or three dele- 
gates from each town, were united with 'the magistrate' for the purpose 
of enacting laws. At first, the representatives sat and voted in the same 



350 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

chamber with the assistants; hut in 1644, a division was made, and the two 
classes afterwards formed separate houses of legislation. 

During the first few years in the history of the settlement, the Indians 
had given no cause for alarm. Just before the arrival of the whites, a 
contagious disease had raged among the native tribes, nearly exterminating 
some of them, so that the territory seemed providentially left vacant for 
occupation by the English. But as the white settlements increased in 
number, the jealousy of the Indians was aroused ; and in 1637, the Pe- 
quods, a tribe dwelling on the banks of what is now called the Thames 
river, Connecticut, began hostilities. But as they were yet very imper- 
fectly provided with fire-arms, they formed but a contemptible enemy. A 
band of eighty men, under Captain Mason, were sent against them, who, 
with the aid of a few friendly Indians, attacked their palisadoed village in 
the gray of the morning, forced their way into it, set fire to the wigwams, 
and killed about six 'hundred of the savages. The next month, another 
band attacked the remainder of the tribe, who had taken refuge in a 
swamp, killed many of them, and took about two hundred prisoners, who 
were afterwards kept as slaves, a portion being sent to the West Indies to 
be sold. The few who escaped found a home among the Narraganset and 
Mohegan Indians, and the Pequod tribe ceased to exist. 

To guard against the dangers apprehended not only from the Indians, 
but from the Dutch and the French, a confederacy was formed in 1643, 
between the four colonies of Masachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and 
New Haven, to form rules for regulating intercourse with the savages, and 
to render mutual aid if a war should break out. In consequence of this 
union, the whites became more respected and feared by the native tribes, 
several of whom sought their alliance and protection. But in 1675, Philip 
of Mount Hope, a chief of the Wampanoags in Rhode Island, began hosti- 
lities, in which he was soon joined by nearly all the native tribes in New 
England. The Indians were now well supplied with fire-arms, and were 
expert in the arts of ambush and forest warfare, in which as yet the whites 
were very deficient. A fearful contest ensued, which brought all the white 
settlements to the verge of destruction. It lasted nearly a year, in the 
course of which, upwards of two thousand Indians were killed or taken, 
and some of the New England tribes were exterminated. The whites suf- 
fered terribly ; twelve or thirteen of their towns were entirely ruined, six 
hundred houses had been burned, and about six hundred men had fallen in 
battle. No assistance was received from England, and the expenses of the 
war burdened Massachusetts with a heavy debt. But henceforward, no 
great danger was apprehended from the Indians, except when they acted 
as allies of the French. 

Frequent complaints were made to the Privy Council in England, that 
the acts of trade were generally disregarded by Massachusetts, and that 
tb conduct and laws of the colony in many other respects were in violation 
of the charter and subversive of the authority of the crown. Commissioners 
were sent out to make inquiries respecting these subjects of complaint. But 
the breach was only widened by this measure, as the commissioners were cap- 
tious and insolent in their language and conduct, and the General Court was 
obstinate and not over res r netful. Chai'les II, had just triumphed after a 
long contest with the popular party at home, had taken away the fran- 
chises of the city of London, and confiscated the charters of nearly all the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 351 

boroughs in the realm, was in no humor to be bearded by a few daring 
sectaries in New England. Legal proceedings were instituted, and before 
Massachusetts could engage counsel in her defense, judgment was entered 
by default, and the charter declared to be forfeited. The government of 
the colony was thus thrown entirely into the hands of the king ; and James 
II, who had now come to the throne, appointed Sir Edmund Andros to be 
governor ©f all New England, the charters of the other colonies being either 
forfeited or in abeyance. The popular legislative assemblies were dissolv 
ed, and Sir Edmund, with authority to appoint and remove the members 
of his council at pleasure, enacted laws and governed as he saw fit. For 
more than two years, his yoke was heavy upon the necks of the people. 
Then came a rumor that a revolution had taken place in England, and that 
the Prince of Orange already was, or would soon be, on the throne, in place 
of the deposed James II ; and without waiting to learn whether it was 
any thing more than a rumor, the inhabitants of Boston seized their arms, 
imprisoned Andros and his chief adherents, and reinstated their beloved 
charter government, with the venerable Simon Bradstreet at its head, 
April, 1689. Then ensued a negotiation with the government of William 
and Mary, for the restoration of the old charter. But the king and his 
ministers were determined to strengthen the royal prerogative, and they 
would only offer a new charter, far less liberal in its provisions than the 
old one, with the significant intimation that the colony might take that 
or none. Finding that they would otherwise be governed at the royal 
pleasure, the people very reluctantly accepted the new instrument, by 
which Plymouth and Maine were united to Massachusetts, and the appoint- 
ment of the governor, secretary, and all admiralty officers was reserved to 
the crown. The governor might convoke and adjourn the General Court 
at pleasure ; he had a negative upon the election of counsellors and the 
enactment of laws, and a right to nominate all judges and military officers. 
The laws were to be transmitted to England, even after he had sanctioned 
them ; and if disapproved by the king within three years from the time of 
their enactment, they became void. The right of suffrage was no longer 
confined to church members, but was given to all who had 40 shillings in- 
come from freehold property, or 40 pounds of personal estate. 

The first royal governor appointed was Sir William Phips, whose admin- 
istration was distinguished only by the unhappy popular delusion, usually 
called the Salem Witchcraft, A. d. 1692. Some children were, or pre- 
tended to be, thrown into convulsions ; and they accused certain persons 
of bewitching them. The mania spread ; others declared that they were 
afflicted, pinched, and bruised, and when the witnesses and the accused 
were confronted in open court, the former seemed to be thrown into an agony 
and charged the latter with tormenting them by diabolical means. Every 
one against whom they 'cried out' was arrested, and the prisons were soon 
filled. Some weak-minded persons among the prisoners were persuaded 
or terrified into a confession of guilt, and then bore witness against others ; 
and upon this accumulation of evidence, many were convicted. Twenty 
persons were hanged, among whom was Mr. Burroughs, a clergyman ; 
and one old man, aged eighty years, was pressed to death. Many others 
were cried out against, and fled for their lives. At last, the extravagance 
of the evil began to work its cure. The witnesses accused some persons 
who stood so high in character and station, that the belief even of the ere- 



352 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

dulous mob was shocked. A reaction took place, juries refused to convict, 
the jails were emptied, and some of the judges and those who had been 
active in the prosecutions made a public profession of their errors and their 
penitence. 

Having sketched the history of Virginia, Plymouth, and Massachusetts, 
during the seventeenth century, a few words must suffice for the other 
Colonies. Roger Williams and some other religious exiles from Massa- 
chusetts, colonized Rhode Island in 1638, having purchased the land of 
the Narraganset Indians. They obtained a patent from the Long Parlia- 
ment six years afterwards, and in 1663, Charles II granted them a very 
liberal charter, under which they chose their own officers and enacted their 
own laws with almost as much freedom as if they had been an independent 
republic. By the influence of Williams, perfect religious toleration was 
established in this Colony, men being held responsible for their religious 
opinions and practice only to their God. The territory of Connecticut 
was granted, in 1630, to the Earl of Warwick, who soon assigned his right 
to Lord Say and Seale, Lord Brook, and others. Several settlements 
were formed on the Connecticut river, in 1635-6, by Mr. Hooker and 
other emigrants from Massachusetts, who at first acknowledged the au- 
thority of the Colony they had just left, but soon established a government 
for themselves, modeled on that of Massachusetts. Hartford was their 
chief town. About the same time, Lord Say and Seale with his associates 
sent over John Winthrop the younger, with instructions to build a fort at 
the mouth of the Connecticut, and erect buildings to accommodate such 
settlers as might come thither. This was the origin of Saybrook. In 
1637, Mr. Davenport, with a company of emigrants, some of them men of 
wealth, arrived in New England, and after some hesitation as to the choice 
of a place, they founded a settlement at New Haven. They were rigid 
Puritans, who wished to establish a community conforming in all things to 
their peculiar principles. They admitted only church members to be free- 
men, and resolved that the Word of God should be the only rule in their 
administration. The Dutch laid claim to the whole country, and the dis- 
pute between them and the English settlers was more than once on the 
verge of breaking out into open war. Charles II, soon after his restoration, 
granted to Connecticut a charter quite as liberal as that given to Rhode 
Island ; but as this instrument brought together the two distinct settlements 
of Hartford and New Haven, the people of the latter place were very re- 
luctant to accept it, and only yielded, after some years' delay, to the fear 
that a general governor might be sent out from England to rule them. 
From the period of this union, 1665, the progress of the Colony was steady 
and prosperous. The territory of New Hampshire was granted by the 
Plymouth Company to Capt. John Mason, in 1629. But few settlements 
were formed under his management, principally by fishermen and exiles 
from Massachusetts, who remained for some time without any government 
but such as they established for themselves. Exeter, Dover, and Ports- 
mouth, then called Strawberry Bank, were the only towns that contained 
many inhabitants. In 1641, they voluntarily placed themselves under the 
protection of Massachusetts, who had always claimed the land, and who 
continued to govern them till 1679, when, by a decree of the king in 
council, New Hampshire was made a separate province, to be governed by 
a President and Council, appointed by the king, and a House of Repre- 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 353 

sentatives elected by the people. Frequent disputes ensued, both with 
their rulers, and with Mason and his heirs respecting the titles to their 
lands. But after the Revolution of 1688, most of these controversies were 
quieted, and excepting frequent hostilities with the Indians, the people 
prospered. Maine was originally granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and 
was purchased of his heirs, in 1677, by Massachusetts, for <£1,200, it 
having been governed by that Colony tor many years previous, under a 
disputed title. The controversy ending with this purchase, Maine remain- 
ed a part of Massachusetts till a very recent period. 

New York. The Dutch, founding on the explorations of Henry Hudson 
a claim to the Hudson river and an indefinite extent of territory through 
which it flows, built some fortified trading posts near its mouth as early as 
1613. They also explored the northern coast of Long Island Sound, and 
both shores of Delaware Bay ; and on the strength of these discoveries, an 
Amsterdam company obtained from the States General an exclusive grant 
to trade along the coast between the 40th and 45th degrees of latitude, a 
region by them called New Netherland. The English never allowed their 
claim, which only became important when, in 1621, it passed into the 
hands of the Dutch West India Company, a wealthy association with large 
privileges, and capable of conducting extensive operations. Under their 
direction, Fort Orange was built where Albany now stands ; and in 1626, 
the island of Manhattan was purchased of the Indians, and Fort Amster 
dam erected at its southern extremity. As yet, traffic with the savages in 
peltry was the only object of these establishments ; but in 1629, a scheme 
was matured for forming Dutch settlements in the country. Extensive 
grants of land were offered to any member of the Company, who, under 
the name of Patroon, should establish a colony of at least fifty persons 
upon it ; and as much land as they could cultivate was offered to any free 
settlers who should remove thither at their own expense. Under these 
offers, some of the most inviting lands were taken up ; but the progress of 
colonization was slow, agriculture being made secondary to trade with the 
Indians. A port was established on the Connecticut, near Hartford, which 
soon led to a sharp dispute with the English settlers in that region. The 
Swedes also came into collision with the Dutch, by attempting, under the 
sanction of the renowned Gustavus Adolphus, to found a settlement and 
trading post on the west shore of Delaware Bay, a region claimed by the 
Hollanders. The Swedes bought some land of the Indians, and built a 
fort called Christina, — the germ of the Colony of New Sweden, now the 
State of Delaware. The infant settlement was prudently managed, and 
might in a few years have become prosperous, if the Dutch had not at- 
tacked it, in 1655, with a force of six hundred men, who captured all the 
Swedish posts, and the region was again absorbed into New Netherland. 

A destructive Indian war was added to the other embarassments of the 
Dutch. The latter showed themselves as great savages as their red oppo- 
nents, who nearly overmatched them, and destroyed many of their most 
flourishing ' boweries,' or plantations. The people were harshly governed, 
being allowed no voice in the administration, and they complained that 
' under a king they could not be worse treated.' The English were de- 
termined to monopolize the coast, and in 1664, Charles II granted to his 
brother a large region, including New Netherland, to be called, in future, 
23* 



356 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

New York. An expedition of six hundred men, under Sir Robert Nicholls, 
was fitted out to take possession ; and so many English were now settled 
in the Colony, the Dutch also being lukewarm towards their own govern- 
ment, that no opposition was offered. Liberal terms of capitulation were 
granted, and the territory was annexed without a blow to the domain of 
England. No popular representation in the government was allowed till 
1684, the Duke of York appointing a governor who reigned arbitrarily ; 
and even after that period, the administration continued to be distasteful 
to the people. When the news of the revolution in 1688 arrived, the in- 
habitants of New York rose in arms, like their brethren of Boston, and un- 
der the guidance of Jacob Leisler, a wealthy German merchant, deposed 
the former authorities of the place, and instituted a government of their 
own. The colony remained under Leisler's rule till March, 1691, when 
Col. Slaughter arrived, with a commission as governor, and his agent de- 
manded peremptorily the surrender of the fort. Leisler hesitated and de- 
layed, and when at last he did obey, he was seized, together with his son- 
in-law, Milbourne, tried for rebellion, and executed. This proceeding was 
a harsh and hasty one ; and the king subsequently restored their confisca- 
ted estates to their heirs, and allowed their bodies to be taken up and re- 
interred with pomp, while the people cherished their memory with affection 
and respect. 

Maryland. George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, a Roman Catholic by re- 
ligion, obtained from Charles I, in 1630, a grant of the then uninhabited 
shores of Chesapeake Bay, as an asylum for the persecuted Papists. The 
charter, which secured liberty of conscience, and equal privileges to the 
members of all Christian sects, was not issued until after this lord's death, 
and was then given to Cecil, his eldest son and heir. He sent out his 
brother, Leonard Calvert, as governor, in 1633, with about two hundred 
emigrants, mostly Roman Catholics, and a settlement was formed at St. 
Mary's, the new colony being called Maryland, in honor of queen Henri- 
etta Maria. The proprietary had full power to enact all necessary laws, 
not repugnant to the laws of England, and not without the advice and ap- 
probation of the freemen of the province or their representatives ; — this be- 
ing the first provision in any colonial charter for giving a legislative power 
to the people. The province was wisely and moderately governed, liberal 
grants of land being offered to all comers, to be held by the payment of a 
quit rent to the proprietor. Baltimore did not wish to shut out heretics 
from his colony ; Puritans and Church of England men were invited to 
come, under a promise of enjoying equal privileges with the Catholics ; 
thus Maryland became a general asylum for the persecuted of all sects. 
We are not surprised to learn, therefore, that, before Lord Baltimore'3 
death in 1676, he was in receipt of a considerable income from the prov- 
ince, which then contained about sixteen thousand inhabitants, most of whom 
were Protestants. The people wisely sought support from agriculture 
rather than mining and trade. Yet they did not pass through the time of 
the Civil War and the domination of the Long Parliament without annoy 
ances and contests. During this period, of course, Lord Baltimore's prin- 
ciples were not in favor, and his colony was regarded with a jealous eye. 
William Clayborne had obtained a royal license to trade in all those parts, 
and he and his associates denied the legality of the Maryland grant The 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 357 

Parliament sent out commissioners who displaced the officers of the pro- 
prietary, and put the government into the hands of the Puritans, who soon 
passed an act that excluded papists and prelatists from the benefit of the 
act of toleration. A civil war at one time raged in the colony, Round- 
heads and Cavaliers being opposed to each other, as in the mother land. 
But with the restoration of Charles II, these troubles ceased, and the pros- 
perity of the settlement for a long period suffered but little interruption. 
Yet an order was passed in 1681, for intrusting all offices to Protestants, 
so that the Catholics were disfranchised a second time in the colony they 
had founded. 

The Carolinas. The territory on the coast south of Virginia, extend- 
ing nominally as far south as St. Augustine, was granted, in 1663, to the 
great Lord Clarendon, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and six other eminent in- 
dividuals. The whole region was to constitute one province, under the 
name of Carolina, the proprietors receiving, together with the grant of the 
land, ample powers of government. But a settlement had already been 
formed near Albemarle Sound by some religious exiles from Virginia, and 
another one near the mouth of Cape Fear river, by some adventurers from 
New England, afterwards reinforced by a band of emigrants from Barba- 
does. In 1670, three ships were fitted out with colonists from England, 
under the command of William Sayle, who formed a settlement at Port 
Royal, which he soon removed to the peninsula at the mouth of the Ashley 
and the Cooper rivers, giving to the town that he founded there the name 
of Charleston. As this place was remote from Albemarle, it obtained a sep- 
arate government, and thus were created the two colonies of North and South 
Carolina. The proprietors gave public assurance that the settlers should 
enjoy unrestricted religious liberty, and that their representatives should 
have a voice in the enactment of laws. Unluckily they employed the cel- 
ebrated philosopher, John Locke, to devise a scheme of government for the 
colony; and he gave them, under the name of the ' Grand Model, ' the 
most complicated and fanciful system that the wit of man ever contrived, 
and which was a perpetual source of trouble and confusion for the quarter 
of a century during which it was in partial operation. It established two 
orders of nobility, landgraves and caciques ; it assigned two fifths of the 
land for seignories, baronies, and manors, to be cultivated by a race of 
tenants attached to the soil, and the remaining three fifths were allotted to 
private freeholders ; and it erected a formidable bureaucracy, with officers 
and titles enough for a populous kingdom of the Old World. This rickety 
system could never be put into full operation, and in 1693, it was entirely 
abrogated. The motley population was swelled by two ship-loads of Dutch 
emigrants from New York, and by a cargo of slaves from Barbadoes. Af- 
ter the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, many Huguenots came to South 
Carolina, and settled along the Santee ; they had been preceded by some 
Presbyterian settlers from the north of Ireland, and by a Scotch colony 
led by lord Cardross. Religious toleration and the prospect of obtaining 
land on easy terms were the lures which drew so many different classes of 
immigrants. The population thus formed did not show themselves very 
tractable. They persisted in keeping up an illegal traffic with New Eng- 
land, they grumbled at paying quit rent to the proprietaries, and they 
quarreled with the arbitrary and rapacious governors who were sent to 



360 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

rule over them. But in spite of these interruptions, the two colonies pros- 
pered, advancing steadily, though not rapidly, both in population and wealth. 

New Jersey. The territory between the Delaware and Hudson riv- 
ers, being included in the surrender by the Dutch to the English in 1664, 
was granted by the duke of York, under the name of New Jersey, to lord 
Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. They sent over Philip Carteret as 
governor, with a liberal constitution for the new colony, and bountiful of- 
fers of land to all settlers who would come thither. Lord Berkeley sold 
his right, after he had held it ten years, to a company of Quakers, who, 
wishing to govern separately a region which might be an asylum for the 
persecuted of their sect, made an agreement with Carteret, for the parti- 
tion of the territory. The western portion was assigned to them, the 
eastern to Carteret. A large company, consisting principally of Quakers, 
then came from England, and settled in Burlington and its neighborhood, 
ample privileges being secured to them by a new constitution. A dispute 
ensued with the duke of York respecting the title to their lands, as he pre- 
tended that, under a new patent which he had obtained from the crown, 
his original rights were restored. But the commissioners in England, to 
whom the matter was referred, adjudged his claim to be invalid, and new 
settlers continuing to arrive, the colony became very prosperous. East 
Jersey, also, in 1682, was sold by the heirs of Carteret to William Penn 
and twenty-three associates, mostly Quakers, who appointed Robert Bar- 
clay governor, and endeavored to attract emigrants thither. Many of the 
Scottish Covenanters, now suffering a deplorable persecution under Lau- 
derdale and Claverhouse, fled from their native land, and found a pleasant 
and safe asylum in East Jersey. The numerous proprietors, weary of quar- 
reling with each other and with the people, surrendered their rights to 
the crown in 1702 ; and the two divisions united under one government. 

Pennsylvania. Another Quaker colony was established, on a larger 
scale, by the celebrated William Penn, a man of great ability and integri- 
ty, resolute in purpose and energetic in conduct, a keen controversialist, 
and one who displayed on many occasions more shrewdness, knowledge of 
the world, and practical talent than are often found united with a fervor 
and sincerity of religious belief which had the appearance of an unruly fa- 
naticism. The Quakers, indeed, while preserving with great steadfastness 
most of their inoffensive external peculiarities, had quietly undergone a 
considerable change in the manner and spirit of their proceedings, — a change 
attributable in some degree to the influence of Penn himself. They were 
no longer the wild and extravagant sectaries, whose outrageous conduct, 
twenty years before, had troubled the peace of Massachusetts. Their 
manners had become quiet and discreet, and though they remained fearless 
of persecution, they no longer courted it. In consideration of the services 
of his father, a distinguished admiral, Penn obtained from Charles II, in 
1681, a grant of the territory on the west bank of the river Delaware, ex- 
tending five degrees in longitude, and bounded by the 40th and 43d par- 
allels of latitude ; and the king insisted on naming it Pennsylvania. The 
charter gave him the absolute property of the soil and ample powers of gov- 
ernment, but required the advice and consent of the freemen of the pro- 
vince for the enactment of laws. The sturdy and independent spirit of 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 361 

the New England colonies having taught the crown lawyers a lesson of cau- 
tion in drawing up colonial charters, it was stipulated in this case that 
the king might negative any enactment of the assembly, that parliament 
might levy taxes, and that an appeal might be made to the crown from the 
decisions of the courts of justice. 

Acting under this charter, Penn drew up a very liberal ' Frame of 
Government,' and also published a body of laws that had been examined 
and approved by a company of proposed emigrants in England. He also 
advertised the lands for sale, asking forty shillings, besides a perpetual 
quitrent of one shilling, for every hundred acres. Unlimited freedom of 
conscience, and the right to be governed by laws enacted by themselves, 
were secured to the people. As the terms were liberal, and the advanta- 
ges of the territory, in respect to climate, situation, fertility of the soil, and 
the friendly disposition of the neighboring Indians, were considerable, a 
crowd of emigrants presented themselves, comprising many Quakers and 
a number from Holland and Germany. The Duke of York, afterwards 
James II, with whom Penn was high in favor, made over to him all his 
own right to the three lower counties on the Delaware, first peopled by the 
Swedes, which had lately been governed as an appendage to the Duke's 
province of New York. These counties belonged geographically rather to 
Pennsylvania than New York, and possession of them was important for the 
new colony, as they already contained about 3,000 inhabitants, Swedes, 
Finns, and Dutch, steady and industrious in their habits, and inured to 
their situation. Besides these, a number of Swedish, Dutch, and English 
settlers were already established in other portions of the territory, by whom 
the new government was favorably received. William Markham, one of 
Penn's kinsmen, was sent out in 1681, with three ships and about three 
hundred emigrants, bearing a plan of the city which was to be founded at 
the confluence of the Schuylkill with the Delaware, and a very friendly 
message to the Indians, whose good will the new proprietor was anxious to 
conciliate. Penn himself came out the next year, in the course of which 
twenty-three vessels arrived laden with goods and emigrants. He held a 
friendly conference with the savages, under a large elm at Kensington, 
which afterwards became an object of much curiosity and respect, as mark- 
ing the site of this famous interview. A treaty was made by which the 
Indians sold their lands on terms satisfactory to them, and stipulated to 
maintain peace and friendship, which promise was long religiously observ- 
ed. The savages named him Onas, and though they gave the same title 
to the subsequent governors of the colony, they always referred to him as 
the great and good Onas. After laying out the new city of Philadelphia, 
so called from the spirit of brotherly love which was to animate its inhabit- 
ants, and holding a conference with Lord Baltimore about the disputed 
boundary between Delaware and Pennsylvania, Penn returned, in 1684, 
to England. He did not visit America again till 1699, and then made 
but a short stay. The progress of the new province was as rapid as its 
commencement had been auspicious. In 1684, it contained twenty settled 
townships and seven thousand inhabitants ; and not many years afterwards, 
the population was estimated at thirty thousand. Some of the laws pro- 
posed by Penn and adopted by the Assembly bore the imprint of his quaint 
and benevolent disposition. To prevent law-suits, three arbitrators were to 
be appointed by the county courts, to hear and determine small controver- 



362 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

sies ; children were to be taught some useful trade, to the end that none 
might be idle ; agents who wronged their employers should make restitution 
and one-third over ; and the property of intestates was to be divided 
equally among the children, except that the eldest son should receive a 
double share. 

Georgia was founded in 1782, under a plan formed by General 
Oglethorpe and some other benevolent gentlemen, in order to establish a 
place of refuge for poor debtors and other indigent persons from Great 
Britain, and for persecuted Protestants from all nations. A grant was 
obtained from the king of the unoccupied territory on the right bank of the 
Savannah river, the land to be apportioned gratuitously among the settlers, 
charitable donations being made to defray the expense of transporting them 
across the Atlantic, and supporting them during the first season. Funds 
were freely contributed for this generous purpose, under the hope that the 
measure would reduce the poor rates in England, and empty the work- 
houses and debtors' jails. But the class of persons thus sent out were 
very unfit for the work of creating a new settlement and subduing the 
wilderness. They were chiefly broken-down tradesmen and impoverished 
debauchees ; while sailors, agriculturists, and laborers from the country 
were needed. A company of persecuted Lutherans from Salzburg, and 
one of Scotch Highlanders, who settled respectively the towns of Ebenezer 
and New Inverness, formed industrious and thriving colonists. Oglethorpe 
brought over the first band of emigrants, and founded the city of Savan- 
nah. The colony being regarded as in a state of pupilage, its affairs were 
administered, for the first twenty years, by a board of trustees, nominated 
in the charter, who were to appoint their associates and successors, and had 
the exclusive right of legislation. The generous motto on their official seal, 
non sibi, sed aliis, (not for themselves, but for others,) showed the benev- 
olent purposes with which they acted. Some of their measures were wise, 
others were preposterous. They strictly forbade the introduction of negro 
slaves ; the use of rum was prohibited ; no grant of land was to exceed 
five hundred acres ; the land was not to be sold or devised by the holders, 
but was to descend to male children only, and in case of the failure of such 
heirs, was to revert to the trustees. But these laws did not long remain 
in force ; slavery was introduced from the neighboring province of Caro- 
lina ; females were allowed to inherit, and the land became subject to the 
same regulations as other property. So long as the colony was managed 
by trustees, and considered as an object of charity, it languished, and large 
sums were expended upon it in vain. At last, the government was aban- 
doned to the crown, its institutions were assimilated to those of the other 
colonies, and it then had a steady and prosperous growth. The Methodists 
and Moravians were numerous in Georgia, two renowned preachers of the 
former denomination, Wesley and Whitefield, residing in it for several years. 

It is apparent from this review, that the Euglish colonies in North 
America, with the exception of Virginia and New York, were founded 
and peopled chiefly by religious exiles. The English Puritans were most 
numerous in New England, the Quakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 
the Roman Catholics in Maryland, Scotch Presbyterians, French Hugue- 
nots and Methodists in the south, and German Lutherans in Pennsylvania 
and elsewhere. Earnestness, sobriety, an independent spirit, and a deter- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 363 

mined hatred of oppression thus characterized the people from the begin- 
ning. Whatever emigrants came out solely in quest of wealth were soon 
disabused of their error, and either returned to the Old World, or learned 
to labor and to endure in their new home. Property was very evenly dis- 
tributed, and there were no marked inequalities of rank or social position. 
Protected by their feebleness and insignificance in the outset, and by their 
distance from the mother country, the colonists were, in the main, allowed 
to enact their own laws, and manage their own affairs. Without any marked 
purpose of deviating from the policy, or shaking off the yoke, of England, 
they were, from the commencement, semi-republican and semi-independent. 
Disciplined by privation, exile, and peril, thrown on their own resources, 
governing themselves, their situation developed in them the elements of a 
thoughtful, vigorous, and resolute character. After they had overcome 
the first difficulties and obstructions in the way of founding a new home in 
the wilderness, their habits of endurance, industry, and frugality soon gave 
prosperity to their undertakings. Agriculture and commerce flourished, 
and they increased rapidly in population and wealth. They were no longer 
the feeble dependencies of a remote power ; they could boast that they 
had laid the foundations of a great empire. 

CONTEST OF THE ENGLISH WITH THE FRENCH FOR THE POSSESSION OF 

NORTH AMERICA. 

The English revolution, which placed William III on the throne, while 
it freed the colonies from the oppressions they endured during the reign of 
his predecessor, involved them in the calamities of the war between Franco 
and England, which lasted from 1690 to the peace of Ryswick in 1697. 
The French in Canada directed an expedition against the English colonies, 
instigating the Indians to join them in their hostilities. In return, an ar- 
mament was fitted out by Massachusetts for the invasion of the French 
settlements. Port Royal in Nova Scotia was taken. A second expedition 
was undertaken by the colonies of New York, Connecticut, and Massachu- 
setts, for the reduction of Montreal and Quebec. It failed in its object, 
and had the effect of producing dissatisfaction among the Indian tribes in 
New York, who were the allies of the English. This war, commonly called 
King William's war, was marked by the most savage atrocities on the 
part of the French and Indians. 

Scarcely had the colonies begun to recover from this war, when in 1702 
they were plunged into another with the French, Indians, and Spaniards, 
commonly called Queen Anne's war, arising from disputes about the bound- 
aries, which had been left unsettled at the peace of Ryswick. The colonies 
of Massachusetts and New Hampshire were the chief sufferers, being 
most exposed to the devastating and murderous incursions of the French 
and Indians from Canada. Several expeditions were sent into Canada ; 
but the only success that attended the English arms w r as the taking again 
of Port Royal, which had been restored to the French at the close of the 
former war. It was now named Annapolis. The peace of Utrecht, in 
1713, put an end to the war in the northern colonies ; but South Carolina 
continued to be annoyed for some time by the Indians. By the treaty of 
Utrecht, France ceded Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to England. 

In 1744, England again declared war against France and Spain, which 



366 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

again involved the colonies in hostilities with the enemies of the mother- 
country and with their Indian allies. The principal event of this war, in 
America, was the capture of Louisburg from the French by forces from 
New England. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 again gave peace 
to the colonies. Prisoners were to be released on both sides without ran- 
som, and all conquests to be mutually restored. 

This war was extremely disastrous to the colonies. Many lives were 
lost ; the growth of population was checked ; great losses were sustained 
in the commercial interests of the country ; and finally a burdensome debt 
of several millions had been incurred to defray the expenses of the Avar. 
With the return of peace, however, commerce revived ; the settlements 
began to extend, and public credit was restored. 

But only a brief interval of repose was allowed to ^,he colonies. In 
1756, eight years from the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Great Britain again 
declared war against France, on the ground of the encroachments of the 
French upon the English territories in America. 

Some years previous to this war the French had commenced a chain of 
posts, designed to extend from the head of the St. Lawrence to the Missis- 
sippi, with a view to maintain a communication between their northern pos- 
sessions and Louisiana. 

In 1750, the English government granted a large tract of land on the 
Ohio river to a company called the Ohio company, formed for the purpose 
of settling the country, and carrying on a trade in furs with the Indians. 
The French governor of Canada, apprehending both the loss of the fur- 
trade and the interruption of his communications with Louisiana, claimed 
the whole country between the Ohio and the Alleghanies, and prohibited 
the further encroachments of the English. He also opened a new com- 
munication between Lake Erie and the Ohio, and stationed troops at posts 
along the line. The Ohio company, thus threatened in their trade, per- 
suaded Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, in 1753, to send a remonstrance 
to the French commandant. George Washington was the bearer. The 
commandant returned for answer that he had taken possession of the coun- 
try by order of the governor-general of Canada, whose orders alone he 
could regard. 

The British government, on learning the claim set up by the French, 
directed the Virginians to resist it by force. In 1754, an expedition was 
conducted against the French by Washington ; but the superior force of 
the French obliged him to capitulate, with the privilege of returning with 
his troops to Virginia. This was properly the commencement of what is 
commonly styled the French war, although the formal declaration was not 
yet made. 

In the meantime, the British government recommended the colonies to 
unite for their common defense. A convention of delegates from all of 
the northern colonies accordingly met at Albany in 1754, and adopted a 
plan of union: but it was rejected, both by the provincial assemblies and 
by the home government : by the former because it gave too much power 
to the crown, and by the latter because it gave too little. 

In the spring of 1755, vigorous preparations were made for carrying on 
the war. An expedition was sent against Nova Scotia, which met with en- 
tire success : the colonial forces, with trifling loss, subdued the French, and 
gained complete and permanent possession of the whole country. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 367 

An expedition under General Braddock, directed against the French on 
the Ohio, was unfortunate. Owing to the arrogance and rashness of the 
commander, the British troops were surprised and defeated with great loss 
by a very inferior force of French and Indians. General Braddock was 
mortally wounded, and the conduct of the retreat devolved on Washington, 
who was in command of the colonial militia, and by whom the army ay as 
saved from total destruction. 

The American arms were more successful in the north. The French 
were signally defeated on the borders of Lake George, and their comman- 
der, Baron Dieskau, was mortally wounded. The moral effect of this vic- 
tory, following within a few weeks the discomfiture of Braddock, was 
very great and salutary in its influence upon the colonies. 

In the year, 1756, war was formally declared between Great Britain and 
France ; and in Europe began what is called the seven years' war, in which 
Prussia was united with England against France. In America the cam- 
paign of 1756 was very disastrous to the colonists ; they were unable even 
to attempt gaining of Niagara and Crown Point, places of great impor- 
tance in the hands of the French, and the reduction of which was in the 
plan of operations. The French, under Montcalm, took Fort Oswego, thus 
gaining entire command of the Lakes Ontario and Erie, besides inflicting 
upon the English a very severe loss, amounting to sixteen hundred men 
made prisoners, one hundred and twenty cannon, with fourteen mortars, 
two sloops-of-war, and two hundred bateaux. 

The British government made great preparations for the campaign of 
1757. A large force was destined for the reduction of Louisburg; but 
the indecision and incapacity of Lord Loudon, the commander-in-chief, 
caused the expedition to be abandoned. Meantime, Montcalm, the French 
commander, besieged and took Fort William Henry, on Lake George, after 
a most spirited defense by Colonel Munroe. The English troops, after be- 
ing admitted to honorable capitulation, were treacherously massacred by the 
Indians attached to Montcalm's army. 

The campaign of 1758 was more prosperous. Lord Chatham had now 
become prime minister, and infused new energy into the prosecution of the 
war. In answer to a call made by him upon the colonies, Massachusetts, 
Connecticut, and New Hampshire, united and raised fifteen thousand men. 
The tide of success now turned in favor of the English. Three expedi- 
tions had been planned : one against Louisburg, another against Ticonde- 
roga, and the third against Fort du Quesne on the Ohio. Louisburg was 
taken, with great loss to the French in prisoners, ships, and munitions of 
war. Fort du Quesne was abandoned by the French, taken possession of 
by the English, and named Pittsburgh. The expedition against Ticonde- 
roga failed, but the failure was compensated by the capture of Fort Fron- 
tinac, an important fortress at the outlet of Lake Ontario. 

The campaign of 1759 commenced with a nearly simultaneous attack 
upon all the French strongholds in Canada, namely, Ticonderoga, Crown 
Point, Niagara, and Quebec. One division of the army, under General 
Amherst, the commander-in-chief, proceeded against Ticonderoga and 
Crown Point, which were successively taken. Another division, under 
General Prideaux, advanced and took Niagara. General Wolfe was no 
less successful in the great enterprise of conquering Quebec. The French, 
under Montcalm, were defeated on the plains of Abraham, and Quebec 



368 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

fell into the hands of the British. General Wolfe died upon the field of 
battle. 

In 1760, the French made an unsucessful attempt to recover Quebec. 
In less than a year from the capture of that city, Montreal, Detroit, and 
all other places in the possession of the French, were surrendered to the 
British, and the conquest of Canada was completed. 

By the treaty of peace definitively concluded at Paris in 1763, Nova 
Scotia, Canada, Cape Breton, and all other islands in the gulf and river 
St. Lawrence, were ceded to the British crown. 

The protracted contest with the French and the Indians being brought 
to a close by the complete triumph of the English, the American Colonies 
were seemingly in the full tide of prosperity. The great exertions they 
had made during the last war had taught them the secret of their strength ; 
that war had cost them, it was computed, about 30,000 lives and over six- 
teen millions of dollars, of which only five millions were repaid by the Brit- 
ish ministry. Immigration rapidly increased, and the vast forest in the 
interior began to be explored by those who were in search of a new home. 
The Delaware and Hudson rivers were crossed by a thronging multitude, 
the Alleghanies were surmounted, and white settlements were formed upon 
the upper tributaries of the Ohio. No longer hemmed in, as with a ring 
of iron, by the French and the savages, the internal principle of expansion, 
which has been at work ever since, received its first free development, 
and carried the limits of civilization every year farther west. Trade 
flourished on the sea-coast ; Boston had long been distinguished for enter- 
prising traffic, and Newport, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore were 
rising rapidly in commercial importance. Printing presses and newspapers, 
schools and colleges, flourished, though the literature of the Colonies as yet 
existed only in the humble form of sermons. Yet the metaphysical writings 
of Jonathan Edwards slowly acquired a European reputation, and the fame 
of Dr. Franklin was carried, by his brilliant discoveries in electricity, to 
the bounds of the civilized world. 

THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 

But the prosperity of America was now to receive a sudden check, and 
a contest to begin, more important to her and more momentous in its con- 
sequences, than any which the world had ever witnessed. England was 
oppressed by a heavy debt, which had been more than doubled by the 
heavy expenses of the late war, and the people were overburdened with 
taxes. In an evil hour, it occurred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
that this pressure might be lightened, if the American Colonies could be 
made to contribute to the general expenses of the empire. 

Mr. Grenville introduced into parliament his bill for imposing a stamp 
tax on the American Colonies, and it became a law with little opposition 
February 6th, 1765. Stamped papers, upon which a considerable impost 
was to be paid, were required for all judicial proceedings, clearances at the 
custom-house, bills of lading, and even the diplomas granted by seminaries 
of learning. The law was not to take effect for about seven or eight 
months after its passage. The news that the bill had become a law ar- 
rived in Boston early in April ; and the effect was as if a cannon had been 
fired so near the ears of the people that they were all stunned by the ex- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 369 

plosion. They seemed stupefied at first ; there was no popular outbreak, 
no meeting for the passage of violent resolutions. But it was the lull 
which precedes, and not that which follows, the tempest. The legislative 
body assembled in May, and they immediately resolved that the other Col- 
nies should be invited to unite with them in sending delegates to a Con- 
gress, to be held in New York in October, to consult together on the pres- 
ent state of affairs and the recent acts of parliament. This was a signifi- 
cant intimation that the Colonies were at last aware of the strength and 
firmness which they might acquire by concert and union. 

Delegates from nine of the colonies assembled at the Congress in New- 
York, and assurances were received from two other Colonies that they 
would acquiesce in the result. The proceedings of this Congress were 
singularly moderate, considering the excited temper of the people. They 
only published a declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonies, 
and addressed a petition to the king, and memorials to the two houses of 
parliament; and the tone of these documents, though firm, was mild, ar- 
gumentative, and respectful. They claimed all the privileges of British 
subjects, and especially that of not being taxed without their own consent. 
When these papers were signed, the Congress was dissolved, after a session 
of little more than a fortnight. The chief advantage derived from it was, 
that it made the patriot leaders from the different Colonies acquainted with 
each other, and enabled them to give assurances of mutual support. No- 
vember came, but the stamps were nowhere used and the business even of 
the courts of justice, after a short suspension, was resumed. The act was 
practically nullified, with the assent, either free or enforced, of the judges 
and the governors. 

The cause of the Colonies, which they pleaded with much earnestness 
and ability, soon found sympathy in the whole of Europe ; and in England 
itself, it was embraced by a powerful party, which opposed the measures of 
government both in speech and writing. At the head of this opposition 
stood the great statesman and orator, the elder William Pitt, afterwards 
Earl of Chatham; and he was actively supported by Conway, Col. Barre, 
and Lord Camden, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and next to Lord Mans- 
field, the highest legal authority in the realm. This powerful opposition 
produced a change of ministry in July, 1765, and, after a vehement de- 
bate, after Dr. Franklin had undergone a memorable examination before 
the House of Commons, in which he declared that the Act could never be 
enforced, the Stamp Act was repealed. But a bill was passed at the same 
time, March, 1766, declaratory of the power and right of parliament to 
bind America in all cases whatsoever. In the Colonies, the news of the 
repeal was received with great rejoicing, the accompanying act being justly 
regarded as a mere contrivance to save the honor of government. Lord 
Camden, indeed, in the House of Lords, had strenously opposed the declar- 
atory bill as * absolutely illegal.' ' Taxation and representation,' he declar- 
ed, ' are inseparably united ; God hath joined them, and no British parlia- 
ment can put them asunder.' Indemnity was demanded from the Colonies 
for those officers of the crown who had suffered from the late riots ; and 
both New York and Massachusetts granted them full compensation. 

But the joy of the Americans was of short duration, for in little more 
than a year, another act was passed by parliament, imposing duties on all 
tea, paper, glass, paints, and lead, that should be imported into the Colo- 
24* 



372 , AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

nies. This was an avowed attempt to raise a revenue, though, in form, the 
bill was like other acts for regulating trade ; and it was hoped that, on this 
account, it would escape censure. But the principle first advanced by- 
James Otis was now generally adopted by the Colonists, that revenue bills 
under the form of regulations of trade violated their rights quite as much 
as direct taxation. Thus the flame of opposition was kindled anew, and 
raged as hotly as ever. Non-importation was an obvious and legal means 
of escaping these taxes ; and extensive combinations were therefore formed 
to refrain from the use, not only of the taxed articles, but, as far as possi- 
ble, of all other British commodities. Able leaders and defenders of the 
popular causes were not wanting. Besides James Otis, there were the two 
Adamses (Samuel and John) and John Hancock in Massachusetts, John 
Dickenson in Pennsylvania, (the author of the celebrated ' Farmer's Let- 
ters,' an able plea for Colonial rights,) Patrick Henry, and R. H. Lee in 
Virginia, and Gadsden and Rutledge in South Carolina, besides Dr. Frank- 
lin, whose reputation and abilities were of great weight in London, where 
he resided for many years as agent of several of the Colonies. 

The war of pamphlets, newspapers, and speeches, the sharp controver- 
sies between colonial assemblies and royal governors, and occasional out- 
breaks of popular violence, continued for four or five years, till the Ameri- 
cans were well nigh weaned from their old affection for the land of their 
forefathers, and had ceased to glory in the British name. Boston was the 
head quarters of opposition to the policy of the English ministers, and sev- 
eral regiments of British troops were accordingly sent thither to dragoon 
the inhabitants into submission. But this measure served only to increase 
the irritation, and to make the breach irreparable. An affray took place 
March 5, 1770, between the mob and the soldiers, in which the latter fired, 
and killed three of their unarmed assailants, besides dangerously wounding 
five others. It was late in the evening ; the alarm bells rang, the citizens 
rushed into the streets, and an open battle between the people and the 
troops was with difficulty prevented. The next day, the irritation of the 
people was so strongly manifested in a town meeting, that the governor 
and the military commander consented to remove the troops to an island in 
the harbor, and quiet was restored. The soldiers who had fired, with their 
officer, were brought to trial for murder ; but Adams and Quincy, two of 
the most distinguished advocates of popular rights, nobly consented to act 
as their legal defenders, and made out so clear a case for them, that they 
had acted under strong provocation, that the jury acquitted them of mur- 
der, and only two were convicted of manslaughter, and slightly punished. 
Yet the story of ' the Boston Massacre,' as it was called, served long to 
inflame the passions of the multitude against their British oppressors. 

As yet, no revenue had been received from the duty on tea, because the 
Americans would not import any of that commodity, the little which they 
consumed being obtained by smuggling. But the contest was brought to 
a crisis in 1773, by the East India Company, which, instigated by the En- 
glish ministry, sent several cargoes of tea to the Colonies, supposing with 
good reason that it would be purchased if it could only be landed and of- 
fered for sale. ^-But the patriots were on the alert, and immediately formed 
combinations to prevent the landing of the tea, and to force the consignees 
to send it back. In New York and Philadelphia, popular vengeance was 
denounced against any persons who should receive the article, and even 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 373 

against the pilots if they should guide the ships into the harbor ; and the 
vessels were thus obliged to return to England, without even effecting an 
entry at the custom-house. At Charleston the tea was landed and stored 
in damp cellars, where it was quickly spoiled. At Boston, governor Hutch- 
inson and admiral Montague succeeded in preventing the vessels from leav- 
ing the harbor, in spite of the menaces of the inhabitants ; whereupon, 
about fifty persons disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians, boarded the 
ships at the wharf, and in the presence of a great crowd of people, drew 
up the chests of tea from the holds, and emptied their contents into the 
water. When the news of this act arrived in England, the indignant min- 
istry resolved to punish the contumacious Bostonians, and for this purpose, 
introduced three bills into parliament, March, 1774, one of which shut up 
the port of Boston, and removed the custom-house to Salem ; another vir- 
tually abrogated the charter of Massachusetts, by giving to the crown or 
to the governor the appointment of the Council and of all officers, and even 
the selection of juries, and by prohibiting town meetings from being held 
without the governor's consent ; and a third provided that persons accused 
of murder might be sent to England for trial. These bills were strenu- 
ously opposed by Fox, Burke, Barre, and Dunning, but were carried by 
majorities of more than four to one. Another law provided for the quar- 
tering of troops in America. Four more regiments were sent to Boston, 
so that the town was now strongly garrisoned ; and Gen. Gage being ap- 
pointed governor, in place of Hutchinson, the people of the province were 
virtually placed under military law. The Quebec Act, passed at the same 
session, for the purpose of preventing Canada from taking part with the 
other Colonies, extended the boundaries of that province to the Ohio and 
the Mississippi, established the old French law in all judicial proceedings, 
and secured to the Catholic Church there the enjoyment of all its lands 
and revenues. A short time before, as if the feelings of the people of Mas- 
sachusetts had not been sufficiently irritated, their agent in London, Dr. 
Franklin, was made the object of an indecent and scurrilous invective be- 
fore the Privy Council by the Solicitor General, Wedderburn, the avowed 
intention being to insult him and his constituents. He was charged with 
having transmitted to Massachusetts certain letters, written by some offi- 
cers of the crown in that province, on public subjects, to their friends in 
office in England, which letters had been given to Franklin by some per- 
son who had obtained them by stratagem or unfair means. But before 
making this charge, the ministers themselves had repeatedly intercepted 
the letters of Franklin and other Colonial agents, and read them. 

The passage of the Boston Port Bill was the virtual commencement 
of the American Revolution, though a collision with arms did not take 
place till another year had elapsed. The agreements to import no more 
British goods, and to abstain from the consumption of them, were renewed 
with greater solemnity and strictness than before. Another general Con 
gress was called by Massachusetts, to meet at Philadelphia in September ; 
and committees of correspondence were instituted, to render the action of 
the different Colonies harmonious, and to keep them advised of each other's 
proceedings. Closing the harbor had deprived the people of Boston of 
their usual means of livelihood ; but Salem and Marblehead generously 
tendered them the use of their wharves, and subscriptions for the more 
indigent were obtained all over the country. The Congress met at the 



374 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

appointed time and place, and twelve Colonies were represented in it, only 
Georgia sending no delegates. Among the members were the two Adamses 
from Massachusetts, and Washington and Patrick Henry from Virginia. 
Memorials and addresses were sent forth, as by the former assembly ; and 
the tone of these papers was naturally firmer and more decisive than on 
the former occasion, though it was still moderate. A dignified and elo- 
quent Address to the people of Great Britain, written by Mr. Jay, was 
much admired. The Declaration of Colonial Rights was precise and com- 
prehensive, and it included a protest against the employment of a standing 
army in the Colonies without their consent. Professions were made of 
perfect loyalty to the king, and of great solicitude for the restoration of 
former harmony with Great Britain ; and, from a majority of the delegates, 
these professions were undoubtedly sincere. After a session of eight 
weeks, the delegates separated, having first recommended that another 
Congress should meet in the ensuing May, if the difficulties with England 
were not previously adjusted. 

In Massachusetts, hostilities seemed to be on the point of breaking out. 
Governor Gage prorogued the General Court before it hatl come together ; 
but the members met at Salem, in spite of the prorogation, organized them- 
selves into a provincial congress, chose John Hancock for their president, 
and proceeded to business. In an address to the governor, they protested 
against the presence of British troops, and the erection of the fortifications 
in Boston. They appointed a committee of safety, to make measures for 
the defense of the -province, and another committee to obtain provisions 
and military stores. They forbade the payment of any more money to the 
late treasurer, and ordered all taxes to be collected by an officer whom 
they had appointed. Three generals were commissioned by them, to take 
the command of the militia, who were organized and disciplined with much 
diligence. Gage issued counter orders and proclamations, but no one out 
of the range of his soldiers' muskets listened to them. His power was 
limited to Boston, which he held by a considerable military force, and had 
carefully fortified ; but the people throughout Massachusetts rendered strict 
and cheerful obedience to the provincial congress. Later in the year, 12, 
000 'minute men' were enrolled, being volunteers from the militia, who 
pledged themselves to be ready for service at a minute's notice. Minute 
men were also enrolled in the other New England colonies, where, also, 
measures were taken to procure artillery and military stores. 

The Port Bill went into operation in June, 1774, and the battle of Lex- 
ington was not fought till the following April. During the intervening 
months, the attitude of the whole people was calm and watchful ; they did 
not collect together in large bodies, they made no menacing demonstrations, 
but waited patiently till their opponents should commit the first overt act 
of hostility. 

It was the firing of the king's troops on Lexington common April 19th, 
1775, which rang the alarm bell of the revolution, and the hitherto seem- 
ingly quiescent Colony burst at once into a flame. This event took place 
at four o'clock in the morning ; and before noon, the hills and roads were 
alive with ' minute men,' hurrying from all quarters to the scene of conflict. 
General Gage had sent out Colonel Smith, the night before, with 800 men, 
to destroy some military stores which the patriots had collected at Concord. 
On arriving at Lexington, Colonel Smith found a company of ' minute men ' 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 375 

collected on the common, who were ordered to disperse, and almost at the 
same moment were fired upon by the British, who killed or wounded 
eighteen of them. A few shots were fired in return, and the king's troops 
then passed on to Concord, where they destroyed a few stores, were at- 
tacked by the provincials, and commenced their retreat to Boston about 
noon. But the minute men were now rapidly coming up from the neigh- 
boring towns, and each company, as it arrived, without waiting for orders, 
or stopping to concert action with those already on the field, took the best 
position it could find for annoying the enemy, and opened its fire. The 
woods and stone walls on each side of the road were lined with sharp 
shooters, who availed themselves of evez*y advantage of the ground as skill- 
fully as if they had been directed by an able general. When the British, 
on their retreat, had reached Lexington, they were met by a reinforce- 
ment of 1,200 men, without which they would probably have been cut off'. 
But as soon as they resumed their march, they were again attacked, and 
the affair continued as it had begun, each company of the rustic soldiery 
finding its own station and fighting on its own hook. The action ended 
only when the harassed king's troops reached Charlestown, where they 
found safety under the guns of their shipping. They lost about 270 in 
killed, wounded, and missing, while the American loss was but 93. 

The manner in which this battle was fought was a type of the whole 
contest in New England, from the time when the tea was destroyed till 
Boston was evacuated. It is the most striking, perhaps the only complete, 
instance which all history affords, of the whole population of a country, self- 
moved, and self-governed, acting together with great unanimity and vigor, 
yet acting patiently, prudently, and with even a punctilious regard for the 
laws, while their excitement was intense, and while they were bravely de- 
fying a powerful empire, and setting at nought an authority, which, when 
exercised within the bounds of justice, they and their fathers had always 
implicitly, and even lovingly, recognized. The first action of the Massa- 
chusetts Provincial Congress, after the battle of Lexington, was character- 
istic of the men and the times. They appointed a committee to take the 
depositions of those who were present, in order to prove that the British 
fired first. If they had been conducting a lawsuit about the title to a farm, 
they could not have been more anxious to collect testimony, and show that 
'the law' was on their side. Most of the resolutions which they passed at 
this period, were accompanied by formidable preambles, in which the jus- 
tice and legality of the measure proposed were demonstrated at length, 
though often with more earnestness than logic. The time for action had 
now arrived, and it soon appeared that the spirit which the people had 
shown at Lexington was no transient feeling. Within a few days, an army 
of about 16,000 men had come together, and the siege of Boston was be- 
gun. This, again, was a spontaneous and unconcerted movement ; they 
assembled before preparations were made for them, before a commander- 
in-chief had been appointed, or any plan of action formed. Rhode Island 
and Connecticut retained the control of their own troops, and the care of 
providing them with arms and sustenance, merely instructing them to co- 
operate with the Massachusetts army. But for the excellent spirit of the 
men, the army would have been merely an armed mob. But the ranks 
were filled with steady farmers and mechanics, who were brought thither 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

by their attachment to the cause, and who needed little discipline to keep 
them in order. 

Ammunition and artillery were yet wanting, though great exertions had 
been made to obtain military stores. But this want was partially supplied 
by an enterprise of the < Green Mountain Boys,' as the inhabitants of 
the country which is now the State of Vermont were then called. It was 
known that the fortresses of Ticonderoga and Crown Point had but slen- 
der garrisons and were imperfectly guarded. Ethan Allen and Seth War- 
ner, who commanded some armed volunteers in that region, undertook 
upon their own responsibility to take these forts by surprise, and they suc- 
ceeded, May, 1775. Two hundred pieces of artillery and a considerable 
supply of powder were thus obtained for the camp near Boston. The 
British army at that place had been reinforced, and now amounted to 10,- 
000 men, under Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne. To straiten 
their quarters, Col. Prescott was sent, with about a thousand men from the 
American army, to throw up an entrenchment on Bunker's Hill in Charles- 
town. A small redoubt was constructed there in the night time, on which, 
as soon as it was discovered in the morning, the English ships in the harbor 
opened their fire, June 17. This produced but little effect ; and the rein- 
forcements sent to Prescott during the forenoon enabled him to throw up 
an imperfect breast-work, and other slight fortifications outside of the re- 
doubt. Generals Putnam, Pomeroy, and Warren joined him at this time, 
but did not take the command out of his hands. Three thousand men 
were sent over at noon from Boston, led by Howe and Pigot, to take the 
hill by assault. They advanced bravely, but the fire of the Americans 
was so close and well-sustained, that the British wavered, and fell back in 
great disorder. Gage then ordered the village of Charlestown, which was 
near the foot of the hill, to be set on fire, and while the flames were rag- 
ing, the troops again moved forward. Again, as they approached the re- 
doubt, the murderous fire of the Americans, many of whom were practiced 
marksmen, burst forth, and again the assailants were driven back to the 
landing place. They formed and advanced a third time, and as the am- 
munition of the Americans was now nearly spent, they succeeded in get- 
ting possession of the hill. But their opponents retired in a body, and 
were not pursued, though they suffered much from the fire of the shipping 
in their retreat. The victory of Howe might well be considered a defeat, 
for he lost over a thousand men in killed and wounded, while the American 
loss was not half as great. But Gen. Warren was among the slain. The 
battle was as characteristic as that of Lexington ; a Colonel commanded, 
and three Generals either served under him, or acted independently in di- 
recting the troops. The result was very encouraging to the Americans, 
as it proved that their raw levies were capable of waging a desperate con- 
flict with regular troops. 

Congress had again assembled at Philadelphia at the appointed time, 
May 10, and it began to exercise all the functions of a government, 
though there was no formal union of the Colonies, and the cheerful acqui- 
escence of the people was the only basis of its authority. But the dele- 
gates were not yet prepared for a total rupture with England ; they voted 
to send another petition to the king, and an address to the people of Great 
Britain, in which they declared that they did not intend to throw off their 
allegiance, and professed an anxious desire for peace. At the same time, 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 377 

they resolved to put the country in a state of defense, and to complete the 
organization of an army, George Washington, a delegate from Virginia, 
was chosen commander-in-chief, the members from New England heartily 
concurring in his nomination, from their wish to secure the cooperation of 
the southern Colonies. Ward, Lee, Schuyler, and Putnam were commis- 
sioned as major-generals, and ten brigadiers were appointed, among whom 
were Gates, Green, Montgomery, and Sullivan. Most of these officers 
had seen service in the French and Indian wars. Bills of credit, or paper 
money, were issued to the amount of three millions of dollars ; a post-office 
department was organized, and a committee was appointed to secure, if 
possible, the neutrality of the Indians. Massachusetts asked the advice 
of Congress, in reference to its form of government ; and it was advised 
to establish a provisional government, that should conform as nearly as 
possible to the charter. The governors of most of the Colonies had now 
either abandoned their posts, or were cooperating with the enemies of the 
country ; and the direction of affairs had generally fallen into the hands 
either of the most numerous representative body under the old organization, 
or of such an assembly created for the occasion. It may be observed here, 
by anticipation, that new constitutions of government were established by 
all the Colonies, except Connecticut and Rhode Island, during the progress 
of the war. New Hampshire formed such a constitution in 1775 ; New 
Jersey, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and 
North Carolina, in 1776, — the first three before the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence ; Georgia and New York, in 1777 ; Massachusetts, in 1780. 
The forms of government thus established were not arbitrary and novel. 
They supplied omissions, it is true ; but they made no unnecessary innova- 
tions. They were the old forms of polity, adopted by the first settlers, or 
created for them by charter, with such modifications only as were rendered 
necessary by the transition from a state of partial, to one of total, inde- 
pendence. Connecticut and Rhode Island did not find it necessary to 
make any change ; their charters were so liberal that the people, in fact, 
had always chosen all their own officers, and enacted all their own laws ; 
and under these charters, the government continued to be administered for 
nearly half a century after the Revolution. 

Washington assumed the command of the army before Boston about a 
fortnight after the battle of Bunker Hill, and immediately endeavored to 
improve its organization and discipline, and to obtain supplies of arms and 
military stores. The troops at first consisted entirely of volunteers, and 
so many of these left and went home after a short stay, that it was feared 
the camp would be deserted. An attempt was now made to enlist soldiers 
for definite periods, to form them into regiments, and accustom them to 
discipline and the use of their arms. The most pressing want was that of 
powder, of which there was not enough to furnish nine rounds to a man, 
and the whole supply in the country was so inadequate that active opera- 
tions could not be undertaken for some months. Attempts were made to 
establish manufactories of saltpetre and to import powder and lead from 
the West Indies ; and a small supply of military stores was obtained from 
captured vessels. The patience and firmness of the commander-in-chief 
were severely taxed by the many discouraging circumstances of his posi- 
tion, at the head of a motley collection of troops, with insufficient means 
of paying them and of providing many necessaries of war. Reserved and 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

dignified in his demeanor, inflexible in purpose, circumspect and yet enter 
prising in his plans, industrious and methodical in business, he united the 
highest qualifications for the elevated post which he was called to fill. His 
equanimity was seldom ruffled, and no failures or disasters could disheart- 
en him or paralyze his energies. A keen judge of character and qualifi 
cations, he was generally fortunate in selecting his agents and giving his 
confidence. Under his direction, and in spite of the most adverse circum- 
stances, the raw levies were gradually converted into disciplined and effec- 
tive troops, and the efforts of an enemy greatly superior in means and 
equipment were successfully foiled. 

Congress had projected an expedition against Canada, in the hope of 
obtaining the sympathy and aid of the French inhabitants of that province, 
or perhaps of inducing them to unite with the other Colonies in resistance 
to the British ministry. In August, 1775, Schuyler and Montgomery, at 
the head of a small body of troops, advanced by way of Lake Champlain 
against Montreal, whilst Arnold, with about a thousand men, was detached 
from the camp before Boston, to ascend the Kennebeck river, and then 
make his way through the wilderness to the banks of the St. Lawrence op- 
posite Quebec. Schuyler being prevented by illness from advancing far- 
ther than St. John's on the Sorel, the command devolved on Montgomery, 
who, after a few weeks' siege, captured St. John's, and then advanced 
against Montreal, which was surrendered to him without resistance. Ar- 
nold's troops, after suffering great hardships from exposure and want of 
food while passing through a wild and uninhabited region, reached the south- 
ern bank of the St. Lawrence, December 1st, where they were joined by 
Montgomery, who came down the river to meet them. Their united forces 
hardly exceeded a thousand men, while Carleton, the British commander, 
by landing the sailors and organizing the citizens into military companies, 
had garrisoned Quebec with 1,200. The artillery of the Americans not 
being sufficient to make any impression on the works, they resolved to at- 
tempt to carry the place by assault. Under cover of a snow-storm, De- 
cember 31, the men advanced to the attack with great gallantly, and 
forced their way into the lower town ; but Montgomery was killed, Arnold's 
leg was broken by a musket ball, and after some desperate fighting, the 
party in the streets found themselves surrounded and were obliged to sur- 
render. Arnold, with about 600 men, retreated a few miles up the river, 
and there kept up the blockade of Quebec through the winter. Reinforce- 
ments were sent to him ; but after the spring opened, a large body of Brit- 
ish troops arrived at Quebec and the Americans were forced to retire, 
first to Montreal, and afterwards to St. John's. 

Howe's army in Boston, having learned caution from the battle of Bun- 
ker Hill, made no attempt at offensive operations during the autumn and 
winter ; and the want of cannon and powder in the American camp pre- 
vented Washington from attacking them. But through the great exertion 
of Colonel Knox, over fifty pieces of artillery were dragged on sleds, over 
the frozen lake and the snow, from Crown Point and Ticonderoga ; and 
active measures were then adopted to drive the British out of the place. 
On the evening of the 4th of March, the attention of the enemy being 
drawn by a brisk cannonade to the opposite quarter, a large body of troops 
secretly took possession of Dorchester heights, and erected a line of forti- 
fications there which commanded the harbor and the town. The English 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 379 

general made immediate preparation to attack these works ; but a furious 
storm of wind and rain, that prevailed for two days, prevented the troops 
from crossing in boats to Dorchester, and when this had ceased, the in- 
trenchments seemed too strong to be forced. General Howe consequently 
resolved to evacuate the town ; and on the 17th, the fleet sailed, carrying 
off the whole army, and about one thousand inhabitants of the place and 
its vicinity who adhered to the king's cause. The recovery of Boston 
caused great rejoicing throughout the country; the thanks of Congress 
were voted to the general and his army, and a gold medal was ordered to 
be struck in commemoration of the event. After a delay of a few days, 
Washington marched with the main body of the army to New York. The 
Loyalists, or Tories, as the favorers of the British cause were called, were 
numerous in that place and its neighborhood, and for this reason, among 
others, it was supposed that Howe would carry his army thither. In real- 
ity, the British troops sailed for Halifax, where they remained inactive till 
the end of June, and then, after receiving large reinforcements, proceeded 
to New York. 

A year had now elapsed since the battle of Lexington ; it had been pass- 
ed in active hostilities, the exasperation of both parties had increased, and 
there seemed no longer any hope of a reconciliation with England. Lord 
North's ministry, supported by the obstinacy of the king and by a large 
majority in both houses of Parliament, evinced no disposition to change its 
policy ; on the contrary, treaties had been formed with several of the mi- 
nor powers of Germany, in virtue of which about 17,000 Hessians, Wal- 
deckers, and Hanoverians were collected by crafty recruiting officers, and 
hired out to England for the purpose of putting down the rebellion in 
America. Of course, the news that these mercenaries were to be employ- 
ed greatly increased the irritation of the 'Colonies. Thomas Paine, a very 
vigorous writer, published his famous pamphlet, called ' Common Sense, ' 
to prove that a final separation from England was inevitable and ought not 
to be delayed. Written in an eminently popular style, it had an immense 
circulation, and was of great service in preparing the minds of the people 
for independence. A proposition to dissolve all connection with Great 
Britain was first introduced into Congress by Richard Henry Lee, of Vir- 
ginia and was warmly supported by John Adams and other members from 
New England. But it was not carried without difficulty; New York, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South Carolina hesitated. Indeed, the leg- 
islatures of the two former Colonies had expressly instructed their repre- 
sentatives in Congress to vote against it. But the tide of popular opinion 
now set strongly towards independence, and the waverers were carried 
along with it, in spite of their efforts. The recusant Colonies recalled their 
instructions, and on the 4th of July, 1776, the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, written by Thomas Jefferson, and revised by a committee, of which 
John Adams and Dr. Franklin were members, was solemnly adopted in 
Congress by a vote of the whole Thirteen States. 

The progress of the contest had been watched with great attention on 
the Continent of Europe, where the efforts of the Americans were natu- 
rally regarded with favor and sympathy, partly out of jealousy of England, 
but still more by the enthusiasm which a gallant contest for freedom always 
awakens in the hearts of the people. Among the French, particularly, this 
feeling was very strong, as the success of the patriots would humiliate and 



380 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

weaken the haughty rival that had recently triumphed over France, and 
deprived her of nearly all her colonial dominion. Congress had previously 
appointed a 'Committee of Secret Correspondence,' to keep up intercourse 
with the friends of the cause in various parts of Europe ; and now that the 
United States had become an independent power, it seemed proper to extend 
this intercourse, and to establish diplomatic relations with other governments. 
Three commissioners, of whom Dr. Franklin was one, were sent to Paris, 
and Arthur Lee was deputed by them to visit Prussia and Spain. These 
agents were not formally received at court, for no European power was yet 
prepared for war with England. But the French ministers treated them with 
much courtesy, and agreed to furnish the Americans with secret supplies 
of money, arms, and military stores, to a considerable amount. Many 
shipments were consequently made, and the aid thus received was very 
seasonable. The appearance of Dr. Franklin, with his high reputation as 
a philosopher, his plain garb, and agreeable manners, as an envoy from the 
combatants for freedom in the New World, created a great sensation among 
the excitable people of Paris. Honors and attentions of all kinds were 
lavished upon him. 'Men imagined,' says Lacretelle, 'that they saw in 
him a sage of antiquity, come back to give austere lessons and generous 
examples to the moderns. They personified in him the republic of which 
he was the representative and legislator. ' The young and wealthy Mar- 
quis of Lafayette, inspired with a noble enthusiasm, crossed the ocean to 
hazard life and property in the cause of American freedom. Some Ger- 
mans, also, among whom Kalb and Steuben, were best known, and the gal- 
lant Pole, Kosciusko, with a number of volunteers from other nations, came 
to the aid of the Americans. 

The campaign of 1776 was very disastrous to the American arms, and 
but for the surpassing fortitude and magnanimity of their great military 
leader, it would have been ruinous to the cause. Washington's army was 
very weak when it arrived in New York ; several regiments had been left 
behind to garrison Boston, and others were detached to strengthen the 
northern army, then lying near Montreal. Unfortunately, also, the men 
had been enlisted for very short periods, owing to the uncertainty how long 
the war would continue ; and now, when their services were most wanted, 
and they had been trained and disciplined, whole regiments had to be dis- 
banded and sent home, and their places were taken by raw recruits. Fre- 
quent drafts were made from the militia, to meet pressing emergencies; 
but these raw troops could not be depended upon for efficient service. 

The Continental troops under Washington at New York did not number 
more than 8,000, while the British army, which Howe led thither in June, 
including the German mercenaries, amounted to 24,000. Among them 
were the troops lately employed against Charleston, South Carolina, where 
they had attempted to land, but the fleet had been driven off by the heavy 
fire from the forts. The fortifications at New York did not prove so for- 
midable, as the British vessels passed them without damage, and entered 
the Hudson river. Howe landed most of his troops on Long Island, where 
the tories were very numerous, and marched to attack the Americans, who 
were in an entrenched camp at the western end of the island, opposite 
New York. A battle followed, in which the British army succeeded in 
gaining the rear of the Americans by an unguarded road, and totally 
defeated them, taking over a thousand prisoners. The remainder of the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 381 

army secretly retreated, on the second night after the battle, from Long 
Island to New York. Leaving a garrison in the town, Washington placed 
the body of the troops on Harlem heights, a strong position at the north- 
ward. But the garrison was soon obliged with loss to quit New York, as 
the place was not tenable except by a large force, and even the troops on 
the heights behaved so ill that a further retreat became necessary. Dis- 
couragement was now very general ; the militia deserted by companies, 
and the Continentals, as the regular troops were called, began to follow 
their example. Washington adopted the only system of warfare which 
was practicable under these gloomy circumstances ; he resolved to risk no 
general engagement, to encamp only in strong positions, to weary out the 
enemy by frequent marches, and not to meet them except in skirmishes. 
A partial action was fought at White Plains, October 28, without any de- 
cisive result, and most of the Americans were then withdrawn to the west- 
ern shore of the Hudson, as an invasion of New Jersey was threatened. 
A large garrison was left in Fort Washington, on New York island, about 
ten miles above the city ; but the British attacked it before the fortifications 
were completed, and the commander was obliged to capitulate, giving up 
the place and stores, and over 2,000 prisoners. The enemy then crossed 
the Hudson in force, and Washington was obliged to abandon Fort Lee, on 
the Jersey shore, with a great quantity of baggage and artillery. He then 
retreated rapidly southward through New Jersey as far as Trenton, where, 
for safety, the army crossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania. At this 
gloomy period for the American cause, Sir William Howe issued a procla- 
mation, offering pardon to all who would return to their allegiance within 
sixty days, and commanding all persons who had taken up arms, and all 
congresses and associations, to desist from their treasonable proceedings, 
and give up their usurped authority. Many individuals, among them were 
two former members of Congress, were weak enough to accept the propo- 
sal. As the British army approached Philadelphia, Congress adjourned to 
Baltimore, having first granted to the commander-in-chief almost dictatorial 
powers. 

Washington perceived that some bold stroke was necessary to revive the 
spirits of his countrymen. Some reinforcements had joined him, and the 
English army had gone into winter-quarters, being stationed in detach- 
ments in several places in New Jersey. On Christmas night, at the head 
of 2,500 men, he recrossed the Delaware with great difficulty, as the river 
was full of floating ice, surprised a body of Hessians in Trenton, took 900 
prisoners and then returned to his former position with only a trifling loss. 
A week afterwards, he reoccupied Trenton with a larger force ; but lord 
Cornwallis came up to meet him with a large portion of the British army, 
and it appeared too hazardous either to stand an engagement or retreat 
when the enemy were so near. Washington devised a manoeuvre which was 
completely successful. Leaving the watch-fires burning in the deserted 
camp, the troops were led by a circuitous route into the rear of the British, 
and then conducted to Princeton, where they fell unexpectedly upon three 
regiments that were stationed there, drove them out of the town with great 
loss, and took 300 prisoners. Cornwallis heard the firing in his rear, and 
divining the cause, hurried off in pursuit ; but before he could overtake the 
Americans, they were encamped on unassailable ground at Morristown. 
These exploits taught Sir William Howe to respect an opponent whom he 



382 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

had begun to contemn ; and he therefore withdrew his troops from the 
greater part of New Jersey, and concentrated them round New York. 
Washington stationed his army at Morristown, Princeton, and in the High- 
lands on the Hudson ; and the next six months were spent in organizing it 
anew, and reducing it to discipline. The British had taken possession of 
the southern part of Rhode Island, and had surprised and captured Gen. 
Lee. On the other hand, privateers and national cruisers had been fit- 
ted out in the ports of Massachusetts, and had captured many valuable 
British ships, which were carried to the West Indies and the harbors of 
continental Europe, and sold. 

The next year, 1777, was the turning point, or critical period of the war. 
It was checkered by good and evil fortune. It was a period of much finan- 
cial difficulty and great suffering both by the army and the people ; but 
towards its close, the unexpected and great success of the American arms 
at the north really decided the fate of the contest, and showed that the at- 
tempt of Great Britain to reduce the Colonies by force to their former al- 
legiance was a hopeless undertaking. About the end of May, the Ameri- 
can army, now much strengthened by recruits, left its winter quarters, and 
took a strong position at Middlefield. Howe manoeuvred for some time, in 
the hope of inducing or compelling it to fight a battle on equal ground. 
But finding that Washington was too cautious to run this hazard, lie sud- 
denly embarked his army on board the fleet, and carried it round to the head 
of Chesapeake Bay, where he landed and began his march for Phila lelphia. 
He was obliged to take this route, as the American fortifications on the 
Delaware made it too hazardous for the fleet to ascend that river.. Anx- 
ious to save the city which was the seat of Congress and was regarded in 
some measure as the capital of the country, Washington marched hurriedly 
south to intercept him. After passing through Philadelphia, he first at- 
tempted to check the progress of the enemy at Brandywine, where a creek, 
everywhere fordable, guarded the front of the American position. The 
British passed this stream in two divisions, September 11, at considerable 
distance from , each other ; and Washington's army being thus attacked in 
front and on the flank, some regiments broke and fled, and the rest were 
forced to retreat in some disorder. The Americans again offered battle 
five days afterwards, but a violent storm interrupted the engagement al- 
most as sOon as it began. The hope of saving Philadelphia was then aban- 
doned ; Congress adjourned to Lancaster, the magazines and public stores 
were removed, and Howe entered the city on the 25th, leaving the bulk 
of his army ten miles off, at Germantown. It was a barren conquest ; ex- 
perience was now teaching the British that they could hold no more ground 
in America than what they actually occupied with their troops ; and these 
were not to be too much scattered, or they were liable to be cut off in 
detail. 

To raise the sinking spirits of his men, Washington planned a surprise of 
the British army in Germantown. The enterprise seemed successful at 
first ; but the troops got separated from each other, 'in the darkness of the 
morning, by the inequalities of the ground, a panic seized upon some, and 
the whole were then driven to make a disorderly retreat. Rightly deem- 
ing that Washington could not soon make another attack after this repulse, 
Howe resolved to attack the forts on the Delaware, in order to establish 
communication with his fleet, which had not yet been able to pass up the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORf. 383 

river. Count Donop, with 1,200 Hessians, assaulted the post at Red 
Bank, on the Jersey shore, but fell in the attempt, and his men were driven 
off with great slaughter ; and of the ships which assailed Fort Mifflen, on 
an island in the Delaware, a sixty four was blown up, a frigate was burned, 
and the others were much injured and compelled to retire. The enemy 
then erected land-batteries, which kept up so heavy a fire that the fortifi- 
cations were ruined, and the garrison was withdrawn. Red Bank was 
also evacuated, and the Delaware was thus opened to the British fleet. 

But the most important military operations of this year took place at 
the North. Gen. Burgoyne received the command in Canada, with a 
finely appointed army of 10,000 men, and was instructed to force his 
way down Lake Champlain, and then cross to Albany, and descend the 
Hudson, to join the British forces in New York. This plan, if executed, 
would have cut off New England from the other Colonies, and have ren- 
dered the subjugatian of the Americans extremely probable. And there 
was great danger for a time that it would be executed. Burgoyne sum- 
moned the Indians to his standard, and easily drove the feeble and disor- 
ganized army of St. Clair before him, captured Ticonderoga and Skenes- 
borough, July 6, and prepared to force his way through the wilderness, 
from the head of the lake to the Hudson. St. Clair had brought a poor rem- 
nant of his army to join Schuyler at Fort Edward, on the Hudson ; but their 
united forces did not number 5,000, most of them were militia, and both 
ammunition and provisions were wanting. The news of the loss of Ticon- 
deroga and the rapid progress of Burgoyne created great consternation ; 
the militia of New England came forward readily, and in considerable num- 
bers, to strengthen the northern army, which also received some detach- 
ments from the posts in the Highlands. Schuyler was superseded by 
Cen. Gates, and under him were placed Arnold, Morgan, Lincoln, and 
others, who were among the best officers in the army. Burgoyne had 
succeeded in reaching the Hudson after immense labor and fatigue, but he 
found that difficulties were now beginning to thicken around him. He sent 
out a strong detachment of regular troops, Tories, and Indians, to his 
right, to turn the alarm to the western frontier of New York, and lay siege 
to Fort Schuyler at the head of the Mohawk. Arnold was sent against 
him, and the fear of his approach caused so many of the Indians to desert, 
that St. Leger was compelled to raise the siege and retire so precipitately 
that most of his stores and baggage fell into the handj of the Americans. 
Another and stronger detachment was sent out to the iefr, under Col. 
Baum, to try the temper of the people and to obtain horses and provisions ; 
this was encountered, at Bennington, by some New Hampshire militia and 
Green Mountain Boys, under Col. Stark, and totally defeated, most of 
the German soldiers being taken prisoners. Col. Breyman, who had been 
sent with 500 men to aid Baum, came up two hours after the battle was 
fought, was himself attacked by the victorious party, and obliged to make 
the best retreat he could, with the loss of all his baggage and artillery. 
Thus both of Burgoyne's wings were clipped, and he found himself at Sara- 
toga, on the west side of the Hudson, in the heart of a difficult country, 
short of provisions, and with an enemy constantly increasing in numbers 
on all sides of him. He first tried an attack upon Gates' camp, upon Beh- 
mus's Heights, in his front Sept. 19 ; and the result was a drawn battle, in 
which he lost 500 men, and gained not a single advatitago. A party of 



384 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Lincoln's militia had got into his rear, surprised the posts around Lake 
George, and besieged Ticonderoga, so that his communications -were cut 
off. But he was encouraged to hold out, as a letter reached him from 
Clinton in New York, saying that the latter was about to make an expe- 
dition up the Hudson, which could operate as a diversion, and might reach 
Albany, so as to place Gates between two fires. The promise was kept, 
the passes of the Highlands were forced, and the British had proceeded 
as far north as Esopus, when they learned that they were too late, and 
found it prudent to return. Burgoyne offered battle again on the 7th of 
October, and his troops were defeated and driven back into his camp, his 
entrenchments in one quarter were forced, and a part of his artillery and 
ammunition were captured. His position was thus rendered untenable, 
and he secretly drew back in the night to a rising ground in the rear. 
Thence he retreated, two days afterwards, to Saratoga, and found that the 
difficulties of the country and the position of the American parties were 
such that he could go no further. He held out a week longer ; and then, 
his provisions being exhausted and his camp surrounded and hard pressed, 
he was obliged to capitulate. He had already lost about 4,000 men, and 
5,642 others were now surrendered as prisoners of war, all his arms, bag- 
gage, and camp equipage also passing into the hands of the victors. The 
garrison of Ticonderoga, when they heard of this calamity, hastily retreat- 
ed into Canada, and the Americans again took possession of this renowned 
fortress. 

Two days after the news arrived at Paris of the capture of Burgoyne 
and the battle of Germantown, the French ministry intimated to Dr. 
Franklin that they were willing to consider the project of a treaty of alli- 
ance with the American States. Two treaties were accordingly framed, 
Feb. 6, 1778, in one of which France acknowledged the independence of 
the States, and formed relations of amity and commerce with them ; in the 
other, which was to go into effect if Great Britain should make war upon 
France, the two contracting parties bound themselves to aid each other as 
good friends and allies, to maintain the sovereignty and independence of 
the American States, and not to make a truce or peace except by mutual 
consent. About the same time, the British ministry caused two laws to be 
enacted, declaring that no tax should hereafter be imposed by parliament 
on the Colonies, and appointing commissioners to treat with them on almost 
any terms short of absolute independence. The concession was ample, 
but it came too late ; Congress refused even to hold a conference with the 
commissioners before the British armies were withdrawn and the indepen- 
dence of the country acknowledged. England therefore declared war 
against France, and prepared to keep up in America some years longer a 
useless, expensive, and murderous conflict, in which she had hardly a hope 
of ultimate success. The Colonists were indeed compelled to pay a heavy 
price for their freedom. The public finances were in a deplorable state ; 
recruits could not be obtained except by enormous bounties, and the troops 
were but half fed and half clothed ; and the people generally were suffer- 
ing from the interruption of trade and agriculture, and the scarcity of 
breadstuffs. There was hardly a family in the land to which the war had 
not already brought privation and bereavement. And yet the spirit of the 
people continued high ; they expected much from the French alliance, and, 
except among the Tories, hardly a wish was breathed for peace on any 



DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 385 

terms short of independence. For the army, which had passed the winter 
in miserable huts at Valley Forge, suffering from cold and disease, and to 
some extent also from hunger and nakedness, Washington set apart a day 
for rejoicing when the news of the treaty with France were received. 
Losses and hardships were then forgotten in the general exultation ; 
' every heart was filled with gratitude to the French king, and every mouth 
spoke his praise.' 

The quarters of the British army were now found to be too much ox- 
tended ; and it was resolved to evacuate Philadelphia and to retreat to 
New York. The American army, which had been reinforced in the spring 
of 1778, and somewhat trained and disciplined through the great efforts 
of Baron Steuben, a brave and skillful Prussian officer, hung upon their 
rear and gave them much trouble. A battle was fought at Monmouth, 
June 28, with indecisive results, though the British loss considerably ex- 
ceeded that of the Americans. Many of the German soldiers, also, took 
the opportunity to desert. Count D' Estaing soon arrived with a power- 
ful fleet, having 4,000 French soldiers on board, and a scheme for a com- 
bined attack on New York having failed because the pilots would not 
conduct the heavier ships over the bar, an expedition against Newport was 
agreed upon, that place being held by Gen. Pigot, at the head of 6,000 
men. The fleet blockaded the harbor, and forced the English to sink some 
of their frigates ; but the Continental troops and New England militia did 
not arrive soon enough to cooperate with the ships, which were compelled 
to put to sea by Lord Howe's fleet, and were also crippled by a storm. 
The undertaking was abandoned, and Gen. Sullivan had much difficulty in 
bringing off the American troops, as the British had received a large re- 
inforcement. These were the only military operations on a large scale 
during the year ; though as the war was now prosecuted both by the Brit- 
ish and the Tories in a less hopeful and more revengeful spirit, several 
predatory expeditions were sent out that did much wanton injury, and in 
some skirmishes no quarter was given, and acts of sickening barbarity 
were committed. Wyoming, a nourishing settlement in Pennsylvania, w r aa 
desolated by an incursion of Indians and Tories, the male inhabitants 
were massacred, the houses burned, and the cattle killed or driven off. 
Some towns on the coast of Massachusetts were burned, and a heavy con- 
tribution was levied on a defenseless island. In New York, Baylor's 
troop of dragoons were surprised, and the men bayonetted, under Gen. 
Gray's orders to give no quarter ; and the same fate befell the infantry of 
Pulaski's legion. There was some excuse for the Tories in these proceed- 
ings ; their property had been very generally confiscated, they often had 
rough personal treatment, and on slight pretexts, some of them had been 
hanged. 

During the next two years, the war was chiefly carried on by the Brit- 
ish in the southern States, where the population was more scattered and 
divided in opinion, and the country offered fewer means of defense. At 
the close of 1778, Savannah was taken by an expedition from ftew York, 
and another body of royal troops coming up from Florida, nearly comple- 
ted the conquest of Georgia. Gen. Lincoln was sent to take the command 
in this department, and by great exertions he protected Charleston and 
South Carolina from the enemy till September 1779, when D'Estaing, with 
a French fleet and 6,000 men, arrived on the coast, and the two armies in 
25* 



386 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

concert laid siege to Savannah. But as the French could remain but a short 
time, the attack was made prematurely, and the besiegers were beaten off 
with great loss, the gallant Count Pulaski being among the slain. Gen. 
Mathews was sent from New York, with 2,500 men, on a plundering expe- 
dition to Virginia. He took possession of Portsmouth and Norfolk, burned 
some ships of war and many private vessels, and brought off a large quan- 
tity of tobacco, after destroying private property to the amount of two 
millions of dollars. At the north, Congress took measures to punish the 
Indians for the atrocities they had committed at Wyoming, and other pla- 
ces. Gen. Sullivan led an expedition of 4,000 men into the heart of 
their country, in the western part of the State of New York, destroyed 
their villages, cut down their fruit trees, and so devastated the region, 
that the miserable savages could attempt nothing more till the close of the 
war. Some British troops under Gen. Tryon paid a marauding visit to 
the Connecticut shore, plundered and burned several towns, and destroy- 
ed a large amount of property. About the only legitimate military exploits 
of the year, at the north, were the capture by the British of Stony 
Point and Verplanck's Point on the Hudson, thus rendering the communi- 
cation between New England and the Middle States more circuitous and 
difficult, and the recapture of Stony Point in a very gallant manner by the 
the Americans under Gen. Wayne. 

Spain had now joined the alliance against England, June, 1779, though 
with no very definite purpose, except the hope that, while the attention of 
the British ministry was occupied by so many enemies, she might regain 
possession of Gibraltar. For a short time, the united French and Span- 
ish fleet swept the British seas ; but it was soon compelled to go into har- 
bor. The next year, 1780, added another European power to the list of 
England's enemies, and brought her assumed empire of the seas into great 
danger. To check the maritime superiority of the British, who, during 
the war, had greatly disturbed the neutral trade at sea, and molested the 
ships of every country by an oppressive search for contraband goods, Cath- 
erine II of Russia concluded an alliance with the several neutral powers, 
which should maintain the principle of 'free ships, free goods,' and thus 
secure the trade of the neutral states on the coasts and in the harbors of 
either of the belligerent powers. The confederacy also declared that no 
blockade of any port should be deemed effectual, so as to exclude neutral 
vessels from entering it, if there were not an adequate naval force present 
to maintain the blockade and render it dangerous for any ship to attempt 
to enter. This neutral alliance was constituted successively by Russia, Den- 
mark, Sweden, Prussia, Austria, Naples, and Portugal. But Holland, 
whose adherence was very important from her situation and maritime 
strength, hesitated so long that England got information of the project, 
and declared war against the Dutch before they could give in their adhe- 
sion at St. Petersburg. Holland thus disappeared from the list of the neu- 
tral powers, and the alliance was deprived of her aid towards accomplish- 
ing their great purpose. 

A powerful British armament, under Clinton and Arbuthnot, appeared 
before Charleston in February, 1780, and laid siege to it, with a view to 
the ultimate conquest of the whole State. Gen. Lincoln's means of de- 
fense were very inadequate, and though he made every effort, he was 
compelled, after a resistance of 42 days, to surrender the city and give up 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 387 

his whole army as prisoners of war. The enemy then easily overran 
South Carolina ; and many of the inhabitants, to avoid the extremities of 
war, took ' protections' from them, and thereby avowed themselves to be 
British subjects. Lord Cornwallis was then left to command at the South, 
while Clinton returned to New York. Congress appointed Gen. Gates to 
oppose the former, and by great exertions an army of 4,000 men was col- 
lected for this purpose, mostly militia, who were ill fed and ill armed, and 
not at all disciplined. With the rash confidence inspired by his success 
against Burgoyne, Gates advanced hastily and with little precaution, was 
attacked under unfavorable circumstances by Cornwallis, near Camden, 
and his army so completely routed that not a fourth part of them could be 
again brought together. The southern States were thus rendered almost 
entirely defenseless, though the British for the present were not able to 
invade North Carolina from the want of supplies. Sumter and Marion, 
also, noted partisan officers, gave them great annoyance by collecting bands 
of irregular troops, and waging a kind of guerrilla warfare against their 
outposts and detachments. One motley collection of such troops, chiefly 
mounted backwoodsmen with their rifles, under Shelby and Sevier, inter- 
cepted Ferguson, an active Loyalist, at the head of about 1,000 Tories, 
at King's Mountain, and totally defeated him, taking most of his men pris- 
oners, and hanging some of them as traitors. At the end of the year, 
Gen. Greene was sent to take Gates' place, and a small regular army waa 
collected for him, which he led with consummate ability. At the north, a 
French fleet and army, the latter under Rochambeau, arrived at Newport, 
but were blockaded there by a superior British fleet, so that they accom- 
plished nothing. 

Another remarkable incident of the year was the treason of Gen. Ar- 
nold, a very brave officer, but dissolute, wayward, and extravagant, who 
sold himself to the British for £10,000 and a general's commission, cov- 
enanting to give into their power, also, West Point and the other American 
fortresses in the Highlands. The conspiracy was detected just before the 
time fixed for its execution. Arnold succeeded in making his escape ; 
but Major Andre", a gallant English officer whom Clinton had sent to ne- 
gotiate with him, was seized when in disguise within the American lines, 
and was tried and executed as a spy. The want of pay and the impossi 
bility of complying with the just demands of the soldiers, caused some 
Pennsylvania regiments, who were encamped near Morristown, to break out 
into open revolt. They were invited to join the British, as Arnold had 
done ; but they refused, and after the matter had been compromised by Con- 
gress some of their grievances being redressed, they gave up the emissaries 
of the enemy, who were hanged as spies. Some New Jersey troops quick- 
ly followed this example of insubordination ; but their revolt was crushed 
with a strong hand, and a few of the ringleaders were executed. 

The comparative ease with which Georgia and South Carolina had been 
subdued caused great efforts to be made, in 1781, for the conquest of 
North Carolina and Virginia. In January of this year the traitor Ar- 
nold was sent with 1,600 men, chiefly Tories, to plunder and devastate the 
country on the Chesapeake and the James river, in order to cripple the 
resources of the state ; and after he had accomplished this service, he was 
joined by Gen. Phillips, with 2,000 troops from New York. But these 
marauding expeditions did not help the British cause much ; they caused 



388 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

great misery, but they incensed the people so much that they lost all 
thoughts of acquiescence and submission, and made desperate efforts to 
repulse the destroyers. The plan was, that Cornwallis should march north, 
to join Phillips and Arnold, their united forces being deemed sufficient to 
crush all opposition at the South. But Cornwallis had now an able and 
determined opponent in Greene, who gave him enough to do in the Caro- 
linas. Half of Greene's force, under Morgan, who had been sent to put 
down the Tories in the west, encountered the British light troops under 
Tarleton, at the Cowpens, and gave them a signal defeat, killing or taking 
prisoners over 600 of them. Cornwallis instantly started of in great 
haste, to overtake and punish Morgan before he could rejoin his comman- 
der. But the activity of the Americans baffled him. Still the British gener- 
al pushed on; and Greene's whole force being much inferior, he was obliged 
to make a rapid retreat into Virginia. He soon returned, however, with 
some reinforcements, and offered battle at Guilford Court House, where 
Cornwallis indeed defeated him, but the victory was equivalent to a defeat. 
The British loss was greater than the American, and Cornwallis was oblig- 
ed to retire to Wilmington, near the sea. Greene pursued him for a 
while, and then took the bold step of marching directly into South Caro- 
lina, which had been left in charge of Lord Rawdon with a small force. 
Finding it impossible to overtake him, Cornwallis imitated his bold policy 
by marching north, to join the king's troops in Virginia. Greene and Raw- 
don came in conflict with each other at Hobkirk's Hill, April 25, and the 
former was again defeated, though his loss was no greater than the 
enemy's and the advantages of the encounter were all on his side. Lee 
and Marion, with other partisan officers, encouraged by his presence, roused 
the inhabitants to arms ; nearly all the British posts in the upper country 
were captured or abandoned, and the larger part of South Carolina was 
restored to the Americans. Their irritated opponents shot as deserters 
all whom they captured in arms that had once accepted British protection ; 
among these victims was Colonel Hayne, an eminent citizen of Charleston, 
whose fate caused much sorrow and indignation. The conflict on both 
sides had all the aggravated features of a civil war. 

The arrival of a powerful fleet under Count De Grasse having given the 
French a temporary superiority at sea, the French forces at Newport were 
released, and an attack upon the British in New York was projected for the 
combined army of Washington and Rochambeau. But this came to be 
thought an enterprise beyond their strength, and it was resolved in prefer- 
ence to strike a blow at Cornwallis in Virginia. That enterprising general, 
after vainly endeavoring to overtake and crush the small American force 
commanded by Lafayette, had retired to Yorktown, a peninsula at the 
mouth of York river, where he had strongly intrenched himself at the 
head of 8,000 men. Here he was blockaded by De Grasse's fleet, and, 
a fortnight afterwards, was invested by the combined French and Ameri 
can army, 16,000 strong. About the same time, also, the ever active 
Greene had fought another battle with the British in South Carolina, at 
Eutaw Springs, the immediate result of which was indecisive, the loss on 
each side being about 700 ; but the general consequence was, that the 
British were thenceforward cooped up in Charleston and the small district 
between the Cooper and Ashley rivers. Cornwallis was vigorously press- 
ed his intre ichments being ruined and his guns' dismounted by the fire of 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 389 

heavy breaching batteries. He tried a sally without improving his situa- 
tion ; and then, all hope of aid from New York having failed, he was 
obliged to capitulate and surrender his whole army, still about 7,000 strong, 
as prisoners of war. This grand stroke was virtually the end of the arm- 
ed contest in America ; having sacrificed two large armies, and protracted 
the struggle for six years, the British could no longer hope to retain a 
foothold in the United States, far less to bring them back to their former 
allegiance. 

Such now came to be the general opinion even in England, where, in- 
deed, for the last three years, the war had been very unpopular. It had 
added over one hundred millions sterling to the national debt ; it had sul- 
lied the military reputation of the kingdom, which had never stood higher 
than in 1760, and never lower than after the capture of Cormvallis ; it had 
brought France, Spain, and Holland into a league of hostilities against her, 
and had combined the other professedly neutral powers in an allianee hardly 
less injurious to her interests and her fame. Even the signal victory ob- 
tained by the English admiral, Lord Rodney, over De Grasse's fleet in the 
West Indies, April 12th 1782, and the equally signal defeat of the Span- 
iards in their last and desperate attempt to take Gibraltar, failed to restore 
English self-complacency, or to reconcile the nation of that ministry (Lord 
North's) which had brought them into so humiliating a position. These 
successes were but casual gleams of good fortune that came to lighten the 
close of a long period of disaster and shame. The phalanx of Lord North's 
parliamentary supporters was broken, his ministry was driven from office, the 
king's obstinacy was overcome, and the Whigs, under the guidance of 
Lord Rockingham, were established in power, with the express understand- 
ing that they were to make peace by submitting to the independence of 
the United States. Negotiations were immediately commenced with the 
American commissioners at Paris, Franklin, Adams, Laurens, and Jay ; 
they were protracted by points of form, and by the breaking up of the 
Whig ministry through the death of Rockingham ; but provisional articles 
of peace were signed on the 30th of November, 1782, and the cessation of 
hostilities was agreed upon in January following. Owing to the necessity 
of including the Continental powers of Europe in the pacification, the de- 
finitive treaty of peace was not concluded till the next September. In 
this, the independence of the United States was acknowledged, their bound- 
aries adjusted, and a share in the fisheries secured to them ; while the 
claims of the other belligerent powers were adjusted by the surrender or 
return of the conquered towns and islands. 

The peace came not too soon for exhausted and bleeding America. The 
impossibility of satisfying the just demands of the army, the consequent 
sufferings both of officers and men, and the prospect of being disbanded at 
the peace and sent home in utter poverty, created a determination among 
many of them to insist upon the payment of their dues with arms in their 
hands. Nothing but the moderation, wisdom, and firmness of their great 
commander-in-chief saved the country from the horrors of military usur- 
pation. Some of the officers so far misjudged Washington as to think that 
he might be tempted to play the part of Cromwell ; but his prompt and 
stern rebuke put an immediate end to the project. He then exerted him- 
self, and with success, to soothe the passions that had beeD excited, and to 
lead the army back to moderate and patriotic counsels. The officers and 



390 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

men were persuaded to accept certificates of debt, with interest, for the 
arrears that were due to them, and to rely upon the efforts of Congress 
and the gratitude of the people for their redemption. The troops were 
quietly disbanded in the course of the summer and autumn of 1783, and 
towards the close of the year, after the British had evacuated every place 
upon the seaboard, Washington was admitted to a public audience by Con- 
gress, when he resigned his commission, and took a final leave, as he sup- 
posed, 'of all the employments of public life.' Universal gratitude and 
respect which amounted almost to veneration, attended him to his retire- 
ment at Mount Vernon. 

At the close of the war, the United States were burdened with a heavy 
debt, of which they had not the means even of paying the interest, the 
public credit was annihilated, commerce and manufactures were in a torpid 
condition, and the country was almost without a government. During the 
greater part of the struggle, Congress had possessed no authority but what 
was tacitly granted to it from the necessity of the case. The individual 
States were unwilling to give up any portion of that independence which 
they were striving to vindicate against a foreign power. They claimed 
complete sovereignty, and were unwilling to appear only as the members 
of a confederacy, under the general control of a central government. Be- 
sides, it was hard to adjust the terms of such an alliance. Perfect equal- 
ity was hardly to be expected among states that differed so widely from 
each other in regard to population, wealth, and extent of territory ; yet 
on no terms short of equality would any one State consent to a union with 
the others. There were also many unadjusted controversies between them, 
in respect to boundary, and the ownership of that vast territory beyond 
the Alleghanies which had been wrested from the French. In 1777, a 
plan of union had been framed and adopted in Congress, after two years' 
discussion, not as the best which could be imagined, or as adapted to all 
exigencies, but as the only one ' suited to existing circumstances, or at all 
likely to be adopted.' It was not to go into effect until it was ratified by 
all the States; and only four of them could be induced at first to adopt it. 
Slowly and reluctantly the others gave in their adhesion, the consent of 
NeAv Jersey and Delaware not being obtained till 1779, and that of Mary- 
land not till 1781, when, at last, the final sanction of the articles of Con- 
federation, as they were termed, was joyfully announced by Congress. 
But the union thus effected was very inadequate for the ends in view. It 
did not establish a central government; it was only a league of several 
independent sovereignties. Congress was the only organ of the confeder- 
acy ; each State had but one vote in this body on the decision of any 
question ; and in respect to many subjects, the consent of nine States was 
requisite before the measure could go into effect. And after all, Congress 
had no power but to recommend measures ; it could not enforce them. It 
could ' ascertain the sums necessary to be raised for the service of the Uni- 
ted States,' and determine the quota or proportion which each State ought 
to pay ; but it depended upon the States whether the specified amount should 
be raised and paid, or the recommendation entirely neglected. The fact 
generally was, that they refused compliance, or paid no attention to the 
demand ; of the many requisitions of Congress, not one fourth were com- 
plied with. Excuses or palliations of such conduct were not wanting ; the 
States were very poor, and had heavy debts of their own to provide for. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 391 

Again, Congress could not impose duties upon imports, and the circum- 
stances of the case prevented even the individual States from exercising 
this power. If imported goods were taxed by one, they were admitted 
fr^e by another, which thus obtained a larger share of domestic and for- 
eign trade, while the ports of its rival were deserted. Treaties with for- 
eign powers could not be negotiated, as there was no power in the country 
to enforce the provisions made in them, the authority of Congress and that 
of the separate members of the confederacy just serving to paralyze each 
other. There was no common tribunal to which the States could appeal 
for the adjustment of their controversies with each other ; and the ill com- 
pacted league was therefore liable to be broken by the first serious dispute 
which might grow out of many conflicting interests. It was obvious that 
this state of things could not long continue without bringing upon the 
country all the evils of anarchy and civil war. 

The condition and temper of the people increased this hazard. The 
vast exertions they had made during the armed struggle had exhausted 
their energies, and, to a certain extent, had demoralized them. On the 
one hand, there was a general feeling of lassitude, an indisposition to make 
any further sacrifices or efforts, and on the other, a fierce impatience of 
any act or movement which should even seem to limit their recently acquir- 
ed, universal freedom. The load of public and private debt was enormous. 
Of what use was it, that the people had successfully resisted English bay- 
onets, if they were now to be called upon to respect implicitly the orders 
of the sheriff and the staff of the constable ? To what purpose had they 
braved the wrath of the crown and the parliament, if creditors were 
still to distress them, and county courts sentence them to fine and impris- 
onment ? Or why tax themselves millions of hard dollars, when they had 
just gone through a seven years war because they would not pay an im- 
post of three pence a pound on tea? It is no cause for wonder that such 
questions were frequently asked, or even that the majority of the people 
were inclined to answer them in a way most consonant with their present 
feelings. It was a period of general anxiety and gloom — a true crisis in 
the history of free institutions, not only in this country, but throughout the 
world. It was now to be determined whether national independence was 
to prove a blessing or a curse; — whether the people, after throwing off all 
foreign restraint, would be wise and magnanimous enough to impose law3 
upon themselves, and to respect them when made, or whether they would 
follow that course of anarchy, license, and civil war which has subsequently 
rendered the history of the South American republics and of the epheme- 
ral republican governments of the Old World a warning to mankind. 

The matter was brought to a crisis in 1786, by the breaking out of a 
rebellion in Massachusetts, the object of the insurgents being to close by 
violence the courts of law, thus putting a stop to all legal measures for the 
collection of debts, and to compel the government to issue paper money, 
in order that all obligations might be discharged in a much depreciated 
currency. Job Shattuck and Daniel Shays, formerly a captain in the rev- 
olutionary army, were the leaders of the disaffected party, and it was at 
least doubtful whether they did not count a majority of the people among 
their followers. Job Shattuck, at the head of an armed force, took pos- 
session of the court-house at Worcester, and sent a written message to the 
judges, ' that it was the sense of the people that the courts should not sit.' 



392 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

At last by great exertions on the part of the government and the well-af 
fected citizens, an army of 4,000 men, under General Lincoln, was fitted 
out, and after a very severe campaign in the midst of winter, this danger- 
ous insurrection was suppressed with but little loss of life. An indirect 
but happy consequence of this rebellion was, that it convinced the major- 
ity of the people throughout the United States that a strong central gov- 
ernment was indispensable, not merely for their wellbeing, but for the pre- 
servation of society itself from anarchy and ruin. 'You talk, my good Sir,' 
wrote Washington from Mount Vernon, ' of employing influence to appease 
the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence 
is to be found; and, if attainable, it would not be a proper remedy for 
these disorders. Influence is not government. Let us have a govern- 
ment, by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let 
us know the worst at once.' 

Accordingly, a Convention of delegates from eleven of the States was 
held in Philadelphia in May, 1787, to revise the Articles of the Confeder- 
ation, or, in other words, to frame a Constitution of government for the 
whole country. The delegates from New Hampshire did not appear till 
the Convention had been two months in session, and Rhode Island was 
never represented at all. Among the members present were Dr. Frank- 
lin, then in his 81st year, and Washington, who was unanimously chosen 
president of the Convention. After they had been in session four months, 
with closed doors, strict secrecy being observed as to all their proceedings, 
they framed and published the present Constitution of the United States, 
approved by the signatures of all but three of the delegates who were then 
present, and which was to go into effect after it had been ratified in nine 
of the States, by Conventions that were to be called for the occasion. Not 
without great difficulty, and many compromises of conflicting opinions and 
interests, had this great step been taken. 

The central government established by the Constitution was to consist 
of three departments, legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislature, 
called the Congress, was to consist of two branches, the Senate and the 
House of Representatives. In the former, the representation was equal, 
each State having two senators ; in the latter, the number of representa- 
tives was to be proportioned to the population, which was to be ascertained 
every ten years by adding to the whole number of the freemen three-fifths 
of the slaves. Two classes of opposing claims were thus adjusted by con- 
cessions on both sides. The executive power was vested in a president, 
chosen for four years, by electors equal in number, for each State, to all 
its senators and representatives in Congress. The president was allowed 
a qualified negative on all the enactments of the legislature, as a bill to 
which he refused his consent was to become a law only when approved by 
two-thirds of the votes in both branches. The judicial power was vested in 
a Supreme Court, and such inferior courts as Congress might establish ; 
and it extended to all cases arising under the Constitution, the laws of 
Congress, and treaties made with foreign powers, to all cases of maritime 
jurisdiction, and all controversies between States, between citizens of dif- 
ferent States, and between foreigners and citizens. Congress was not to 
prevent the importation of slaves till the year 1808, and slaves escaping 
from one State to another were to be delivered up. Congress received 
the power to declare war, to raise and support armies, to lay and collect 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 393 

taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to coin money, to establish post-offices 
and post-roads, to provide and maintain a navy, and to call forth the mili- 
tia for the purpose of executing the laws, suppressing insurrections, and re- 
pelling invasions. The States were prohibited, generally, from exercising 
any of the functions that were conferred upon Congress. In general 
terms, the States retained the power of domestic legislation upon all sub- 
jects in regard to which their interests were not likely to conflict, or which 
could be effectually disposed of without the cooperation of the whole Union ; 
while the Federal government assumed the functions which the States were 
deprived of, and received whatever other authority was needed to enable 
it to negotiate effectively with foreign powers as the representative of one 
nation. Numerous provisions were borrowed from Magna Charta and the 
more liberal portions of the English Common Law, and incorporated into 
the Constitution, to protect the liberty and the rights of individuals, and to 
guard against acts of oppression and injustice on the part of either the 
Federal or the State Governments. The instrument was very practical in 
its character, and far more simple and concise than could reasonably have 
been expected, considering the complicated subject with which it had to 
do, and the difficulty in adjusting the relations of the Federal government 
to the individual States, and of so distributing power between them that 
they could work together harmoniously and effectively. As a whole, 
if judged either by the most approved maxims of political science, or by 
the light reflected upon it from that experience of more than sixty years to 
which it has been subjected, it may claim a high place among the best mod- 
els of government that have been devised in ancient and modern times. It 
has required but few and slight amendments, and it has accomplished the 
whole work which it was designed to perform. 

Great difficulties were again experienced in obtaining its ratification by 
the conventions in the several States, to which it was soon submitted. The 
two parties which were then formed, of its advocates and opponents, divi- 
ded the people very equally between them, and, with some modifications, 
these parties have subsisted to the present day. The consent of nine States 
was necessary ; five ratified the instrument soon and with little difficulty. 
Then the question came up in Massachusetts, where the parties were near- 
ly equal, though the democratic and independent spirit of the people seem- 
ed to incline the balance against the Constitution. Everything was thought 
to depend upon the decision of this State and Virginia, on account of their 
great weight in the Union, and the influence which they would respective- 
ly exert at the north and the south. Governor Hancock and Samuel Ad- 
ams, the former being the president of the Convention, and the latter one 
of its most influential members, wavered. The Convention at last decided 
to propose certain amendments for adoption in the form prescribed by the 
Constitution itself ; these served as an anodyne for the scruples of the two 
leading patriots, and the ratification was finally carried, though by a very 
slender majority. The consent of Maryland, South Carolina, and New 
Hampshire was then obtained, and next came that of Virginia, though af- 
ter as warm a struggle as in Massachusetts, the opposition being led with 
great effect by Patrick Henry. The question was now virtually decided, 
and New York therefore gave a tardy and reluctant assent, which would 
probably have been a refusal if the measure could thereby have been de- 
feated. North Carolina would only ratify upon certain conditions, and 



394 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Rhode Island would not even hold a Convention to consider the subject ; 
but as eleven States had adopted the Constitution, their approval was not 
absolutely necessary, and it was finally given after the new form of govern- 
ment had been some time in operation. It must be granted, in favor of 
the opposition, that they showed no factious spirit, but calmly acquiesced 
in the decision of their countrymen. Congress appointed the first Wednes- 
day in January, 1789, for the choice of electors, the first Wednesday in 
February for those electors to choose a president, and the first Wednes- 
day in March for the new government to go into operation. As had been 
anticipated, George Washington was unanimously elected president ; in- 
deed, the certainty that he would be chosen to this office induced many to 
vote for the Constitution who would otherwise have opposed it. John Ad- 
ams was elected Vice-President, and senators and representatives were al- 
so chosen to form the first Congress. Proceedings were commenced at 
New York on the 4th of March, 1789 ; but a quorum of both houses did 
not come together till April, and on the 30th of this month, President 
Washington was sworn into office, and the new government went into full 
operation. 

CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 

The second session of the first Congress began January 8, 1790. Agree- 
ably to a plan submitted by Mr. Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, Con- 
gress proceeded to make provision for discharging in full the foreign and 
domestic debt, and assumed also the debts incurred by the several States in 
carrying on the war. To this object the proceeds of the public lands lying 
in the western territory, the surplus revenue from the duties on imports, 
and a loan of two millions, were appropriated. This measure immediately 
restored public credit ; certificates of public debt rose to par ; and those 
who had purchased low, realized immense fortunes. Business of all kinds 
revived, and the country entered upon a career of prosperous activity and 
enterprise. 

At the next session of Congress, after a protracted debate, a bill was 
passed imposing a tax on domestic spirits, for the purpose of paying the in- 
terest on the State debts assumed by the Union. A national bank was al- 
so established, not without opposition, mainly on the ground of its uncon- 
stitutionality. The party lines between the federalists and anti-federalists 
(as they were called), which had begun to appear when the adoption of 
the new constitution was under discussion, became this session more broad 
and clear. A regular opposition to the administration began to be organ- 
ized. 

Meantime the hostilities of the Indians northwest of the Ohio made it 
necessary to send an expedition against them. Gen. Harmar was put in 
command, but he was defeated with considerable loss in a battle near Chil- 
licothe. Gen. St. Clair, who succeeded in command, was also totally de- 
feated. A bill then passed Congress for raising an additional force to the 
army. The measure was bitterly resisted by the opposition, chiefly on the 
ground that standing armies were dangerous, and that the proposed in- 
crease showed the existence of monarchical designs on the part of the ad- 
ministration. An unsuccessful attempt was made the next session to re- 
duce the military establishment ; and the opposition introduced various 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 395 

resolutions, evincing their hostility to the administration. The public press 
became also the vehicle of vehement attacks, particularly upon the secre- 
tary of the treasury, Mr. Hamilton ; and party spirit, from day to day, 
grew stronger throughout the country. 

On the expiration of his term of office, however, Washington was unanimous- 
ly reelected president, March, 1793 ; Mr. Adams again vice-president. Be- 
side the still unsettled condition of Indian affairs, this term of Washington's 
administration was embarrassed by new difficulties, growing out of the 
French revolution. The French republic had just declared war against 
England and Holland ; and so strong in the United States was the hatred 
of the people to the British, and so lively their sympathy with the French, 
that the opinion was entertained in many quarters that America was bound 
by every consideration, both of gratitude to an old ally, and sympathy 
with the cause of republicanism, to make common cause with France. 

Immediately on receiving intelligence of the declaration of war, Wash- 
ington convened a cabinet council, and by their unanimous advice, issued 
a proclamation, enjoining strict neutrality to be observed on the part of 
the United States toward the belligerent powers, April 22, 1793. The 
opposition, (anti-federalist) party, through the press, bitterly inveighed 
against this proclamation, denouncing it as a high-handed assumption of 
power on the part of the president, ' a royal edict,' evincing his mon- 
archical disposition, and also as dishonorable and ungrateful towards 
France. 

In this state of things, Mr. Genet, the new minister appointed by the 
French republic, arrived in the country, with the object of engaging the 
cooperation of the United States against England. Misled by the flatter- 
ing reception he met with at Charleston, where he landed, he immediately 
began, even before he had been recognized as minister, to excite the peo- 
ple against the government , and carried his audacity so far as to set at 
defiance the proclamation of neutrality, fitting out expeditions, and giving 
commissions to American vessels to cruise against the enemies of France, 
and assuming the power to hold admiralty courts, for the trial and sale of 
prizes thus made. In these measures he was supported by the opposition, 
or as it began to be called, the democratic party, which now began, un- 
der the influence of the French minister, and in imitation of the affiliated 
clubs in France, to form democratic societies throughout the country. 

Washington demanded the recall of Mr. Genet. The French government 
complied, and instructed his successor to express its entire disapproval of 
Genet's conduct. When Congress assembled in December following, the 
proclamation of neutrality, and the conduct of Washington towards Genet, 
were approved by that body, as they were finally by the great body of the 
nation. 

In 1794 Congress passed a bill providing for a naval force to protect 
American commerce against the Algerines. The slave-trade was like- 
wise prohibited. 

There seemed now reason to apprehend the necessity of another war 
with England. In addition to severe and unjust commercial restrictions 
imposed by that government, she had proceeded to capture and condemn 
neutral vessels having on board French goods, or carrying corn and other 
supplies to France. In anticipation of a war, Congress passed several 
bills — for imposing an embargo ; for organizing the militia ; and for in- 



396 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

creasing the standing army. Meanwhile information was received that the 
British government was disposed to redress the grievances complained of, 
and amicably adjust all differences. John Jay was accordingly nominated 
and approved as envoy to Great Britain. 

All attempts to make peace with the Indians having failed, the war was 
renewed. Gen. Wayne was appointed to succeed Gen. St. Clair. On 
the 20th of August, he gained a decisive victory over a large body of the 
Miamies, and then proceeded to lay waste their country. This victory 
prevented a general war with the Six Nations and with the tribes north- 
west of the Ohio. The ' Whisky Insurrection ' in Pennsylvania is one of 
the events of this year. It grew out of the duty on domestic spirits ; this 
tax pressed heavily on the inhabitants of the west, and was besides consid- 
ered unjust in principle. The proclamation of the president being disre- 
garded, a considerable force of militia (fifteen thousand men), under Gov- 
ernor Lee of Maryland, was ordered out. On their approach, the insur- 
gents laid down their arms, and promised submission to the laws. 

In 1795 Mr. Jay having concluded a treaty of amity, commerce, and 
navigation, with Great Britain, the senate was convoked to consider it. 
Meanwhile, its contents having been disclosed, the most violent opposition 
was made to it ; public meetings were held, and petitions against it were 
sent from all quarters of the country. The partisans of France and the 
enemies of England denounced it in the most unmeasured terms. The ob- 
jections to it were, generally, that it wanted reciprocity ; that it gave up 
all compensation for negroes carried away contrary to the treaty of peace, 
and for the detention of the western posts ; that it contravened the French 
treaty, and sacrificed the interest of our ally to that of Great Britain ; that 
it gave up in several important instances the law of nations, particularly 
in relation to free ships makings free goods, cases of blockade, and contra- 
band of war ; that it improperly interfered with the legislative powers of 
Congress, and that the commercial part gave few advantages to the United 
States. The treaty was, however, ratified by the senate, and signed by 
the president, August 14, 1795. 

In October, after a long negotiation, a treaty was made with Spain, set- 
tling some questions of boundary, and acquiring for the United States the 
right of navigating the Mississippi. Treaties were also concluded with 
Algiers, and with the Indians in the West. 

On the assembling of congress in 1796, it became necessary to make 
appropriations and pass resolutions for carrying these treaties into effect. 
This gave occasion for a new display of hostility to the British treaty : and 
it was only after a debate of seven weeks, that the necessary resolutions 
passed the house of representatives, and then only by a majority of three. 
Public opinion at length gradually settled in favor of this treaty, as the 
only means of saving the country from becoming involved in the wars of 
the French revolution ; and in the sequel it proved of great advantage to 
the United States. The close of the second term of Washington's admin- 
istration was now approaching. Signifying his intention to retire from 
public life, the Father of his country took occasion to issue a farewell 
address to his countrymen, replete with maxims of political wisdom, and 
6entiments of patriotism and virtue. 

The personal influence of Washington, due alike to his wisdom, his 
virtues, and his eminent services, was of the utmost importance in the 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 397 

first working of the new government. During the eight years of his 
administration, all differences with foreign nations had been peaceably 
settled, except those with France ; and at home the Indian tribes had been 
pacified. Public and private credit were restored ; ample provision made 
for the security and ultimate payment of the public debt ; American ton- 
nage had nearly doubled ; the exports had increased from nineteen to 
more than fifty-six millions of dollars ; the imports in about the same pro- 
portion ; and the amount of revenue from imposts had exceeded the most 
sanguine calculations. The population had increased from three and a 
half to five millions ; and agriculture and all the industrial interests of 
the country were in a flourishing state. 

The only drawback to this picture of prosperity were the difficulties with 
France. Discontented at the neutral policy of America, the French re- 
public continued to make demands upon the gratitude of the United States, 
which could be yielded to only by surrendering the right of self-govern- 
ment. Finding all attempts to involve America in its wars with Europe 
ineffectual, and feeling aggrieved at the treaty with its enemy, the French 
government proceeded to retaliate, by adopting certain resolutions injuri- 
ous to American commerce, under the operation of which, moreover, several 
hundred American vessels were seized and confiscated. Just before his re- 
tirement from office, Washington had recalled Mr. Monroe, and despatched 
Mr. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to France, as minister plenipotentiary, 
to settle the difficulties between the two nations. Such was the state of 
the country at the close of Washington's administration. 

On the 4th of March, 1797, John Adams became president. The 
French republic refusing to receive Mr. Pinckney, a subsequent mission 
extraordinary to that government having also totally failed, and spoliation 
upon American commerce continually increasing, congress began to adopt 
vigorous measures for defense and retaliation. The treaties with France 
were declared no longer obligatory on the United States ; an army was 
raised ; and Washington was appointed commander-in-chief. Several en- 
gagements at sea took place between French and American vessels. The 
French government now signified indirectly a willingness to treat, and 
envoys were again sent from the United States. Before their arrival, the 
revolution of the 18th Brumaire (November 10, 1799) had taken place ; 
the directorial government was overthrown, and Bonaparte was at the head 
of affairs as first consul. This event changed the policy of the French 
government ; negotiations were commenced, and a treaty was concluded 
September 30, 1800. 

On the 14th of December, 1799, died George Washington, mourned by 
the nation as no other man was ever mourned by any people. There 
have been great men superior perhaps to him in particular qualities and 
endowments : but in the perfect proportion and harmony of all the quali- 
ties of his nature, intellectual and moral, in the entireness and unity of his 
character, he is distinguished above all the great men whom history pres- 
ents to our contemplation. In this consisted the secret of the repose, 
dignity, and grandeur, that through his whole life made so strong an 
impression upon all who approached him, and gave him such power over them. 

Party spirit ran high during Mr. Adams's administration. Its meas- 
ures were violently assailed by the opposition, particularly the ' alien ' and 
'sedition' laws: by the former of which, any alien considered dangerous 



398 



AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



might be ordered to depart from the country ; and by the latter, combi- 
nations to oppose the government, libelous publications etc. were made 
penal. The unpopularity of these and some other measures gave great 
strength to the democratic party, and defeated the reelection of Mr. Adams. 

On the 4th of March, 1801, Thomas Jefferson succeeded Mr. Adams as 
president of the United States. At the next session of congress, several of 
the most important acts of the preceding period were repealed, particularly 
those imposing internal taxes, and reorganizing the United States courts. 
Among the most important events of this period was the purchase of Louisi- 
ana from the French for fifteen millions of dollars. Mr. Jefferson's term 
of office expiring, he was reelected, and commenced a second term, March 
4, 1805. The same year a war which had been carried on for several 
years with Tripoli, was brought to a close by a treaty of peace. 

The interests of the United States were now becoming complicated with the 
policy of the belligerent powers of Europe. The peace of Amiens in 1802 
gave but a short repose from war ; hostilities were soon renewed between 
France and England, and all the powers of Europe became involved in 
them. The United States maintained a strict neutrality and engaged in 
an extensive and profitable carryingtrade. But in 1806, the English gov- 
ernment, by an order of council, declared the blockade of all the ports 
and rivers from the Elbe to Brest. Napoleon retaliated by the famous 
' Berlin decree,' declaring all the British islands in a state of blockade. 
This was met by another British order of council, prohibiting all coasting- 
trade with France. 

While these measures, which were partly in contravention of the law of 
nations, operated very injuriously upon the commerce of America, and 
tended to embroil her with both the belligerent powers, an old difficulty 
with England was aggravated by a special outrage. Great Britain had 
always claimed the right of searching American vessels, and of impress- 
ing from them native-born British subjects. They had also impressed some 
thousands of American seamen, under the pretext that they were British 
born. In this course the English government persisted in spite of the re- 
monstrances of the United States. In June, 1807, Commodore Barron, 
commanding the American frigate Chesapeake, refusing to deliver three 
men claimed by the British, the Chesapeake was attacked by the British 
frigate Leopard off the capes of Virginia, very much injured and crippled, 
and the men in question forcibly taken away. 

The public mind was greatly exasperated by this outrage. The presi- 
dent, by proclamation, ordered all British armed vessels off the waters of 
the United States, until satisfaction should be made, which the American 
minister, Mr. Monroe, was instructed to demand forthwith, as well as se- 
curity against future impressments from American vessels. The British 
government declined to treat concerning the general question of search 
and impressment, but sent a special envoy to the United States, to settle 
the particular injury in the case of the Chesapeake. Mr. Rose was in- 
structed, however, not to treat until the president's proclamation was 
revoked. This being refused, the matter rested ; and was not finally ad- 
justed until four years later, when satisfactory reparation was made by 
the British government. 

Meantime, on the 17th of December, 1807, Bonaparte, in retaliation 
for the British order in council, issued the Milan decree declaring every 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 399 

vessel denationalized that should submit to search by the British, and every 
vessel a good prize taken sailing to or from Great Britain or its colonies, 
or any place occupied by British troops. 

The embargo failing to compel the belligerent powers to revoke meas- 
ures so injurious to American commerce, and so subversive of the rights 
of neutrals, it was repealed on the 1st of March, 1809, and a law passed 
prohibiting all trade and intercourse with France and England. 

Mr. Jefferson declining a reelection, was succeeded, March 4th, 1809, 
by James Madison. The state of the country was gloomy. Her com- 
merce was suffering both from foreign and domestic restrictions ; and it 
seemed that she must indefinitely submit to this condition of things, or 
make war with the belligerents. In passing the non-intercourse act of 
March 1st, congress had empowered the president to repeal it by procla- 
mation in the event of either of the hostile parties revoking their edicts. 
The British minister at Washington engaged for his government the repeal 
of the orders of council, so far as the United States were concerned. 
The president accordingly notified the renewal of commercial intercourse 
with Great Britain. But the English government disavowed the engage- 
ment of its minister, and non-intercourse was again proclaimed. 

On the 23d of March 1810, Napoleon retaliated the non-intercourse act 
of congress by issuing the Rambouillet decree — ordering all vessels arriv- 
ing in French ports, or the ports of countries occupied by French troops, 
to be seized and condemned. On the 1st of May, congress passed an act 
excluding British and French armed vessels from the waters of the United 
States — with a provision for renewing intercourse with whichever nation 
should within a given time cease to violate the commercial rights of neu- 
tral nations. In consequence of this act, the French decrees were revoked, 
and intercourse with France was renewed. It had been made a condition on 
the part of the French government, in revoking its decrees, that the En- 
glish orders of council should be also revoked. But England affecting to 
question the fact of the actual revocation of the French decrees, continued 
to enforce its orders, stationing vessels-of-war just out the harbors of the 
United States, searching, and in many instances capturing and condemn- 
ing American merchant vessels. In the period between 1803 and the 
close of 1811, nine hundred American vessels had been thus captured. 

On the 3d of April, 1812, an act was passed by congress laying an 
embargo for ninety days on all vessels within the the jurisdiction of the 
United States. And on the 4th of June following war was declared 
against Great Britain. The grounds of war alleged were the impressment 
of American seamen, and the violation of neutral rights. The feeling of 
the nation was by no means unanimous in favor of the war. It was pro- 
tested against by a strong minority in congress, as unnecessary, impolitic, 
and immoral ; and was generally condemned by the federal party through- 
out the country. 

Thus the United States were again at war with England. The contest 
lasted for nearly three years. The limits of this history forbid any thing 
but a slight sketch of its events. 

In the campaign of 1812, nothing of any importance was achieved by 
land. The invasion of Canada was planned : forces were drawn to the 
northern frontier of the Union, and naval preparations made upon the lakes. 
No footing was, however, gained in the British territory ; on the contrary, 



400 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Detroit and all the forts and garrisons in Michigan fell into the hands of 
the British, together with a considerable force under the command of Gen- 
eral Hull, who surrendered without a battle, August 19 ; and the Ameri- 
cans were repulsed in an attack on Queenstown, and obliged to surrender, 
October 13. But on the ocean the American arms were more successful. 
The series of brilliant naval victories which distinguished the war was com- 
menced by the capture of the British frigate Guerriere by the Constitution, 
Captain Isaac Hull, August 10. This was followed (August 13) by the 
capture of the Alert by the Essex, Captain Porter ; of the Frolic by the 
Wasp (October 17) ; of the Macedonian by the United States, Commo- 
dore Decatur (October 25) ; and of the Java by the Constitution, then 
commanded by Commodore Bainbridge. 

On the 4th of March, 1813, Mr. Madison was reelected president. The 
military operations of this year extended along the whole line of the north- 
ern frontier. The Americans were signally defeated at Frenchtown by a 
body of British and Indians, and five hundred men made prisoners, who 
were nearly all massacred by the Indians after their surrender. York 
(now Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, was taken by the Ameri- 
cans, with a large quantity of military stores. On the 1st of June, this 
year, the American navy suffered a severe loss in the capture of the fri- 
gate Chesapeake, Captain Lawrence, by the British frigate Shannon. In 
the engagement, Captain Lawrence and several brave officers were killed. 
This was followed by the loss of the Argus. These losses were counterbal- 
anced by the capture of the British brig Boxer by the Enterprise, on the 
5th of September, and by a brilliant victory gained (September 10) by 
the fleet on Lake Erie, under the command of Commodore Perry. This 
made the Americans masters of the lake, and opened the way to Detroit, 
which was soon after taken ; its fall being preceded by the battle of the 
Thames, in which the British and Indian forces, under the command of 
General Proctor, were totally defeated by General Harrison. This victory 
had the effect of putting an end to the Indian war in the northwest, and of 
giving security to that frontier. The invasion of Canada was again attem- 
ted ; but unexpected circumstances concurred to disarrange the plan of 
operations, and at length the northern army went into winter-quarters, 
without having effected anything toward the accomplishment of the object. 
High expectations had been formed of the success of this campaign, and 
the public disappointment was proportionably great. 

At the south, the Creek Indians, instigated by the British, had taken 
up arms against the United States, and a sanguinary war was carried on 
in that quarter during the year 1813, and until in the summer of 1814, 
when General Jackson, having reduced the enemy in several engagements, 
at length inflicted upon them an almost exterminating defeat at Horseshoe 
Bend. The remnant of the tribe submitted, and the war was at an end. 
General Jackson was soon after appointed to the command of the forces at 
New Orleans. 

In the spring of 1814, the American frigate Essex was captured by a 
superior British force in the bay of Valparaiso. But about the same time, 
the British brigs Epervier and Reindeer were coptured, the former by the 
United States sloop-of-war Peacock, the latter by the sloop Wasp. 

After some ineffectual movements at the north by General Wilkinson, 
little was attempted by either nation until midsummer, when the British 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 401 

government, free from the burden of the European war by the abdication 
of Napoleon, augmented their armies in America by the addition of four- 
teen thousand of the veteran troops of Wellington, and at the same time 
sent a strong naval force to blockade the harbors, and ravage the towns 
upon the coast. 

On the 3d of July, General Brown crossed the Niagara river from Buf- 
falo, and took the British fort Erie ; and on the 4th, after an obstinate and 
bloody engagement, gained a victory over the British at Chippewa. On 
the 25th, was fought the battle of Bridgewater, near the falls of Niagara, 
one of the most bloody battles of modern times. The British force amount- 
ed to nearly five thousand men ; the American was one third less. The 
loss of the English was eight hundred and seventy-eight ; of the Americans, 
eight hundred and sixty. The Americans were left in possession of the 
field. 

About the middle of August, a large British fleet arrived in the Chesa- 
peake bay. Six thousand men, under the command of General Ross, land- 
ed and proceeded to Washington, burnt the capitol, the president's house, 
and the buildings of the executive departments ; and then by rapid marches 
retired to the ships, having lost about one thousand men in the expedition. 
On the 12th of September, an attack was made on Baltimore ; but the 
place was so gallantly defended by militia and the inhabitants, that the en- 
emy abandoned the attempt. General Boss, the commander-in-chief of 
the British forces, was among the killed. While the English were thus 
repulsed from Baltimore, signal success attended the American arms at the 
north. The naval force of the enemy on Lake Champlain was annihilated 
by Commodore M'Donough. The engagement took place off Plattsburgh ; 
and while it was raging, Sir George Provost, with a force of fourteen 
thousand men, commenced an assault on the American works at Plattsburgh ; 
but he met with such a destructive fire from the Americans under General 
Macomb, that he was compelled to retire, with the loss of twenty-five hun- 
dred men, abandoning his military stores, his sick and wounded. 

On the 24th of December, a treaty of peace was signed at Ghent. But 
before its arrival, the last and most memorable battle of the war was fought 
at New Orleans. On the 8th of January, 1815, the American forces, 
amounting to about six thousand, chiefly militia, under the command of 
General Jackson, intrenched before the city, were attacked by fifteen 
thousand British troops, commanded by Sir Edward Packenham. After 
three charges, in which they were swept down with incredible slaughter, 
the British fled in confusion, leaving their dead and wounded on the field 
of battle. General Packenham was killed while rallying his troops to the 
second charge ; General Gibbs, who succeeded in command, fell mortally 
wounded in the third charge. The loss of the British in killed was seven 
hundred ; in wounded, fourteen hundred ; in prisoners, five hundred : in all, 
twenty-six hundred. The Americans lost seven killed and six wounded. 
The joy excited by this victory was merged in the still livelier joy with 
which the news of the treaty of peace was soon after received. On the 
17th of February, the treaty was ratified by the president and senate. 
This treaty made no allusion to the causes of the war, and settled none of 
the matters in dispute, and for which it was professedly declared. All 
parties, however, welcomed the return of peace. At a subsequent con- 
vention, signed by plenipotentiaries of the two countries appointed for the 
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404 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

purpose, various articles for the regulation of commerce between England 
and the United States were adopted. Before the expiration of the time 
within which, by the treaty, all vessels taken by either party were to be 
held good prizes, several engagements at sea were fought, and several cap- 
tures made. Among them the American frigate President was captured 
by a British squadron ; and the British ships Cyane, Levant, and Penguin, 
were taken by the Americans. 

At the next session of congress, a bill was passed incorporating the 
Bank of the United States, with a capital of thirty-five millions of dollars. 
The charter was to continue in force until the third of March, 1836. This 
measure was the subject of a very earnest and protracted debate both as 
to its constitutionality, and as to the principles on which the bank should 
be established. 

Mr. Madison was succeeded in the office of president by James Monroe, 
March 4, 1817. The country was now at peace, but its condition was by 
no means prosperous. Commerce had not yet revived, and the manufac- 
tures which had been carried on during the war were entirely broken down 
by the influx of foreign merchandise. In 1818, a war broke out between 
the Seminoles and the United States, occasioned by the removal of some 
Indians from lands ceded to the United States by the Creeks in 1814. 
The Indians were entirely subdued by General Jackson. In 1819, another 
convention was made between Great Britain and the United States, grant- 
ing to American citizens the right to fish on the banks of Newfoundland ; 
establishing a portion of the northern boundary ; and extending for ten 
years longer the commercial convention concluded four years before. 

A tref ty was also this year concluded with Spain, by which East and 
West Florida, with the islands adjacent, were ceded to the United States. 

On the 4th of March, 1821, Mr. Monroe was unanimously elected to a 
second term of office. Much less unanimity, however, was displayed in 
the deliberations of the next congress. Some important commercial acts 
were passed ; revolutionary soldiers were provided for by pensions ; and 
the ratio of population and representation fixed at one representative to 
forty thousand inhabitants. 

The year 1824 is signalized in the annals of the country by a visit from 
La Fayette, the friend and companion-in-arms of Washington, to whose 
services in the dark day of the revolutionary war the nation owed so much. 
He passed about a year in the country, visiting every part of it, and re- 
ceiving everywhere the most enthusiastic tokens of homage and gratitude. 
He returned to his own country in a national frigate prepared for the pur- 
pose, and named, in honor of him, the Brandy wine — the name of the 
battle in which he was wounded nearly fifty years before. During his 
visit, congress appropriated two hundred thousand dollars, and a township 
of land in Florida, as an acknowledgment of his eminent services. 

Mr. Monroe retired from office with the respect and good will of all 
parties. His administration of affairs, both foreign and domestic, had been 
uninfluenced by party spirit, and characterised by uprightness, prudence, 
and good sense. The country was everywhere peaceful and prosperous. 
JNo choice of a successor to Mr. Monroe having been made by the electors, 
the choice devolved upon the house of representatives. 

On the 4th of March, 1825, John Quincy Adams was inaugurated pres- 
ident of the United States. 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 405 

Among the noticeable events during this administration, the first to be 
mentioned is a controversy between the general government and the exec- 
utive of Georgia, in relation to certain lands held by the Cherokees and 
Creeks of that state. The general government had agreed to extinguish, 
for the benefit cf Georgia, the Indian title to those lands — 'whenever it 
could be peaceably done, upon reasonable terms. ' But the Creeks, at a 
national council, refused to alienate their territory. After the council had 
broken up, and a majority of the chiefs had departed, a few who remained 
were induced to make a treaty, ceding the lands in question to the United 
States. This treaty was repudiated by the Creek nation. But the gover- 
nor of Georgia determined to act upon it as valid. To prevent a war, the 
president ordered General Gaines to repair to the Creek country, for the 
protection of the Indians; and directed Governor Troup of Georgia to 
suspend his intended measures. Congress approved the course of the pres- 
ident ; and at length a treaty was formed with the Creeks, which gave sat- 
isfaction to all parties except the state of Georgia. 

The most important among the measures which occupied the first session 
of the twentieth congress, was the revision of the tariff, with a view to 
afford protection to American manufactures. The principle of a protective 
tariff was warmly opposed by the south, and by a large portion of the com- 
mercial body at the north ; while the details of the bill which was passed 
were far from satisfactory to the friends of protection. 

During Mr. Adams' administration the prosperity of the United States 
had increased to an unexampled height. Agriculture, commerce, and man- 
ufactures, were every where flourishing. The public debt which at the 
close of the war, amounted to nearly one hundred and fifty millions of 
dollars, was almost extinguished. . The annual revenue largely exceeded 
the demands of the government; and at the close of Mr. Adams' term, 
there was a surplus of more than five millions in the treasury. 

On the 4th of March, 1829, Andrew Jackson was inaugurated presi- 
dent of the United States. 

Among the most important measures which engaged the attention of the 
twenty-first congress, were, the modification of the tariff; Indian affairs; 
internal improvements ; and the renewal of the charter of the United States 
bank. It was not until 1832 that a memorial came before congress for the 
renewal of the charter of the United States bank. A bill to that effect 
passed both houses of congress ; but on the 10th of July it was returned 
by the president with objections. The policy of making appropriations for 
internal improvements was adopted during Mr. Jefferson's term of office, 
and had continued through all succeeding administrations. To this policy 
General Jackson was opposed, and accordingly returned, with his veto, 
several bills making such appropriations. In 1832, the hostility of the 
south to the protective tariff assumed in South Carolina an attitude dan- 
gerous to the peace of the country. A convention of delegates assembled 
at Columbia, November 24 ; pronounced the acts of congress imposing du- 
ties for protection unconstitutional, and of no binding force in that state •; 
and that it was the duty of the state legislature to pass laws to prevent 
the payment or enforcement of such duties. The remedy thus proposed 
received the name of nullification. President Jackson immediately issued 
a proclamation, containing an admirable exposition of the principles and 
powers of the general government, and expressing a firm determination to 



408 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

maintain the laws. This only increased the exasperation in South Caro- 
lina: the governor of the state, by the authority of the legislature, issued 
a counter-proclamation, urging the people to be faithful to their primary 
allegiance to the state, and to resist the general government in any attempt 
to enforce the tariff laws. General orders were also issued to raise vol- 
unteers for repelling invasion, and supporting the rights of the state. 
General Jackson hereupon addressed a message to congress recommending 
such measures as would enable the executive to suppress the spirit of in- 
subordination, and sustain the laws of the United States. 

Everything thus betokened a civil war. But an appeal to South Caro- 
lina by the general assembly of Virginia, and the passage of a bill modify- 
ing the tariff (introduced by Henry Clay, and commonly known as the 
' compromise act'), joined with a manifestation of firmness and energy on 
the part of the executive, served to allay the ferment in South Carolina, 
and led to a repeal of the nullifying ordinances. 

On the 4th of March, 1833, Andrew Jackson entered on a second term 
of office. The charter of the United States bank being about to expire, 
the president who had before expressed to Congress his doubts of the expe- 
diency of continuing that institution the depositary of the funds of the Uni- 
ted States, directed the secretary of the treasury, Mr. Duane, to remove 
the government deposits from the bank. This Mr. Duane declined to do. 
He was immediately removed from office by the president ; and Mr. Taney 
was appointed in his place, by whom the deposits were removed, and 
placed in the custody of several State banks. This measure was strongly 
censured by a resolution which passed the senate, June 9, 1834. 

The country was now disturbed ^ ith serious apprehensions of a collision 
with France. By a treaty, negotiated in 1831, by Mr. Rives, the French 
government had agreed to make indemnity for spoliations committed on 
American commerce during the reign of Napoleon ; but it had failed to ful- 
fill its stipulations. In December, 1834, the president recommended re- 
prisals upon French commerce. This was deemed by Congress not expe- 
dient at present. Happily, however, the danger of hostile collision was 
removed in the course of the next year by the action of the French gov- 
ernment in making provision to fulfill its stipulations. 

The most important act of the first session of the twenty-fourth Congress, 
which began December 7th, 1835, was a law directing the deposit, under 
certain regulations, of the moneys of the United States in several of the 
State banks, and distributing the surplus revenue among the several 
States. 

In December, 1835, one of the most destructive fires on record occurred 
in the city of New York. The amount of property destroyed is computed 
not to have fallen much short of twenty millions of dollars, without estima- 
ting the injury and loss from suspension and derangement of business. 

Near the close of this year, the Seminole Indians, refusing to remove 
from Florida to the lands appropriated for them west of the Mississippi, the 
country became involved in a war with them ; and it was not until 1842 
that they were finally subdued and sent west. 

On the 11th of July, 1836, the receivers of public money were instruct- 
ed, by a circular from the treasury department, to receive nothing but gold 
and silver in payment for public lands. 

On the 16th of January, 1837, the * expunging resolution ' (so called) 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 409 

introduced by Mr. Benton, passed the senate by a small majority. By 
this act the resolution of the senate passed June 9, 1834 — censuring the 
president for removing Mr. Duane, and ordering the withdrawal of the 
United States deposits from the bank of the United States — was expunged 
from the journal of the senate. Against this proceeding, Mr. Webster, of 
Massachusetts, in behalf of himself and his colleagues, read a solemn pro- 
test. 

On the 4th of March, 1837, Martin Van Buren became president of 
the United States. Mr. Van Buren's administration was, in its general 
policy, a continuation of that of his predecessor. Scarcely, however, had 
he entered upon office, when the country was overwhelmed by one of the 
most severe commercial revulsions ever known. For several years previ- 
ous, the wildest spirit of speculation had prevailed throughout the country. 
Vast public works were undertaken by States and chartered companies ; 
immense importations of foreign goods were made ; and real estate, espec- 
ially lots in cities and towns, went up a hundred fold beyond its intrinsic 
value. The multitude of State banks that had been chartered, after the 
expiration of the charter of the United States bank, and the consequent 
excessive expansion of the paper currency, had contributed to increase the 
spirit of speculation. At length a crisis came ; and the revulsion was pro- 
portionately severe. Some idea of it may be formed from the fact that a 
list of failures in the city of New York (including only the more consider- 
able, and omitting hundreds of less importance), shows a total amount of 
more than sixty millions of dollars. All credit, all confidence was at an 
end. On the 10th. of May, all the banks of the city of New York suspend- 
ed specie payments, and the suspension became general throughout the 
country. The general government became involved in the universal em- 
barrassment — the banks in which its deposits were placed having stopped 
in the general suspension. The government still insisted, however, upon 
all postages and duties being paid in specie or its equivalent, and even re- 
fused its own checks and drafts when offered in payment of custom-house 
bonds. In this state of things, the president convoked an extra session of 
Congress, which began on the 4th of September. Agreeably to the re- 
commendation of the executive, as measures for the immediate relief of the 
general government, Congress passed a law postponing to the 1st of Janu- 
ary, 1839, the payment to the States of the fourth installment of the sur- 
plus revenue ; and authorizing the issue of ten millions of treasury notes, 
to be receivable in payment of public dues. The president also re- 
commended the ' separation of the fiscal operations of the government 
from those of corporations or individuals.' A bill in accordance with this 
recommendation — commonly called the sub-treasury bill, placing the pub- 
lic money in the hands of certain receivers-general, subject to the order 
and control of the treasurer of the United States — passed the senate, but 
was lost in the house. 

At the next regular session of congress (December, 1837 — July, 
1838), a reissue of treasury notes was authorized. The sub-treasury sys- 
tem was again urged upon the attention of congress, but was not adopted. 
On the 13th of August, 1838, the banks throughout the country generally 
resumed specie payments : but in October following, the banks of Philadel- 
phia again suspended, and their example was followed by the banks in 
Pennsylvania, and in all the states south and west. The banks of New 




BATTLE MONUMENT, BALTIMORE. 



412 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

York and New England continued to pay specie. The twenty-sixth con 
gress commenced its first session December 2d, 1839. Among its acts, 
two only need be mentioned : one for taking the sixth census of the United 
States ; the other, ' for the collection, safe keeping, transfer, and disburse- 
ment, of the public revenue' — being the sub-treasury system so earnestly 
recommended by the president. At the second session of this congress, 
nothing was done of sufficient importance to find a place in this sketch. 

The administration of Mr Van Buren was drawing to a close. He was 
a candidate for reelection ; William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, was the 
candidate of the opposition. After a contest unprecedented for intensity 
of political excitement, Mr. Van Buren was defeated. 

On the 4th of March, 1841, "William Henry Harrison was inaugurated 
president of the United States. Scarcely had the new president entered 
upon his office, and organized his administration by the appointment of his 
cabinet, when he was stricken with sickness ; and on the 4th April, one 
month from the day of his inauguration, he expired. ' In death, as in 
life, the happiness of his country was uppermost in his thoughts.' 

By the death of General Harrison, John Tyler, of Virginia, the vice 
president, became, according to the constitution, president of the United 
States. The passage of a general bankrupt law was one of the earliest 
measures passed by congress. This law was, however, subsequently re- 
pealed. The tariff was modified with a view to further protection of 
American industry. 

Among the most memorable events of this administration is the treaty 
of Washington, concluded in September, 1842, between Great Britain 
and the United States, by Lord Ashburton and Daniel Webster, by which 
the differences about the boundary line between Maine and Lower Canada, 
long a matter of dispute and ill-blood, were amicably and satisfactorily 
adjusted. 

The disturbances in Rhode Island are a less agreeable subject of record ; 
though happily the apprehensions they excited have been dispelled. In 
1841, a convention of inhabitants of Rhode Island framed a new con- 
stitution, giving the right of suffrage (which under the existing govern- 
ment was extremely limited) to all free white inhabitants ; and proceeded 
to organize a new government under this constitution. They elected a 
legislative body, and chose Thomas W. Dorr governor of the state. All 
these proceedings were considered as unlawful and revolutionary by those 
opposed to them, inasmuch as they had taken place without any legal 
warrant, and without being in any way initiated by the lawful and actual 
government. A civil war seemed inevitable. The legal government ap- 
plied to the president of the United States, who detached several compa- 
nies of troops to Newport to await events. Dorr mustered a considerable 
force of armed men, with two pieces of artillery, and made an ineffectual 
attempt to gain possession of the arsenal at Providence. Shortly after, he 
took a position at Chepachet, where his force was increased by volunteers 
from New York and other states. Upon the approach of a body of the 
state militia, under General M'Neil, Dorr and his party broke ground and 
fled, June 25th, 1842. His government fell to pieces. 

On the 4th of March, 1845, James K. Polk was inaugurated president. 
The most important event of this year was the voluntary annexation of 
Texas to the American Union. In 1846, a war broke out between Mexi- 



DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 413 

co and the United States. A rapid succession of brilliant victories by the 
troops under Generals Taylor and Scott, soon placed the capital and all 
the strongholds of Mexico in the hands of the victors ; but the power to 
dictate the terms of a peace were used with moderation. The government 
of the United States assumed the payment of all the claims of its own cit- 
izens against Mexico, and agreed to pay $15,000,000 for a boundary line 
beginning at the mouth of the Rio Grande, then up that stream to the 
southern boundary of New Mexico, then across to the river Gila, and down 
to its mouth ; with free navigation to the Gulf of California, and thence 
across to the Pacific. The treaty was concluded May 30th, 1848. In 
the same year gold was first discovered in the newly-acquired territory of 
California. 

On the 4th of March, 1849, Gen. Zachary Taylor was inaugurated 
president of the United States. He died in July, 1850, and was succeed- 
ed by the vice-president, Millard Fillmore. In September, 1850, Califor- 
nia was admitted into tho Union. On the 4th of March, 1853, Franklin 
Pierce was inaugurated president. The ' Gadsden Treaty,' by which the 
Mesilla Valley was acquired from Mexico, was made Dec. 30, in the same 
year. By act of June 29, 1854, $10,000,000 were appropriated to carry 
out the treaty ; $7,000,000 to be paid upon exchange of ratifications, and 
$3,000,000 as soon as the boundary line should be surveyed and established. 

Thus have been briefly sketched the leading events, political and civil, 
of the history of the United States, from the first feeble and scattered colo- 
nial establishments to the formation of a great and prosperous nation. The 
great problem of the possibility of a permanent and well-ordered republic, 
on so extensive a scale, doubtless yet remains to be solved. It depends on 
the intelligence and virtue of the people, whether it shall be solved as 
the friends of free institutions desire. Theoretically the most perfect of all 
forms of human government, it requires, beyond any other, the presence 
of these conditions to preserve it from becoming practically the worst. 



DEPARTMENT OF BIOGRAPHY. 



HERNANDO CORTEZ. 

The portion of the new world earliest colonized by the Spaniards was 
the Island of St. Domingo, Hayti, or Hispaniola, discovered by Columbus 
in his first voyage in the year 1492. For nearly twenty years this island 
was the only colony of importance held by the Spaniards in the new world ; 
here alone did they occupy lands, build towns, and found a regular com- 
monwealth. Cuba, although the second of the islands discovered by Co- 
lumbus, remained long uncolonized ; indeed it was not till the year 1509 
that it was circumnavigated, and ascertained to be an island. At length, 
in 1511, Don Diego Columbus, the great admiral's son, governor of His- 
paniola, despatched a force of three hundred men, under Don Diego Velas- 
quez, to take possession of the island. Velasquez soon subdued the island, 
the natives of which offered but little resistance, and he was shortly after- 
wards appointed governor, subordinate to the governor of Hispaniola. 
Ambitious of sharing in the glory to be derived from the discovery of new 
countries, Velasquez fitted out one or two expeditions, which he despatched 
westward, to explore the seas in that direction. In one of these expedi- 
tions, which set out in 1517, commanded by a rich colonist called Cordova, 
the peninsula of Yucatan was discovered, and the existence of a large and 
rich country called Culua or Mexico ascertained. Elated with this discov- 
ery, Velasquez fitted out another expedition under his nephew, Juan de 
Grijalva, who leaving Cuba in April 1518, spent five months in cruising 
along the newly-discovered coast, and trafficking with the natives for gold 
trinkets and cotton cloths, very skillfully manufactured. The result of this 
expedition was the importation to Cuba of gold and jewels to the amount 
of twenty thousand pesos, or upwards of fifty thousand pounds. 

Delighted with this success, Velasquez wrote home to Spain announcing 
his discovery, and petitioning for authority from the king to conquer and 
colonize the country which his subordinates, Cordova and Grijalva, had dis- 
covered. Without waiting, however, for a reply to his petition, he com- 
menced fitting out a much larger squadron than either of the two former ; 
and this he placed under the command of Hernando Cortez, a respectable 
Spanish hidalgo, or gentleman, residing in the island, and who was at this 
time thirty-three years of age. 

Cortez proceeded with the greatest activity in making his preparations. 
' Borrowing money for the pupose,' says Bernal Diaz, the gossiping chro- 
nicler of the Conquest, ' he caused to be made a standard of gold and vel- 
vet, with the royal arms and a cross embroidered thereon, and a Latin 
motto, the meaning of which was, ' Brothers, follow this holy cross with 



416 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

true faith, for under it we shall conquer.' It was proclaimed by beat of 
drum and sound of trumpet, that all such as entered the service in the 
present expedition should have their shares of what gold was obtained, and 
grants of land, as soon as the conquest was effected. The proclamation 
was no sooner made than, by general inclination as well as the private in- 
fluence of Cortez, volunteers offered themselves everywhere. Nothing was 
to be seen or spoken of but selling lands to purchase arms and horses, 
quilting coats of mail, making bread, and salting pork for sea-store. Above 
three hundred of us assembled in the town of St. Jago.' These prepara- 
tions were likely to be interrupted. Velasquez, ruminating the probable 
consequences of the expedition, had begun to repent of having appointed 
Cortez to the command, and was secretly plotting his removal. Cortez, 
perceiving these symptoms, determined to outwit his patron. Accordingly, 
on the night of the 18th of November 1518 — having warned all the cap- 
tains, masters, pilots, and soldiers to be on board, and having shipped all 
the stores that had been collected — Cortez set sail from the port of St. 
Jago without announcing his intention to Velasquez, resolving to stop at 
some of the more westerly ports of the island for the purpose of completing 
his preparations, where he would be beyond the reach of the governor. 
Nothing could exceed the rage of Velasquez at the sudden departure of 
Cortez. He wrote to the commandants of two towns at which he learned 
that the fleet had put in for recruits and provisions, to seize Cortez, and 
send him back ; but such was the popularity of Cortez, that both were 
afraid to make the attempt. 

At last all was ready, and Cortez finally set sail from Cuba on the 18th 
of February 1519. The expedition, which consisted of eleven vessels, 
most of them small, and without decks, met with no disaster at sea, but 
arrived safely at the island of Cozumel, off the coast of Yucatan, after a 
few days' sail. Here Cortez landed, to review his troops. They consisted 
of five hundred and fifty-three soldiers, not including the mariners, who 
amounted to one hundred and ten. They possessed sixteen horses, some 
of them not very serviceable, ten brass field-pieces, four smaller pieces 
called falconets, and thirty-two cross-bows ; the majority of the soldiers 
being armed with ordinary steel weapons. Attending on the army were 
about two hundred Cuba Indians, and some Indian women. And as re- 
ligion in those days sanctioned military conquest, there were in addition 
two clergymen — Juan Diaz, and Bartholomew de Olmedo. 

For nine or ten days the Spaniards remained at Cozumel, making ac- 
quaintance with the natives, who were very friendly. Here Cortez, whose 
zeal for the Catholic religion was one of the strongest of his feelings, made 
it one of his first concerns to argue with the natives, through an interpre- 
ter, on the point of their religion. He even went so far as to demolish 
their idols before their eyes, and erect an altar to the Virgin on the spot 
where they had stood. The natives were horror-struck, and seemed at 
first ready to fall upon the Spaniards, but at length they acquiesced. 

While at Cozumel, Cortez had the good fortune to pick up a Spaniard, 
who, having been wrecked in his passage from Darien to Hispaniola in the 
year 1511, had for seven years been detained as a slave among the Indians 
of Yucatan. The name of this poor man was Jeronimo de Aguilar ; he 
had been educated for the church ; and as he could speak the language of 
Yucatan, his services as an interpreter were likely to be very valuable. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 417 

On the 4th of March 1519, the fleet, consisting of eleven vessels, com- 
manded respectively by Cortez, Pedro de Alvarado, Alonzo Puerto Carrero, 
Francisco de Montejo, Christoval de Olid, Diego de Ordaz, Velasquez de 
Leon, Juan de Escalante, Francisco de Morla, Escobar, and Gines Nortes, 
set sail from Cozumel, and on the 13th it anchored at the mouth of the 
river Tabasco or Grijalva, flowing into the south of the Bay of Cam- 
peachy. 

The expedition had now reached the scene of active operations ; it had 
arrived on the coast of the American continent. Cortez does not appear 
to have been naturally a bloodily-disposed man. He was only what a per- 
verted education and the vices of his times had made him — a man full of 
mighty notions of the Spanish authority ; of its right to take, by foul or 
fair means, any country it liked ; and not without an excuse from religion 
to rob and kill the unfortunate natives who dared to defend their terri- 
tories. 

We have now therefore, to record the beginning of a most unjust and 
merciless war of aggression. As Cortez, with his followers, sailed up the 
river as far as Tabasco, he everywhere observed the natives preparing to 
repel his attack, and at length he was brought into collision with them — of 
course overpowering them by the force of arms, with immense slaughter. 
On reaching Tabasco, his soldiers fought their way through dense masses 
of Indians, who discharged among them perfect clouds of arrows and 
stones. Pushing through the streets, which were lined with houses, some 
of mud, and some of stone, the victors reached a large open square in the 
centre, where temples of large size were erected. Here the troops were 
drawn up ; and Cortez, advancing to a large ceiba-tree which grew in the 
middle, gave it three slashes with his sword, and took possession of the 
city and country in the name of his royal master Don Carlos, king of 
Castile. 

Next day another battle was fought between the Spaniards and the Ta- 
bascans on the plain of Ceutla, a few miles distant from the city. For an 
hour the Spanish infantry fought in the midst of an ocean of enemies, bat- 
tling on all sides, beating one wave back, only that another might advance 
— a little islet encircled by the savage breakers. At length, with the as- 
sistance of their horse — a terrible sight to the Indians — the Spaniards 
were victorious. The spirit of the Tabascans was now completely sub 
dued. Their chiefs came to the camp of Cortez with faces and gestures 
expressive of contrition, and brought him presents of fowls, fish, maize, 
and numerous gold toys representing many kinds of animals in miniature. 
For the horses, they brought a feast of turkeys and roses ! They also 
gave Cortez twenty Indian girls to attend the army. To his inquiries re- 
specting the country whence they obtained the gold, they replied by repe- 
titions of the words ' Culua ' and l Mexico,' and pointing to the west. 
Having obtained all the information the Tabascans could give him, Cortez 
resolved to proceed on his voyage. Accordingly, after a solemn mass, which 
the Indians attended, the armament left Tabasco, and after a short sail, 
arrived off the coast of St. Juan de Ulua, the site of the modern Vera 
Cruz. It was on Holy Thursday (April 20th), in the year 1519, that 
they arrived at the port of St. Juan de Ulua, the extreme eastern province 
of the Mexican dominions properly so called. The royal flag was floating 
from the mast of Cortez's ship. The Spaniards could see the beach crowd- 
27* 



418 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ed with natives, who had come down to gaze at the strange ' water-houses,' 
of which they had formerly seen specimens. At length a light pirogue, 
filled with natives, some of them evidently men of rank, pushed off from 
the shore, and steered for the ship of Cortez. The Indians went on board 
without any symptoms of fear, and, what was more striking, with an air of 
ease and perfect good- breeding. They spoke a different language from 
that of the inhabitants of Cozumel or the Tabascans — a language, too, 
which Aguilar did not understand. Fortunately, one of the twenty Indian 
girls presented by the Tabascans to the Spaniards was a Mexican by birth. 
This girl, whose Spanish name of Donna Marina is imperishably associated 
with the history of the conquest of Mexico, was the daughter of a chief, 
but, by a singular course of events, had become a slave in Tabasco. She 
had already attracted attention by her beauty, sweetness, and gentleness, 
and she had been mentioned to Cortez. Her services now T became valua- 
ble. The Mexican was her native language ; but by her residence in Ta- 
basco, she had acquired the Tabascan, which language was also familiar to 
Aguilar. Interpreting, therefore, what the Mexicans said into Tabascan 
to Aguilar, Aguilar in turn interpreted the Tabascan into Spanish ; and 
thus, though somewhat circuitously, Cortez could hold communication with 
his visitors. 

The Aztec visitors who came on board the ship of Cortez, informed him 
that they were instructed by the governor of the province to ask what he 
wanted on their coast, and to promise that whatever he required should be 
supplied. Cortez replied that his object was to make the acquaintance of 
the people of those countries, and that he would do them no injury. He 
then presented them with some beads of cut glass, and after an entertain- 
ment of wine, they took their departure, promising that Teuthlille, the 
governor of the province under their great emperor, should visit him the 
next day. 

Next day, Friday the 21st of April 1519, Cortez landed with his troops, 
and had an interview with Teuthlille, who received the visitors with suspi- 
cion ; and this feeling was not lessened by the parade of mounted dra- 
goons and firing of guns with which the Spanish commander thought fit to 
astonish him and the other natives. Sketches were taken of the appear 
ance of the strangers, in order to be sent to Montezuma, the king of the 
country, who was likewise to be informed that the white men who had ar 
rived on his coast desired to be allowed to come and see him in his capital. 

Here we pause to present a short account of the Mexican empire, in 
which Cortez had landed ; also of the character and government of this 
monarch, Montezuma, whom the Spaniards expected soon to be permitted 
to visit. 

If a traveler, landing on that part of the coast of the Mexican gulf 
where Cortez and his Spaniards landed three hundred and thirty years ago, 
were to proceed westward across the continent, he would pass successively 
through three regions or climates. First he would pass through the tierra 
caliente, or hot region, distinguished by all the features of the tropics — 
their luxuriant vegetation, their occasional sandy deserts, and their uuhealth- 
inesss at particular seasons. After sixty miles of travel through this tierra 
caliente, he would enter the tierra templada, or temperate region, where 
the products of the soil are such as belong to the most genial European 
countries. Ascending through it, the traveler at last leaves wheat-fields 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 419 

beneath him, and plunges into forests of pine, indicating his entrance into 
the tierrafria, or cold region, where the sleety blasts from the mountains 
penetrate the very bones. This tierra fria constitutes the summits of part 
of the great mountain range of the Andes, which traverses the whole 
American continent. Fortunately, however, at this point the Andes do 
not attain their greatest elevation. Instead of rising, as in some other 
parts of their range, in a huge perpendicular wall or ridge, they here flatten 
and widen out, so as to constitute a vast plateau, or table-land, six or 
seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. On this immense sheet 
of table-land, stretching for hundreds of miles, the inhabitants, though 
living within the tropics, enjoy a climate equal to that of the south of 
Italy ; while their proximity to the extremes both of heat and cold enables 
thorn to procure, without much labor, the luxuries of many lands. Across 
the table-land there stretches from east to west a chain of volcanic peaks, 
some of which are of immense height, and covered perpetually with snow. 

This table-land was known in the Mexican language by the name of the 
plain of Anahuac. Near its centre is a valley of an oval form, about two 
hundred miles in circumference, surrounded by a rampart of porphyritic 
rock, and overspread for about a tenth part of its surface by five distinct 
lakes or sheets of water. This is the celebrated valley of Mexico — called 
a valley only by comparison with the mountains which surround it, for 
it is seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. Round the margins 
of the five lakes once stood numerous cities the relics of which are yet 
visible ; and on an islet in the middle of the largest lake stood the great 
city of Mexico, or Tenochtitlan, the capital of the empire which the 
Spaniards were now invading, and the residence of the Mexican emperor, 
Montezuma. 

The origin of the Mexicans is a question of great obscurity — a part of 
the more extensive question of the manner in which America was peopled. 
According to Mr. Prescott, the latest and one of the best authorities on 
the subject, the plains of Aanahuac were overrun, previous to the discov- 
ery of America, by several successive races from the north-west of the 
continent where it approaches Asia. Thus, in the thirteenth century, the 
great table-land of central America Avas inhabited by a number of races 
and sub-races, all originally of the same stock, but differing from each 
other greatly in character and degree of civilization, and engaged in mu- 
tual hostilities. The cities of these different races were scattered over the 
plateau, principally in the neighborhood of the five lakes. Tezcuco, on 
the eastern bank of the greatest of the lakes, was the capital of the Acol- 
huans ; and Tenochtitlan, or Mexico, founded in 1325, on an island in the 
same lake, was the capital of the Aztecs. 

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the dominant race in the plains 
of Anahuac was the Acolhuans, or Tezcucans, represented as a people of 
mild and polished manners, skilled in the elegant arts and possessing lite- 
rary habits and tastes — the Athenians, if we may so call them, of the 
new world. The most celebrated of the Tezcucan sovereigns was Nezahual- 
coyotl, who reigned early in the fifteenth century. By this prince a revolu- 
tion was effected in the political state of the valley of Anahuac. He 
procured the formation of a confederacy between Tezcuco and the two 
neighboring friendly cities of Mexico and Tlacopan, by which they bound 
themselves severally to assist each other when attacked, and to carry on 



420 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

wars conjointly. In this strange alliance Tezcuco was the principal mem- 
ber, as beino- confessedly the most powerful state ; Mexico stood next ; and 
lastly Tlacopan, as being inferior to the other two. 

Nezahualcoyotl died in 1470, and was succeeded on the Tezcucan throne 
by his son Nezahualpilli. During his reign the Tezcucans fell from their 
position as the first member of the triple confederacy which his father had 
formed and gave place to the Aztecs or Mexicans. These Aztecs had 
been gradually growing in consequence since their first arrival in the val- 
ley. Decidedly inferior to the Tezcucans in culture, and professing a much 
more bloody and impure worship, they excelled them in certain qualities, 
and possessed, on the whole, a firmer and more compact character. If the 
Tezcucans were the Greeks, the Aztecs were the Romans of the new world. 
Under a series of able princes they had increased in importance, till now, 
in the reign of Nezahualpilli, they were the rivals of their allies, the Tezcu- 
cans, for the sovereignty of Anahuac. 

In the year 1502, a vacancy occurred in the throne of Tenochtitlan, or 
Mexico. The election fell on Montezuma II, the nephew of the deceased 
monarch, a young man who had already distinguished himself as a soldier 
and a priest or sage, and who was noted, as his name — Montezuma (sor- 
rowful man) — implied, for a certain gravity and sad severity of manner. 
The first years of Montezuma's reign were spent in war. Carrying his 
victorious arms as far as Nicaragua and Honduras in the south, and to the 
shores of the Mexican gulf in the east, he extended the sovereignty of the 
triple confederacy, of which he was a member, over an immense extent of 
territory. Distant provinces he compelled to pay him tribute ; and the 
wealth of Anahuac flowed from all directions towards the valley of Mexico. 
Haughty and severe in his disposition, and magnificent in his tastes, he 
ruled like an Oriental despot over the provinces which he had conquered ; 
and the least attempt at rebellion was fearfully punished, captives being 
dragged in hundreds to the capital to be slaughtered on the stone of human 
sacrifice in the great war temple. Nor did Montezuma's own natural-born 
subjects stand less in dread of him. Wise, liberal, and even generous in 
his government, his inflexible justice, and his lordly notions of his own dig- 
nity, made him an object less of affection than of awe and reverence. In 
his presence his nobles spoke in whispers ; in his palace he was served with 
a slavish homage ; and when he appeared in public, his subjects vailed their 
faces, as unworthy to gaze upon his person. The death of Nezahualpilli, 
in 1516, made him absolute sovereign in Anahuac. On the death of that 
king, two of his sons, Cacama and Ixtlilxochitl, contended for the throne of 
Tezcuco. Montezuma sided with Cacama ; and the dispute was at length 
ended by a compromise between the two brothers, by which the kingdom 
was divided into two parts — Cacama obtaining the southern half with the 
city of Tezcuco, and Ixtlilxochitl the northern half. 

Thus, at the period of the arrival of the Spaniards, Montezuma was ab- 
solute sovereign of nearly the whole of that portion of central America 
which lies between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean — the kings 
of Tezcuco and Tlacopan being nominally his confederates and counselors, 
according to the ancient treaty of alliance between the three states, but in 
reality his dependents. The spot where Cortez had landed was in one of 
the maritime provinces of Montezuma's dominions. 

It is a singular but well-authenticated fact, that at the time the Span 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 421 

iards landed in America a general expectation prevailed among the natives 
of the arrival of a mysterious race of white men from the East, who were 
to conquer the country. This was especially the case in Mexico. There 
was a tradition among the Mexicans that, some ages before the arrival of 
the Spaniards, and while yet the Aztec empire was in its infancy, there ap- 
peared in Anahuac a divine personage called Quetzalcoatl. He was a man 
of benevolent aspect, tall in stature, with a white complexion, long dark 
hair, and a flowing beard ; and he came from the East. He resided in An- 
ahuac for many years, teaching the Mexicans numerous arts and sciences, 
and reforming their manners ; and under his care the country flourished 
and became happy. At length some difference arose between him and the 
Mexicans, and they no longer paid respect to the words of the good Quet- 
zalcoatl. He then announced to them that he was going to depart from 
their country. Proceeding eastward, delaying a little while at Cholula, a 
city which ever afterwards was regarded as sacred, he arrived at the sea- 
shore. Embarking on board a little skiff made of serpents' skins, he push- 
ed out to sea, and as the Mexicans strained their eyes after him, he disap- 
peared in the distance, going, as it seemed, to the East. Before he de- 
parted, however, he delivered a prophecy, that at some future time people of 
his race, with white complexions like his, would come from the East to conquer 
and possess the country. 

The tradition of Quetzalcoatl' s px'ophecy was rife among the natives of 
Anahuac when Cortez arrived, and it was with a kind of religious awe that 
Montezuma and his people heard of the arrival of the white men in their 
' water-houses. ' Cortez and his men constituted, as we have seen, this 
body. Teuthlille's messengers, announcing their arrival, had already reach- 
ed Montezuma ; and he was deliberating in what manner he should receive 
the strangers. In order to learn his decision, let us return to the Span- 
iards on the sea-coast. 

The Spaniards, supplied by the natives with plenty of everything which 
they required, were waiting the return of the messengers to Montezuma. 
After six days they returned, accompanied by Teuthlille. They bore with 
them a splendid present from Montezuma to the Spanish emperor. It con- 
sisted of loads of finely-wrought cotton, ornamented with featherwork ; and 
a miscellaneous collection of jewels and articles of gold and silver, richly 
carved, of which the most attractive were two circular plates as large as 
carriage-wheels, one of gold, valued at more than fifty thousand pounds, 
and intended to represent the sun ; the other of silver, and representing the 
moon. As they gazed on the kingly present, the Spaniards could scarcely 
contain their raptures. The message which accompanied it, however, was 
less satisfactory. Montezuma was happy to hear of the existence of his 
brother, the king of Spain, and wished him to consider him as his friend ; 
he could not, however, come to see the Spaniards, and it was too far for 
them to come and visit him. He therefore hoped they would depart, and 
carry his respects to his brother, their monarch. 

To this Cortez, thanking Montezuma for his present, replied that he 
could not leave the country without being able to say to his king that he 
had seen Montezuma with his own eyes ; and the ambassadors again de- 
parted, carrying a sorry present from Cortez to Montezuma. After an- 
other interval of six days they returned, with another gift little inferior in 
value of the former, and informed Cortez that the great Montezuma had 



422 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

received his present with satisfaction, but that, as to the interview, he 
could not permit anj more to be said on the subject. Cortez, though 
greatly mortified, thanked them politely, and returned to Montezuma a 
second message to the same effect as the former, but couched in more de- 
cided language. The Mexicans withdrew in distrust, and ceased to barter 
with the Spaniards, or to bring them supplies. 

Meanwhile differences had been springing up among the Spaniards them- 
selves, the partisans of Velasquez insisting that they ought now to return 
to Cuba, and that it was folly to think of founding a settlement. Pre- 
tending to yield to the clamors of these persons, Cortez issued orders for 
embarkation on the following day. Immediately the other party, consist- 
in<* of the friends of Cortez, flocked to his tent, and implored him not to 
give up the enterprise which had been so successfully begun. This was 
precisely what Cortez wished. Accordingly, after some delay he seemed 
to yield ; and revoked the order for embarkation, he announced his will- 
ingness to found a settlement in the name of the Spanish sovereign. 
Forthwith the new city, although not a stone of it had yet been raised, and 
the site had alone been determined on, was named Villa Rica de la Vera 
Ouz — 'The Rich Town of the True Cross.' Magistrates were immedi- 
ately appointed in the king's name ; the two captains Puerto Carrero and 
Montejo, the latter a friend of Velasquez, being nominated alcaldes, and 
others to different offices. ' Thus,' says Mr. Prescott, 'by a single stroke 
of the pen the camp was transformed into a civil community.' 

At the first sitting of the new magistracy, Cortez appeard before it, with 
his cap doffed, and formally resigned his commission from Velasquez into 
its hands. He then withdrew ; but after a short time was recalled, and 
informed that he had been unanimously appointed by them, in the king's 
name, 'Captain-General and Chief-Justice of the colony.' Thus, by a 
clever stroke of policy, had Cortez shaken off all connection with Velasquez. 
He held his command now directly from the king, and could be superseded 
only by royal authority. The friends of Velasquez were at first furious 
with rage ; but Cortez at length soothed them into acquiescence. 

A little before the conclusion of these proceedings, an event of some 
consequence happened. This was the arrival in the Spanish camp of five 
Indians, differing in dress and language from the Mexicans. They inform- 
ed Cortez that they were a deputation sent by the casque of Cempoalla, 
a city at a little distance on the sea-coast, the capital of the Totonacs, a 
nation which had been recently conquered by Montezuma, and was now 
groaning under his yoke. They were sent by their casque to beg a visit 
of the Spaniards to Campoalla. A light instantly flashed upon the mind 
of Cortez. He saw that Montezuma's empire was not so firmly compacted 
as he had supposed, and that it might be possible to divide it against itself, 
and so overthrow it. He therefore dismissed the ambassadors kindly, and 
promised a speedy visit to Campoalla. 

Accordingly, as soon as the disturbance which had arisen among his men 
was quashed, Cortez marched to Campoalla, a city not rich, but prettily 
built, and containing a population, as it appeared, of about thirty thousand 
inhabitants. He was cordially received by the cacique, a large and very 
corpulent man. Remaining some time in Campoalla and its neighborhood, 
while the city of Villa Rica was being built, the Spaniards soon gained the 
reverence and good-will of the inhabitants, the Totonacs, who willingly 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 423 

submitted themselves to the dominion of the distant monarch Don Carlos, 
of whom the Spaniards told them. Here the Spaniards were horrified 
bj the symptoms of human sacrifice, which were perpetually visible in the 
temples — the blood-stained walls, and the fragments of human flesh which 
lay about; and, fired with religious enthusiasm, they resolved to put a stop 
to such practices by tearing down the idols. Cortez informed the cacique 
of his intention ; but although the announcement filled him with speechless 
dismay, no opposition was offered, and the idols were broken in pieces, and 
burnt before the eyes of the Totonacs, while the priests went about shriek- 
ing like demons. 'These priests,' we are told, 'were dressed in long black 
mantles, like sheets with hoods : their robes reached to their feet. Their 
long hair was matted together with clotted blood ; with some it reached to 
the waist, and with others to the feet : their ears were torn and cut, and 
they smelt horribly, as it were of sulphur and putrid flesh.' 

The destruction of their idols did not alienate the Totonacs from the 
Spaniards ; on the contrary, it raised their opinion of them, inasmuch as 
they saw the gods patient under the indignity. The intercourse of the 
two parties, therefore, continued ; and, by his frequent conversations with 
the cacique, Cortez gained greater insight every day into the condition of 
Montezuma's empire. 

By this time the town of Villa Rica had been nearly finished, and noth- 
ing remained to prevent the Spaniards from commencing their march into 
the interior. Before beginning it, however, Cortez deemed it advisable to 
send a report of his proceedings to Spain, to be laid before the king, know- 
ing that Velasquez must have represented his conduct in very disadvan- 
tageous terms to the home government. Accordingly, Cortez drew up one 
letter, and the magistrates of the new colony another, detailing the whole 
of the incidents of the expedition down to the foundation of Villa Rica, 
and announcing that they were on the point of commencing their march 
into the heart of the country. To increase the effect of the letters, they 
were accompanied by nearly all the gold that had been collected, together 
with the splendid gifts of Montezuma, and such curiosities as might interest 
the learned of Spain. The business of carrying these letters to the king 
was intrusted to Montejo and Puerto Carre ro, and they were instructed, 
above all, to endeavor to secure the appointment of Cortez as captain-gen- 
eral of the colony. On the 26th of July 1519, the little ship set sail, 
freighted with a more precious cargo than had ever yet been packed with- 
in the timbers of a vessel from the new world. The pilot was instructed 
to make direct for Spain, landing at no intermediate station, and especially 
avoiding Cuba. 

The departure of this vessel seems to have raised thoughts of home in 
the minds of some of those who were left behind. A conspiracy was 
formed by some of the soldiers and sailors, along with the clergyman Diaz, 
to sieze a vessel and return to Cuba. The conspiracy was discovered ; 
two of the ringleaders were hanged, and the rest whipped or confined. 
Foreseeing, however, that such conspiracies would be constantly occurring, 
unless effectual means were taken to prevent them, Cortez came to the 
resolution, almost unparalleled in the annals of heroism, of destroying the 
ships which had brought him to Mexico. Accordingly, taking counsel 
with a few of his most attached followers, he procured a report from the 
pilots that the vessels were not seaworthy, and caused them to be broken 



421 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

in pieces and sunk, before the majority were aware of his design. When 
the Spaniards thus saw themselves shut up in a strange and populous coun- 
try, with no means of retreat, their first impulse was one of rage and 
despair, and Cortez had nearly fallen a sacrifice. As he foresaw, however, 
the daring act had the effect of bracing his men to a pitch of resolution all 
but supernatural. Besides, by the destruction of the fleet, he obtained a 
reinforcement of a hundred and ten men — the mariners formerly employed 
in the ships being now converted into soldiers, and very good ones, as it 
afterwards proved. 

All being now ready, Cortez, leaving a considerable force as a garrison 
to the new settlement of Villa Rica, under the command of Juan de Esca- 
lante, set out from the territory of the Totonacs, on his march inland, on 
the 16th of August 1519. His army consisted of four hundred Spaniards 
on foot, and fifteen horse, accompanied by thirteen hundred Cempoallan 
warriors, and a thousand tamanes, or Indian body slaves, furnished by the 
cacique of Cempoalla, who were to carry the heavy burdens, and perform 
other laborious oflices. Advancing through the tierra caliente, they began 
to ascend the mountains which separate it from the vast table-land of 
Anahuac. A few days' march across the tierra templada and the tierra fria, 
brought the Spaniards to a small mountain province of Tlascala, situated 
about half-way between the sea-coast and the Mexican valley. The Tlas- 
calans were a brave and high-spirited people, of the same race as the 
Aztecs. They had refused, however, to submit to the empire of Monte- 
zuma, and were the only people in Anahuac who bade defiance to his 
power, preferring poverty and hardship in their mountain home to the loss 
of independence. The government of Tlascala was a kind of feudalism. 
Four lords or casques held their courts in different quarters of the same 
city, independently of each other, and yet mutually allied ; and under 
these four chieftans the Tlascalan population, nobles and commons, was 
ranged as subjects. On the approach of the Spaniards, a consultation was 
held among the Tlascalan lords and their counselors as to how the stran- 
gers should be received ; some being inclined to welcome them, in hopes of 
being able, by their assistance, to cope with Montezuma ; others maintaining 
that the Spaniards were enemies, who ought to be repulsed by all means. 
The latter opinion prevailed, and three desperate battles were fought be- 
tween the Tlascalans under the command of Xicotencatl, a brave and able 
young chief, the son of one of the four caciques, and the Spanish invaders. 
These engagements were far more serious than the battles which the Span- 
iards had fought with the Tabascans ; and it required the utmost exertion 
of Castilian valor, directed by all the ability of Cortez, to gain the victory. 
But Indian courage against the flower of European chivalry — the maqua- 
huitl, or war-club, dreadful instrument as it was, with its sharp flinty blades, 
against muskets and artillery — coatings of war-paint, or doublets of 
featherwork, against Spanish mail — were a very unequal contest ; and, as 
usual, the losses of the Spaniards were as nothing compared with the ap- 
parent fierceness of the struggle. But how could the little army hope to 
advance through a country where such battles had to be fought at every 
step? If such were their reception by the Tlascalans, what might they 
not expect from the richer and more powerful Mexicans ? Such were the 
reflections of the Spanish soldiery. The idea of their ever reaching Mex- 
ico, says Bernal Diaz, was treated as a jest by the whole army. Fortu- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 425 

nately, when these murmurs were reaching their height, the Tlascalans 
submitted, and sent ambassadors to beg the friendship of the Spaniards ; 
and on the 23d of September 1519 the Spaniards entered the city of 
Tlasc.ala, a large and populous town, which Cortez compared to Grenada 
in Spain. Here they were cordially received by the four casques, and 
especially by the elder Xicotencatl ; and in a short time an intimacy sprung 
up between the Tlascalans and the invaders, and a treaty was concluded, 
by which the Tlascalans bound themselves to assist the Spaniards through- 
out the rest of their expedition. Here, as elsewhere, Cortez showed his 
zeal for the Catholic faith by endeavoring to convert the natives ; and it is 
probable that the same scenes of violence would have taken place at Tlas- 
cala as at Cempoalla, had not the judicious father Olmedo interfered to 
temper the more headlong fanaticism of the general. 

While in Tlascala, Cortez received various embassies from provinces in the 
neighborhood anxious to secure his good-will. About the same time an 
embassy was received from Montezuma himself, entreating Cortez not to 
place any reliance upon the Tlascalans, whom he represented as treach- 
erous barbarians; and now inviting him, in cordial terms, to visit his capital, 
pointing out the route through the city of Cholula as the most convenient. 
This route was accordingly adopted, and the Spaniards, accompanied by an 
army of six thousand Tlascalan warriors, advanced by it towards Mexico. 
Their approach gave great alarm, and Montezuma set on foot a scheme for 
their massacre at Cholula, which, however, was discovered by Cortez, 
who took a terrible vengeance on the sacred city. Montezuma, overawed, 
again made overtures of reconciliation, and promised the Spaniards an 
immense quantity of gold if they would advance no farther. This Cortez 
refused, and the Spanish army, with the Tlascalan warriors, left Cholula, 
and proceeded on their march, met everywhere by deputations from neigh- 
boring towns, many of which were disaffected to the government of Monte- 
zuma. The route of the army lay between two gigantic volcanic mountains, 
and the march, for a day or two, was toilsome, and bitterly cold. At 
last, ' turning an angle of the sierra, they suddenly came on a view which 
more than compensated their toils. It was that of the valley of Mexico ; 
which, with its picturesque assemblage of water, woodland, and cultivated 
plains, its shining cities and shadowy hills,, were spread out like some gay 
and gorgeous panorama before them. Stretching far away at their feet 
were seen noble forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar ; and beyond, yellow 
fields of maize, and the towering maguey, intermingled with orchards and 
blooming gardens. In the centre of the great basin were beheld the lakes, 
their borders thickly studded with towns and hamlets ; and in the midst, 
like some Indian empress with her coronal of pearls, the fair city of 
Mexico, with her white towers and pyramidal temples, reposing, as it 
were, on the bosom of the waters — the far-famed " Venice of the Aztecs." : 

Descending into the valley, the Spaniards halted at Ajotzinco, a town on 
the banks of the southernmost of the five lakes. Meanwhile Montezuma 
was in an agony of indecision. When intelligence reached him that the 
Spaniards had actually descended into the valley, he saw that he must ei- 
ther face the strangers on the field of battle, or admit them into his cap- 
ital. His brother, Cuitlahua, advised the former ; but his nephew, Cacama, 
the young lord of Tezcuco, was of the contrary opinion, and Montezuma 
at length sent him to meet the Spaniards, and welcome them to his domin- 



426 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ions. Cacama accordingly set out in state, and arrived at Ajotzinco just 
as the Spaniards were about to leave it. When he came into the presence 
of Cortez, he said to him, 'Malintzin, here am I and these lords come te 
attend you to your residence in our city, by order of the great Montezu- 
ma.' Cortez embraced the prince, and presented him with some jewels. 
After a while Cacama took his leave, and the Spaniards resumed their 
march. Traveling along the southern and western banks of Lake Chalco, 
they crossed the causeway which divides it from Lake Zochichalco, and 
advanced along the margin of the latter to the royal city of Iztapalapan, 
situated on the banks of the great Tezcucan lake over against Mexico. 
To the eyes of the Spaniards, all they saw in their journey seemed fairy land. 

ENTRY INTO MEXICO — RESIDENCE THERE— DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY. 

It was on the 7th of November, 1519, that the Spaniards arrived at 
Iztapalapan ; and here they spent the night, lodged in magnificent palaces 
built of stone, the timber of which was cedar. From this position the eye 
could sweep over the whole expanse of the Tezcucan lake. Canoes of all 
sizes might be seen skimming along its surface, either near the middle, or 
close to the banks, where the thick woods came down to the water's edge. 
Here also, moving slowly along the margin of the lake, might be seen a 
still stranger sight — the chinampas, or floating-gardens — little islands 
consisting of earth laid on rafts, planted with flowers, shrubs, and fruit- 
trees, and containing a small hut or cottage in the centre, occupied by the 
proprietor, who, by the means of a long pole, which he pushed against the 
bottom, could shift his little domain from place to place. But what fixed 
the eyes of the Spaniards above all else was the glittering spectacle which 
rose from the centre of the lake — the queenly city of Mexico, the goal of 
their hopes and wishes for many months past. In a few hours they would 
be within its precincts — a few hundred men shut up in the very heart of 
the great Mexican empire ! What might be their fate there ! 

The islet on which Mexico was built was connected with the mainland by 
three distinct causeways of stone, constructed with incredible labor and 
skill across the lake, and intersected at intervals by drawbridges, through 
which canoes might pass and repass with ease. The causeway by which 
the Spaniards must pass connected the island with the southern bank of 
the lake, about half way across to which it branched off into two lines, 
one leading to the city of Cojohuacan, the other meeting the mainland at 
a point not far from Iztapalapan, where the Spaniards were quartered. 
This causeway was about eight yards wide, and capable of accommodating 
ten or twelve horsemen riding abreast. It was divided, as before-men- 
tioned, by several drawbridges; a circumstance which the Spaniards 
observed with no small alarm, for they saw that, by means of these draw- 
bridges, their communication with the mainland could be completely cut 
off by the Mexicans. 

On the morning of the 8th of November, 1519, the army left Iztapala- 
pan, and advanced along the causeway towards the capital. First went 
Cortez, with his small body of horse ; next came the Spanish foot, amount- 
ing to not more than four hundred men; after them came the Indian 
tamanes, carrying the baggage ; and last of all came the Tlascalan war- 
riors, to the number of about five thousand. As they moved along the 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 427 

causeway, the inhabitants of the city crowded in myriads to gaze at them, 
some finding standing-room on the causeway itself, others skimming along 
the lakes in canoes, and clambering up the sides of the causeway. A lit- 
tle more than half way across, and at a distance of a mile and a half from 
the city, the branch of the causeway on which the Spaniards were march- 
ing was joined by the other branch ; and here the causeway widened for a 
small space, and a fort or gateway was erected, called the Fort of Xoloc. 
On arriving at the gateway, the army was met by a long procession of 
Aztec nobles, richly clad, who came to announce the approach of the 
emperor himself to welcome the Spaniards to his capital. Accordingly, 
when the remainder of the causeway had been almost traversed, and the 
van of the army was near the threshold of the city, a train was seen ad- 
vancing along the great avenue. 'x\midst a crowd of Indian nobles, pre- 
ceded by three officers of state bearing golden wands, the Spaniards saw 
the royal palanquin of Montezuma, blazing with burnished gold. It was 
borne on the shoulders of nobles, and over it a canopy of gaudy feather- 
work, powdered with jewels, and fringed with silver, and was supported 
by four attendants of the same rank. They were barefooted, and walked 
with a slow measured pace, and with eyes bent on the ground. When 
the train had come within a convenient distance, it halted ; and Monte- 
zuma, descending from his litter, came forward, leaning on the arms of 
the lords of Tezcuco and Iztapalapan — the one his nephew, the other his 
brother. As the monarch advanced under the canopy, the obsequious 
attendants strewed the ground with cotton tapestry, that his imperial feet 
might not be contaminated by the rude soil. His subjects, of high and 
low degree, who lined the sides of the causeway, bent forward with their 
eyes fastened on the ground as he passed, and some of the humbler class 
prostrated themselves before him.' 

Cortez and the Mexican emperor now stood before each other. When 
Cortez was told that the great Montezuma approached, he dismounted 
from his horse, and advanced towards him with much respect. Monte- 
zuma bade him welcome, and Cortez replied with a suitable compliment. 
After some ceremonies, and the exchange of presents, Montezuma and his 
courtiers withdrew, the Spaniards following. Advancing into the city, 
wondering at all they saw — the long streets, the houses which, in the line 
along which they passed, belonged mostly to the noble and wealthy Mexi- 
cans, built of red stone, and surmounted with parapets or battlements ; 
the canals which here and there intersected the streets, crossed by bridges; 
and the large open squares which occurred at intervals — the Spaniards 
were conducted to their quarters, situated in an immense square in the 
centre of the city, adjoining the temple of the great Mexican war-god. 
Montezuma was waiting to receive them; and the Spaniards were sur- 
prised and delighted with the princely generosity with which he supplied 
their wants. 

Next day Cortez paid a visit to Montezuma in his palace, attended by 
some of his principal officers. In the conversation which ensued, Cortez 
broached the topic of religion, and informed Montezuma ' that we were all 
brothers, the children of Adam and Eve, and that as such, our emperor, 
lamenting the loss of souls in such numbers as those which were brought 
by the Mexican idols into everlasting flames, had sent us to apply a rem- 
edy thereto by putting an end to the worship of these false gods.' These 



428 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

remarks seemed to displease Montezuma, who, however, made a polite reply. 
Day after day the intercourse between Cortez and Montezuma was 
renewed; the Spanish soldiers also became gradually familiar with the 
Mexicans. Bernal Diaz, the old soldier of Cortez, to whom we are 
indebted for the most minute and interesting account of the Conquest, 
thus describes Montezuma and his household : ' The great Montezuma was 
at this time aged about forty years, of good stature, well-proportioned, and 
thin ; his complexion was much fairer than that of the Indians ; he wore 
his hair short, just covering his ears, with very little beard, well arranged, 
thin, and black. His face was rather long, with a pleasant countenance, 
and good eyes ; gravity and good-humor were blended together when he 
spoke. He was very delicate and clean in his person, bathing himself 
every evening. He had a number of mistresses of the first families, and 
two princesses, his lawful wives. He had two hundred of his nobility as 
a guard, in apartments adjoining his own. They entered his apartment 
barefooted, their eyes fixed on the ground, and making three inclinations 
of the body as they approached him. In addressing him, they said, 
" Lord ; my lord ; great lord.' His cooks had upward of thirty different 
ways of dressing meat, and they had earthen vessels so contrived as to 
keep it always hot. For the table of Montezuma himself above three 
hundred dishes were dressed, and for his guards above a thousand. It is 
said that at times the flesh of young children was dressed for him ; but 
the ordinary meats were domestic fowls, pheasants, geese, partridges, 
quails, venison, Indian hogs, pigeons, hares, and rabbits, with many other 
animals and birds peculiar to the country. At his meals, in the cold 
weather, a number of torches of the bark of a wood which makes no 
smoke, and has an aromatic smell, were lighted ; and, that they might not 
throw too much heat, screens ornamented with gold, and painted with 
figures of idols, were placed before them. Montezuma was seated on a 
low throne or chair, at a table proportioned to the height of his seat. 
The table was covered with white cloths and napkins, and four beautiful 
women presented him with water for his hands. Then two other women 
brought small cakes of bread ; and when the king began to eat, a large 
screen of wood gilt was placed before him, so that people should not, 
during that time, see him. He was served on earthenware of Cholula, 
red and black. While the king was at table, no one of his guards, or in 
the vicinity of his apartment, dared for their lives make any noise. Fruit 
of all the kinds that the country produced was laid before him; he ate 
very little ; but from time to time a liquor, prepared from cocoa, and of a 
stimulative quality, as we were told, was presented to him in golden cups. 
At different intervals during the time of dinner there entered certain 
Indians, hump-backed, very deformed and ugly, who played tricks of 
buffoonery ; and others who, they said, were jesters. There was also a 
company of singers and dancers, who afforded Montezuma much enter- 
tainment. During the time Montezuma was at dinner, two very beautiful 
women were busily employed making small cakes with eggs, and other 
things mixed therein. These were delicately white ; and when made, 
they presented them to him on plates covered with napkins. After he 
had dined, they presented to him three little canes, highly ornamented, 
containing liquid amber, mixed with an herb they call tobacco ; and when 
he had sufficiently viewed and heard the singers, dancers, and buffoons, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTME1TT. 429 

he took a little of the smoke of one of these canes, and then laid himself 
down to sleep ; and thus his principal meal concluded.' 

After describing other parts of Montezuma's household, including a 
great aviary or collection of birds, and a menagerie, the chronicler gives 
us an account of Cortez's first tour through the city, accompanied by Mon- 
tezuma. They first visited the great bazaar or market, held in the west- 
ern part of the city. ' When we arrived there, we were astonished at 
the crowds of people, and the regularity which prevailed, as well as at the 
vast quantities of merchandise which those who attended us were assiduous 
in pointing out. Each kind had its particular place of sale, which was 
distinguished by a sign. The articles consisted of gold, silver, jewels, 
feathers, mantles, chocolate, skins, dressed and undressed, sandals, and 
other manufactures of the roots and fibres of nequen, and great numbers 
of male and female slaves, some of whom were fastened by the neck in 
collars to long poles. The meat market was stocked with fowls, game, 
and dogs. Vegetables, fruits, articles of food ready dressed, salt, bread, 
honey, and sweet pastry made in various ways, were also sold here. 
Other places in the square were appropriated to the sale of earthenware, 
wooden household furniture, such as tables and benches, firewood, paper, 
sweet canes filled with tobacco, mixed with liquid amber, copper axes and 
working-tools, and wooden vessels highly painted. Numbers of women 
sold fish, and little loaves made of a certain mud which they find in the 
lake, and which resembles cheese. The makers of stone-blades were 
busily employed shaping them out of the rough material ; and the mer- 
chants who dealt in gold had the metal in grains, as it came from the 
mines, in transparent tubes, so that they could be reckoned ; and the gold 
was valued at so many mantles, or so many xiquipils of cocoa, according 
to the size of the quills. The entire square was enclosed in piazzas, under 
which great quantities of grain were stored, and where were also shops 
for various kinds of goods. Courts of justice, where three judges sat to 
settle disputes which might arise in the market, occupied a part of the 
square, their under-officers, or policemen, being in the market inspecting 
the merchandise.' 

Proceeding from the market-place through various parts of the city, the 
Spaniards came to the great teocalli, or temple, in the neighborhood of 
their own quarters. It was a huge pyramidal structure, consisting of five 
stories, narrowing above each other like the tubes of an extended spy- 
glass (only square in shape), so as to leave a clear pathway round the 
margin of each story. The ascent was by means of a stone stair, of a 
hundred and fourteen steps. Arrived at the summit, Cortez and his com- 
panions found it to be a large flat area, laid with stone ; at one end of 
which they shuddered as they saw a block of jasper, which they were told 
was the stone on which the human victims were laid when the priests tore 
out their hearts to offer to their idols : at the other end was a tower of 
three stories, in which were the images of the two great Mexican deities 
Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca, and a variety of articles pertaining to 
their worship. 'From the top of the temple,' says Bernal Diaz, 'we had 
a clear prospect of the three causeways by which Mexico communicated 
with the land, and we could now perceive that in this great city, and all 
the others of the neighborhood which were built in the water, the houses 
stood separate from each other, communicating only by small drawbridges 



430 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and by boats, and that they were built with terraced tops. The noise and 
bustle of the market-place below us could be heard almost a league off; 
and those who had been at Rome and Constantinople said that, for conve- 
nience, regularity, and population, they had never seen the like.' At the 
request of Cortez, Montezuma, though with apparent reluctance, led the 
Spaniards into the sanctuary or tower where the gods were. 'Here,' says 
Diaz, ' were two altars, highly adorned with richly-wrought timbers on the 
roof, and over the altars gigantic figures resembling very fat men. The 
one on the right was their war-god, with a great face and terrible eyes. 
This figure was entirely covered with gold and jewels, and his body bound 
with golden serpents ; in his right hand he held a bow, and in his left a 
bundle of arrows. Before the idol was a pan of incense, with three hearts 
of human victims, which were burning, mixed with copal. The whole of 
that apartment, both walls and floor, was stained with human blood in such 
quantity as to cause a very offensive smell. On the left was the other 
great figure, with a countenance like a bear, and great shining eyes of the 
polished substance whereof their mirrors are made. The body of this 
idol was also covered with jewels. An offering lay before him of five 
human hearts. In this place was a drum of most enormous size, the head 
of which was made of the skins of large serpents : this instrument, when 
struck, resounded with a noise that could be heard to the distance of two 
leagues, and so doleful, that it deserved to be named the music of the 
infernal regions.' 

This state of things could not last. Cortez, of course, had no intention 
of leaving Mexico, now that he had made good his quarters in it ; but as 
it was not to be expected that Montezuma and his subjects would continue 
their friendly intercourse with him if they supposed that he purposed to 
remain, he saw the necessity of taking some decided step to secure him- 
self and his men against any outbreak which might occur. The step which 
he resolved upon in his own mind was the seizure of Montezuma. By 
having him in their power, he would be able, he imagined, to maintain a 
control over the whole population of the city — amounting, it is believed, 
to nearly three hundred thousand. Nor was a pretext wanting to give an 
appearance of justice to the daring act which they contemplated. Cortez 
had just received intelligence that a battle had been fought between the 
garrison which he had left at Villa Rica, and a body of Mexicans under 
the command of the Mexican governor of a province adjacent to the 
Spanish settlement. Although Cortez cared little for this occurrence, he 
resolved to avail himself of it for his purpose ; so, after a night spent in 
prayer for the blessing of God on what he was about to do, he proceeded 
with five of his officers and the two interpreters, Donna Marina and Aguilar, 
to Montezuma's palace. The monarch, as usual, received him kindly ; but 
when Cortez, after upbraiding him with being the cause of the attack made 
on the Spanish garrison of Villa Rica, as well as with the attempt made 
by the Cholulans to arrest his own progress towards Mexico, informed him 
that he had come to make him prisoner, he could no longer contain him 
self, but gave full vent to his rage and astonishment. But the rage of an 
Indian prince was impotent against the stern resolutions of the European 
general ; and as the helpless monarch gazed on the unyielding countenances 
of his visitors, whose fingers were playing with the hilts of their swords, 
his anger changed into terror : he was seized with a fit of trembling, and 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 431 

the tears gushed into his eyes. Without any resistance, he was removed 
in his royal litter to the Spanish quarters, giving it out to his nobles and 
subjects that he went voluntarily, on a visit to Cortez, and desiring them 
to remain quiet. 

Another degradation awaited the unhappy monarch. He was obliged 
to surrender the governor and three other chiefs, who had led the attack 
on the garrison of Villa Rica ; and these were burned alive, by the orders 
of Cortez, in front of Montezuma's palace, the emperor himself being kept 
in irons while the execution was going on. 

All this took place within ten days of the arrival of the Spaniards in 
Mexico ; and for three or four months Montezuma continued a prisoner in 
the Spanish quarters. Here he was attended with the most profound re- 
spect, Cortez himself never approaching him without taking off his cap, 
and punishing severely every attempt on the part of any of his soldiers to 
insult the royal captive. Such instances, however, were very rare ; for 
the kindly demeanor of Montezuma, his gentleness under his misfortunes, 
and, above all, his liberality to those about him, won the hearts of the 
Spaniards, and made him a general favorite. Nor did Montezuma make 
any attempt to regain his liberty. Attended by his officers as usual, he 
received deputations, and transacted business ; amused himself by various 
Mexican games, and appeared to delight in the society of some of the 
Spaniards, for whom he had contracted a particular partiality. 

The Spanish general was now absolute in Anahuac ; Montezuma acted 
under his instructions ; and officers were sent out in different directions to 
survey the country, and ascertain the situation and extent of the gold and 
silver mines, as if all belonged to the king of Spain. Nor was the formal 
cession of the kingdom by Montezuma long delayed. Assembling all his 
nobles at the instigation of Cortez, the Indian monarch addressed them, 
desiring them to concur with him in surrendering their empire to the Span- 
iards, who were to come from the rising sun. ' " For eighteen years," he 
said, " that I have reigned, I have been a kind monarch to you, and you 
have been faithful subjects to me ; indulge me, then, with this last act of 
obedience.' The princes, with many sighs and tears, promised Montezuma, 
who was still more affected, that they would do whatever he desired. He 
then sent a message to Cortez, telling him that, on the ensuing day, he and 
his princes would tender their allegiance to his majesty, our emperor. 
This they accordingly did at the time appointed, in the presence of all our 
officers and many of our soldiers, not one of whom could refrain from 
weeping on beholding the agitation and distress of the great and generous 
Montezuma.' 

Montezuma accompanied the surrender of his kingdon with the gift of 
an immense treasure, which he had concealed in an apartment within their 
quarters, desiring it to be sent to Spain, as tribute-money to King Charles 
from his vassal Montezuma. The sight of this treasure roused the avari- 
cious passions of the Spanish soldiers, and they clamored for a division of 
the wealth which had been collected since their entrance into Mexico, 
Cortez was obliged to yield to their demand. The whole wealth amassed 
during their residence in Mexico amounted, according to Mr. Prescott's 
calculation, to about seven millions of dollars of our money, includ- 
ing not only the gold cast into ingots, but also the various articles 
of jewelry, which were of too fine Avorkmanship to be melted down. 



432 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

The mode of division was this : — First, his majesty's fifth was set aside ; 
next, a fifth of the remainder was set aside for Cortez ; after that, all the 
debts of the expedition were to be discharged, excluding the amount ves- 
ted in the expedition by Velasquez, the payment of agents in Spain, etc. ; 
then the losses incurred in the expedition were to be made good, including 
the expense of the ships sunk oif Villa Rica, the price of the horses killed, 
etc. ; and lastly, certain individuals in the army, as the clergyman and the 
captains, were to receive larger allowances than the rest. 'By the time 
all these drafts were made,' says Bernal Diaz, ' what remained for each 
soldier was hardly worth stooping for ;' in other words, instead of amount- 
ing to two or three thousand pounds, as they had expected, each soldier's 
share came only to about three hundred pounds. Many refused to take 
their shares, complaining of injustice in the division, and it required all the 
skill and management of Cortez to soothe the spirits of the discontented. 
Not a few, it appeared in the end, were no richer for all the prize money 
they had obtained than when they left Cuba ; for, as Bernal Diaz tells 
us, 'deep gaming went on day and night with cards made out of the heads 
of drums.' 

Only one source of discomfort now remained to Cortez. This was the 
continuance of the idolatrous worship of the Mexicans. This subject occu- 
pied his thoughts incessantly ; and he could not persuade himself that his 
efforts would be meritorious in the eyes of God, or even that he could hope 
for permanent success, until the false gods of the Mexicans had been shat- 
tered in pieces, and their temples converted into Christian sanctuaries. 
Not only as a devout Catholic did he abominate the existence of a false 
worship in a country over which he had control, but, as a man, as a native 
of a civilized country, he shrunk in abhorrence from the bloody and sick- 
ening rites which formed part of the religion of the Mexicans — their hu- 
man sacrifices — accompanied strangely enough, among a people so pol- 
ished and so advanced in ingenious arts, by the practice of cannibalism. 
At length Cortez announced to Montezuma that he must allow at least a 
part of the great temple to be converted into a Christian place of worship. 
Montezuma had been a priest, and the proposal was perhaps the most shock- 
ing that could have been made to him. He gave his consent, however, and 
one of the sanctuaries on the top of the temple was purified, and an altar 
and a crucifix erected in it. 

This last act filled up the measure of Mexican endurance. To see their 
monarch a prisoner, to surrender their kingdom and its treasures — these 
they could submit to ; but could they sit tamely under an insult offered to 
their gods ? Hither and thither though the city ran the priests, with hag- 
gard faces, and hair clotted with blood, stirring up the zeal of the inhab- 
itants, and denouncing woes unless the Spaniards were expelled. The cri- 
sis was imminent, and every possible precaution was used to prevent a sud- 
den surprise by the excited Mexicans. 

It was now the month of May, 1520, and the Spaniards had been six 
months in the Mexican capital. Suddenly the little army was thrown into 
consternation by intelligence of an unexpected kind received by Cortez. 

It will be remembered that, before advancing into the interior of the 
country, Cortez had dispatched a vessel to Spain with letters to the empe- 
ror, Charles V, and a quantity of treasures. Contrary to the instructions 
of Cortez, the vessel touched at Cuba on its voyage ; and a sailor escaping, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 433 

conveyed to Velasquez an account of all that had taken place in the expe- 
dition, down to the foundation of Villa Rica. The rage of Velasquez ex- 
ceeded all bounds. He wrote letters to the home government, and also to 
'the court of colonial affairs established in Hispaniola ; and not content with 
this, he instantly began to fit out a second expedition, which was to pro- 
ceed to Mexico, depose or decapitate Cortez, and seize the country for the 
Spanish sovereign in the name of the governor of Cuba. The fleet was 
larger, with one exception, than any yet fitted out for the navigation of the 
seas of the new world. It consisted of nineteen vessels, carrying upwards 
of a thousand foot soldiers, twenty cannons, eighty horsemen, a hundred 
and sixty musketeers and cross-bowmen, besides a thousand Indian ser- 
vants — a force sufficient, as it seemed, to render all resistance on the part 
of Cortez hopeless. Velasquez at first intended to command the expedition 
in person ; but, as he was too old and too unwieldy for such a laborious 
task, he intrusted it to Don Pamfilo de Narvaez, described as a man, about 
forty-two years of age, of tall stature, and large limbs, full face, red 
beard, and agreeable presence ; very sonorous and lofty in his speech, as 
if the sound came out of a vault ; a good horseman, and said to be val- 
iant.' 

The fleet anchored off the coast of Mexico, at St. Juan de Ulua, on the 
23d of April, 1520. Here Narvaez received information which astonished 
him — that Cortez was master of the Mexican capital ; that the Mexican 
emperor was his prisoner ; that the country and its treasures had been 
surrendered to the Spanish sovereign ; and that at present his rival was as 
absolute in it as if he were its monarch. This information only increased 
his anxiety to come to a collision with Cortez ; and, with singular impru- 
dence, he went about among the Indians, declaring, in a blustering manner, 
that Cortez was a rebel against his sovereign, and that he had come to 
chastise him, and to set Montezuma free. 

Narvaez's first step was to send three messengers, one of them a priest, 
to the garrison of Villa Rica, to summon them to surrender. The com- 
mandant of the garrison, appointed shortly after the death of Juan de Es- 
calante, was Gonsalvo de Sandoval, a young officer, a native of the same 
town as Cortez, and who had already won the esteem of his general and 
of the whole army by his valor and services. When the messengers of 
Narvaez, arriving at Villa Rica, presented a copy of Narvaez's commis- 
sion, and summoned the garrison to surrender, Sandoval, without any cer- 
emony, caused them to be seized, strapped to the backs of Indian porters, 
and instantly sent across the country to Mexico in charge of one or two 
soldiers, who carried a note to Cortez, informing him of what had happen- 
ed. Cortez, after thoroughly gaining them over by kind words and pres- 
ents, sent them back to sow the seeds of dissension in Narvaez's army. 
At the same time he entered into a correspondence with Narvaez, which 
led to no definite result. As there was great danger that Narvaez would 
succeed in alienating the Cempoallans from Cortez, if he were permitted 
to remain in his present position, Cortez resolved to leave Mexico with a 
part of his men, march to the sea-coast, and, if necessary, give battle to 
Narvaez. This was a perilous step ; but, in the circumstances, it was ab- 
solutely necessary. 

Leaving a garrison of a hundred and forty men in Mexico, under the 
command of Pedro de Alvarado, who appeared by far the fittest person 
28* 



434 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

for so responsible a post, Cortez set out with the rest of his force, amount- 
ing to less than two hundred soldiers, only five of whom were cavalry, and 
by rapid marches reached the Totonac territories, where he was reinforced 
by Sandoval and his small body of men. Altogether, Cortez's army did 
not amount to more than a fifth part of that of Narvaez. They were vet- 
erans in service, however, and, under such a leader as Cortez, were pre- 
pared to attempt impossibilities. Narvaez, in the meantime, was in close 
quarters at Cempoalla, aware that his rival was on his march, but little 
suspecting that he was so near. On the night of the 26th of May, 1520, 
Cortez and his brave little band, crossing with difficulty a swollen river 
which lay between them and their countrymen, advanced stealthily towards 
Narvaez's quarters, surprised the sentinels, and shouting the watchword, 
'Espiritu Santo !' dashed in among the half-awakened, half-armed foe. 
The struggle did not last long ; for Sandoval, with a small body of picked 
men, springing up the stairs of the house where Narvaez was lodged, suc- 
ceeded, after a hand to hand fight with the general and his followers, in 
making him prisoner, after he had lost an eye, and been otherwise severely 
wounded. On learning the fall of their leader, the rest yielded ; and 
when daylight came, Cortez, ' seated in an arm-chair, with a mantle of an 
orange color thrown over his shoulders, and surrounded by his officers and 
soldiers,' received the salutations and the oaths of allegiance of all the 
followers of Narvaez. In his treatment of these new friends his usual 
policy was conspicuous : he plied them with flatteries, and loaded them with 
gifts, till his own veterans began to be envious. Thus, by a single bold 
stroke, which cost him but a few men, Cortez had crushed a formidable 
enemy, and increased his own force sixfold. Fortune favors the brave ! 
His army now amounted to thirteen hundred men, exclusive of the garri- 
son he had left in Mexico ; and of these thirteen hundred nearly a hundred 
were cavalry. With such a force, he might now prosecute his designs in 
Mexico with every prospect of success, and bid defiance to all the efforts 
of the Mexicans to regain their independence. 

He was disagreeably roused from these self-congratulations by intelli- 
gence from Mexico. Some difference had occurred between Pedro de Al- 
varado and the Mexicans, in consequence of which the latter had risen en 
masse, and were besieging the Spaniards in their quarters. Without loss of 
time he commenced his march towards the capital, leaving a hundred men 
at Villa Rica. At Tlascala he was joined by two thousand of his faithful 
mountain allies ; and the whole army then pushed on for the Mexican val- 
ley, anxious to relieve Alvarado, whom the Mexicans were now trying to 
reduce by blockade. On the 24th of June they reached the great lake, 
and marched along the causeway without opposition, but amidst an ominous 
stillness. Alvarado clasped his general in his arms for joy ; and now for 
the first time Cortez learned the origin of the revolt. Alvarado, suspect- 
ing some conspiracy among the Aztec nobles, had treacherously massacred 
a number of them collected at a religious festival, and the inhabitants had 
risen to take vengeance for the injury. Cortez sharply rebuked his officer 
for his misconduct; but the evil was already done, and to punish Alvarado 
would have been attended with no good effect. Moodily and bitterly, 
therefore, Cortez expended his vexation on the unhappy Mexican monarch, 
accusing him of being concerned in the insurrection, and calling upon him 
to check it, and procure provisions for the Spaniards. Montezuma com- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 435 

plied as far as lay in his power : Cortez also used his best endeavors to 
allay the storm ; and for a while it appeared as if their efforts were suc- 
cessful. 

The calm was only temporary. The day after the arrival of Cortez, a 
soldier, who had been sent on an errand by Cortez, returned breathless 
and bloody to the Spanish quarters. He had been fallen upon by a mul- 
titude of Mexicans, who endeavored to drag him away in their canoes for 
sacrifice, and he had only escaped after a desperate struggle. The whole 
city, he said, was in arms ; the drawbridges were broken down : and they 
would soon attack the Spaniards in their strong hold. 

The news was too true. The Aztecs poured along the streets like a 
flood, approaching the square where the Spaniards were lodged, while the 
terraced roofs of all the houses in the vicinity were crowded with slingers 
and archers, ready to shower their missiles upon the besieged. And now 
commenced a struggle which lasted seven days and to which there is no 
parallel in history. Day after day the fighting was renewed, the Spaniards 
either making a sally upon the besiegers, or beating them back when they 
advanced to storm or set fire to their quarters. The only relaxation was 
at night, when the Mexicans generally drew off. The Spaniards were al- 
ways victorious ; but their losses were considerable in every action, and the 
perseverance of the Mexicans alarmed them. Instead of yielding to their 
first defeats, they seemed to act on the conviction that they must be defea- 
ted continually until the Spaniards were all slain. This resolution aston- 
ished Cortez, who till now had undervalued the courage of the Aztecs. 
His soldiers, especially those who had come into the country with Narvaez, 
heaped reproaches upon him ; although when they saw his conduct in the 
fray — the bravery with which he would spur bis horse mlc the thickest of 
the enemy, the generosity with which he would \:sk his own life to rescue 
a comrade from the hands of a crowd of Aztecs — .heir reproaches were 
lost in admiration. 

Wearied out by his incessant efforts, and perceiving the hopelessness of 
continuing a contest against so many myriads cf encinies — for recruits 
were flocking in from the neighboring country to as^t ihe- Mexicans 
against the common foe — Cortez resolved to try the eiTects ot negotiation, 
and to employ Montezuma as his intercessor. At his request, therefore, 
Montezuma, dressed in his imperial robes, appeared on a terr&ced roof, 
where he was visible to the multitude gathered in the great square. A 
silence ensued, and Montezuma was parleying with four nobles who ap- 
proached him, when suddenly a shower of stones and arrows fell on the 
spot where he was standing. The Spanish soldiers tried to interpose their 
bucklers ; but it was too late ; Montezuma fell to the ground, his head 
bleeding from the effects of a blow with a stone. He was immediately 
removed, and every means used for his recovery : nor was the wound of- 
itself dangerous. But his kingly spirit had received a wound which no 
words could heal ; he had been reviled and struck by his own subjects, 
among whom hitherto he had walked as a sacred being: he refused to 
live any longer. He tore the bandages from his head, and rejected all 
nourishment ; and in a short time the Spaniards were informed that their 
unhappy prisoner was dead. Cortez and many of the men could not re- 
frain from weeping ; and the body was surrendered to the Mexicans with 
every testimony of respect. 



436 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

The fighting was now commenced with greater fury, and prodigies of 
valor were performed by the Spaniards ; but all to no purpose. Another 
attempt was made to induce the enemy to come to terms. The only an- 
swer was the threat that they would all be sacrificed to the gods, and the 
appalling information, ' You cannot escape ; the bridges are broken down.' 
At last, as death was before their eyes, it was determined by Cortez, and 
all the officers and soldiers, to quit the city during the night as they hoped 
at that time to find the enemy less alert. 

Towards midnight, on the 1st of July 1520, they left their quarters 
secretly, most of the soldiers loading themselves with the gold which re- 
mained over and above the royal share, and proceeded as silently as possible 
towards the western causeway leading to Tlacopan, by which, as being the 
shortest of the three (two miles long), they thought it would be the easiest 
to effect a passage. In this causeway there were three drawbridges, sepa- 
rated by intervals nearly equal ; and aware that these had been destroyed 
by the Mexicans, Cortez had provided a portable bridge, made of timber, 
the carriage of which he intrusted to forty picked soldiers. The van of 
the army was led by Sandoval, with two hundred foot and a body of horse 
under his command ; the baggage, large guns and prisoners came next, 
guarded by Cortez and a band of veterans ; and the rear was brought up 
by Pedro de Alvarado and Valasquez de Leon, commanding the strength 
of the infantry. 

The night was dark and rainy. The Spaniards reached the causeway 
without being interrupted. The portable bridge was laid across the first 
moat or gap, and a great part of the army had gone over it in safety, and 
were already approaching the second gap, when, through the stillness of 
the night, there was heard the boom of the great drum from the top of 
the Mexican war temple, the rushing of myriads of pursuers along the 
causeway from behind, and the splashing of the oars of thousands of canoes 
full of warriors, which were advancing through the lake on both sides of 
the causeway. Showers of arrows fell on the rearguard as they were pas- 
sing over the portable bridge ; and the Aztecs, clambering up the sides of 
the causeway, grappled with the soldiers, and tried to drag them into the 
water. Throwing off these assailants by main strength, Alvarado and his 
men steadily and expeditiously moved on. Meanwhile the vanguard under 
Sandoval having reached the second gap, were waiting until the portable 
bridge should be brought up to enable them to cross it. Goaded with the 
arrows which were discharged upon them in clouds from the Aztec canoes, 
they grew impatient of the delay, and began to cast anxious glances back- 
ward along the causeway for the appearance of the bridge. Suddenly the 
appalling news was passed along that the bridge had stuck so fast at the 
first opening that it could not be pulled up. The weight of the men and 
heavy baggage crossing it had fastened it into the earth so firmly as to defy 
extrication. When this awful intelligence reached the vanguard, order 
and command were at an end ; uproar and confusion ensued ; and, seized 
with the instinct of self-preservation, each man tried to shift for himself. 
Flinging themselves headlong into the gap, they struggled with the Mexi- 
can warriors in the water, upsetting their canoes in their drowning agonies. 
Rank after rank followed, each trampling upon the bodies of its predeces- 
sors, and floundering among the canoes which lay between them and the 
opposite side. Sandoval and a few of the cavalry swam their horses across ; 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 437 

some of the foot also were able to reach the side of the causeway and climb 
up; but of the vanguard, the great majority were drowned, or slain, or 
carried off wounded in the Mexican canoes. Meanwhile on came the rest 
of the army; men, carriages, guns, baggage, all were swept into the trench, 
which was soon choked up by the wreck. Over this bridge of broken 
wagons, bales of cotton, and the dead bodies of their companions and ene- 
mies, Cortez and his veterans were able to reach the other side of the 
trench with less difficulty. Here, joining Sandoval and the few survivors 
of his band, they dashed along the causeway towards the third and last 
opening, regardless of the darts and arrows which the Mexicans discharged 
among them from their canoes. Reaching the third trench, they crossed it 
in the same manner as the last, but without so much loss, and were rapid- 
ly approaching the mainland, when looking back through the dim morning 
light, they saw Alvarado and his rearguard pent up on the causeway be- 
tween the second and third bridges, and almost overborne by the Mexicans 
who surounded them. Cortez, Sandoval, and a few of the horse instantly 
wheeled round to the rescue ; and recrossing the third gap, shouted their 
battle-cry, and interposed between the Spaniards and their pursuers. This 
timely succor enabled most of the infantry to escape ; and at length all 
had crossed the opening except Cortez, Sandoval, Alvarado, and a few 
others. Cortez, Sandoval, and the rest soon followed, carried through by 
their horses ; and only one man remained upon the Mexican extremity of 
the causeway. It was Pedro de Alvarado ; his horse was slain ; and he 
was standing on the brink, surrounded by enemies ready drag him off, should 
he plunge into the trench. Five or six warriors were already advancing 
from behind to seize him, when, casting one glance at the opposite edge 
where his countrymen were waiting him, he planted one end of his long 
lance among the rubbish which choked up the gap, and, rising in the air, 
cleared it at a bound. The spot where this tremendous feat was executed 
still bears the name of Alvarado 9 s Leap. 

The Mexicans now desisted from the pursuit ; and the relics of the Span- 
ish army, advancing along the remainder of the causeway, entered Tlaco- 
pan. Here they did not remain long, being anxious to place themselves 
beyond the reach of the Mexicans, and to arrive at Tlascala, the city of 
their faithful allies. They were now able to count the losses which they 
had sustained during the night. About four hundred and fifty Spaniards, 
and nearly four thousand Tlascalans, had been drowned, slain, or made 
prisoners during the passage along the causeway ; a loss which, added to 
the numbers killed in the battles within the city, reduced the army to little 
more than a fourth of what it had been when it entered Mexico ten days 
before. But the most deplorable part was the loss of all the artillery, 
firearms, and ammunition, not so much as a musket remaining among the five 
hundred who survived. Still, under this accumulation of misfortunes, his 
heart did not sink ; and his resolution was taken not to leave the country 
till he had regained his former footing in it, and annexed it as a province 
to the dominions of his sovereign. 

His first object was to reach Tlascala, where he might recruit the strength 
of his men — almost all of whom were stiff with wounds — and arrange 
his future proceedings. After many difficulties, and another great battle, 
in which he defeated the Mexicans, he reached it on the 9th of July, 1520. 
They were kindly received by the generous mountaineers, who withstood 



438 AMEK1CAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

all the solicitations of the Mexican sovereign, Cuitlahua, Montezuma's bro- 
ther and successor, that they would assist him in driving the Spaniards out 
of the country. 

It was early in autumn before Cortez left Tlascala. His intention was 
first to punish several states of Anahuac which had revolted during his 
absence in Mexico, especially the districts of Tepeaca and Cachula ; and 
then, after having reduced the whole country east of the Mexican valley, 
to return to the capital itself, and take it by storm. With a force so re- 
duced as his, without cannons or other firearms, this was an apparently 
hopeless enterprise ; but hopeless was a word of which Cortez did not know 
the meaning. Fortunately, while engaged in subduing the eastern districts 
of Anahuac, he received reinforcements which he never anticipated. Ve- 
lasquez, ignorant of the fate of the expedition which he had sent under 
Narvaez, and supposing that Cortez was by this time a prisoner in the 
hands of his rival, had despatched a ship with stores, arms, and ammuni- 
tion to the colony of Villa Rica. The vessel touched at the port ; the 
captain and his men disembarked, suspecting nothing, and were instantly 
seized by the officer of Cortez ; nor did it require much persuasion to in- 
duce the whole crew to enlist under the standard of a man of whom they 
had heard so many eulogies. A second vessel sent by Velasquze soon 
afterwards shared the same fate ; three ships sent by the governor of Ja- 
maica to prosecute discoveries, and plant colonies in central America, 
chancing also to land at Villa Rica, their crews joined the army of Cortez ; 
and lastly, a merchant vessel, loaded with provisions and all the necessa- 
ries of war, arrived at the Mexican coast, and was purchased by Cortez — 
sailors, cargo, and all. 

Having completely subjugated all Anahuac to the east of the Mexican 
valley, Cortez resolved to found a second Spanish colony in the interior of 
the country, which should form a half-way station between Villa Rica and 
the city of Mexico. The site chosen was Tepeaca, and the name given to 
the settlement was Segura de la Frontera. From this spot Cortez wrote a 
second letter to Charles V, giving an account of the expedition from the 
date of the last letter down to the foundation of Segura, and announcing 
his intention of marching immediately to reconquer Mexico. 

It was five months after the date of their expulsion from Mexico before 
the Spaniards were in a condition once more to march against it. Part of 
the necessary preparations consisted, as we have seen, in the subjugation 
of those parts of Anahuac which adjoined the Mexican valley on the east ; 
but another cause of delay was the construction of thirteen brigantines at 
Tlascala, under the direction of Martin Lopez, a skillful shipwright, who 
had accompanied Cortez. These vessels were to be taken to pieces, and 
transported, together with the iron-work and cordage belonging to the 
ships which Cortez had destroyed off Villa Rica, across the mountains to 
the great Mexican lake. At length all was ready, and on the 28th of 
December 1520 the whole army left Tlascala on its march towards Mexi- 
co. It consisted of about six hundred Spaniards, with nine cannons, and 
forty horses, accompanied by an immense multitude of native warriors, 
Tlascalans, Tepeacans, and Cholulans, amounting probably to sixteen thou- 
sand men, besides the tamanes, who were employed in transporting the 
brigantines. Garrisons had of course been left at Villa Rica and Segura. 

No opposition was offered to the invaders on their march, the Mexicans 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 439 

fleeing at their approach ; and on the 1st of January, 1521, they took pos- 
session of the city of Tezcuco. Cuitlahua, Montezuma's successor on the 
throne, was now dead, and his place was occupied by his nephew, Guate- 
mozin, yet a young man, but the most heroic and patriotic of all the Mex- 
icans. The policy of Cortez was first to subdue all the states and cities 
on the margin of the five lakes, so as to leave Mexico without protection 
or assistance, and then to direct his whole force to the final reduction of 
the capital. For four months, therefore, Cortez, Sandoval, Alvarado, and 
his other officers were employed, sometimes separately, sometimes in con- 
cert, in reconnoitering expeditions into various parts of the Mexican valley 
— from Chalco, on the banks of the southernmost, to Xaltocan, an island 
in the northernmost lake. Scarcely a day of these four months was pas- 
sed in idleness ; and it would require far more space than we can afford 
to do justice to all the engagements in which the Spaniards were victori- 
ous, or to all the feats of personal valor performed by Cortez, Alvarado, 
Olid, Sandoval, and other brave cavaliers. Passing over these, as well as 
the account of a conspiracy among his men, which the prudence and pres- 
ence of mind of Cortez enabled him to quash, and of the execution of the 
Tlascalan chief, Xicotencatl, for deserting the Spaniards, we hasten to the 
concluding scene. 

On the 10th of May, 1521, the siege commenced. Alvarado, with a 
hundred and fifty Spanish infantry, thirty cavalry, and eight thousand 
Tlascalans, took up his station at Tlacopan, so as to command the western 
causeway ; Christoval de Olid, with the same number of cavalry and In- 
dians, and a hundred and seventy-five infantry, commanded one of the 
branches of the southern causeway at Cojohuacan; and Sandoval, with a 
force nearly equal, the other branch of the same causeway at Iztapalapan. 
Cortez himself took the command of the flotilla of brigantines. For sever- 
al days the three captains conducted operations more or less successfully 
at their respective stations, one of Alvarado's services having consisted in 
destroying the pipes which supplied the Mexicans with fresh water, so 
that, during the rest of the siege, they had no other way of procuring a 
supply than by means of canoes. The brigantines, when they were 
launched, did immense service in overturning and dispersing the Mexican 
canoes, and also in protecting the flanks of the causeways on which the 
other detachments were pursuing their operations. At length, after much 
resistance on the part of the Mexicans, the two causeways, the western and 
the southern, were completely occupied by the Spaniards ; and Sandoval 
having, by Cortez's orders, made a circuit of the lake, and seized the re- 
maining causeway of Tepejeca, the city was in a state of blockade. But 
so impatient were the Spaniards of delay, that Cortez resolved on a gen- 
eral assault on the city by all the three causeways at once. Cortez was to 
advance into the city from Xoloc, Alvarado from his camp on the western 
causeway, and Sandoval from his camp on the northern, and the three de- 
tachments, uniting in the great square in the centre of the city, were to 
put the inhabitants to the sword. The plan had nearly succeeded. The 
vanguard of Cortez's party had chased the retreating Mexicans into the 
city, and were pushing their way to the great square, when the horn of 
Guatemozin was heard to sound, and the Aztecs rallying, commenced a 
furious onset. The neglect of Cortez to fill up a trench in one of the 
causeways impeded the retreat of the Spaniards in such a way as to cause 



440 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

a dreadful confusion, and it was only by efforts almost superhuman that 
they were able to regain their quarters. Their loss amounted to upwards 
of a hundred men, of whom about sixty had been taken alive. 

This triumph elated the Mexicans as much as it depressed the Spaniards 
and their allies. It was prophesied by the Mexican priests that in eight 
days all the Spaniards should be slain ; the gods, they said, had decreed it. 
This prediction, reported in the quarters of the besiegers, produced an 
extraordinary effect on the allies. They regarded the Spaniards as 
doomed men, refused to fight with them, and withdrew to a little distance 
from the lake. In this dilemma Cortez showed his wonderful presence of 
mind, by ordering a total cessation of hostilities for the period specified by 
the Mexican gods. When the eight days were passed, the allies, ashamed 
of their weakness, returned to the Spanish quarters, and the siege recom- 
menced. These eight days, however, had not been without their horrors. 
From their quarters the Spaniards could perceive their fellow-countrymen 
who had been taken prisoners by the Mexicans dragged to the top of the 
great war temple, compelled to dance round the sanctuary of the gods, 
then laid on the stone of sacrifice, their hearts torn out, and their bleeding 
bodies flung down into the square beneath. 

Famine now assisted the arms of the Spaniards ; still, with that bravery 
of endurance for which their race is remarkable, the Mexicans continued 
the defense of the city, and it was not till it had been eaten into, as it 
were, on all sides, by the Spaniards, that they ceased to fight. On the 
14th of August a murderous assault was commenced by the besiegers. It 
lasted two days; and on the evening of the second some canoes were seen 
to leave the city, and endeavor to reach the mainland. They were chased, 
and captured ; and on board of one of them was found Guatemozin, with 
his family and his principal nobles. Guatemozin's capture was the signal 
of complete defeat; and on the 16th of August, 1521, the city was sur- 
rendered to the Spaniards. The population was reduced to about forty 
thousand, and in a few days all these had disappeared, no one knew 
whither. The city was in ruins, like some huge churchyard with the 
corpses disinterred and the tombstones scattered about. 

Thus was the ancient and beautiful city of Mexico destroyed, and its 
inhabitants slain or dispersed. A monstrous act of unjustifiable aggres- 
sion had been completed. Following up this great blow, Cortez pursued 
the conquest of the country generally ; and in this, as well as in organ- 
izing it into a colony of Spain, he did not experience any serious difficulty. 
On proceeding to Spain, he was received with honor by Charles V. He 
returned to Mexico in 1530 ; and again revisiting Spain in 1540, for the 
purpose of procuring the redress of real or alleged grievances, he died in 
1547, in the sixty-third year of his age. It is very much to be lamented 
that, in the execution of his purposes of colonization, the monuments of 
Mexican civilization were everywhere destroyed, leaving nothing to future 
generations but the broken relics of palaces, temples, and other objects of 
art, scattered amidst the wilderness. Some of these ruined monuments, 
recently explored by Stephens and other travelers, show that the ancient 
Mexicans had made remarkable advances in social life as woll as in the 
arts, more particularly architecture ; and what renders all such relics the 
more interesting to the archaeologist, is the growing conviction, that the 
old Mexican civilization was of an original type — a thing noway derived 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 441 

from, or connected with, the civilization of Egypt, or any other nation in 
the eastern hemisphere. 

It is consolatory to know that the Spaniards have not succeeded in 
making Mexico a perpetual tributary of their rapacious monarchy. The 
cruelties they committed seem to have contained in themselves the ele- 
ments of retribution. After a career of indolence, oppression, and big- 
otry, extending to comparatively recent times, their yoke has been thrown 
off ; and their feeble and ignorant successors may be said to be in the 
course of coming under the thraldom of their Anglo-Saxon neighbors. It 
is difficult to compassionate the fate which appears to await the slothful 
and proud race whose ancestors laid the ancient empire of Mexico in ruins. 

WILLIAM PENN. 

William Penn, the celebrated founder of Pennsylvania, was born in 
London on the 14th of October, 1644. He was the only son of Sir 
William Penn, a naval commander of distinction, first during the Protec- 
torate of Cromwell, and afterwards in the service of Charles the II, from 
whom he received the honor of knighthood. His health having suffered 
from his active duties, Admiral Penn retired from service in 1666, 
although then only in the forty-fifth year of his age. His wife, the 
mother of William Penn, was the daughter of a merchant in Rotterdam. 

Penn received his preliminary education at Chigwell, in Essex, near his 
father's country residence. From Chigwell school he was removed, at 
twelve years of age, to a private academy in London; and having made 
great progress in all the usual branches of education, he was entered, at 
the age of fifteen years, as a gentleman commoner at Christ-church, 
Oxford. At college he is said to have been remarkable not more for his 
sedateness and attention to study, than for his extreme fondness for all 
athletic sports. His first bias, too, towards the opinions of that religious 
sect of which he became afterwards so distinguished an ornament, the 
Society of Friends, was produced at this period of his life. It was the 
effect of the preaching of one Thomas Loe, once a member of the univer- 
sity of Oxford, but who had embraced the doctrines of the Quakers, and 
was now a zealous propagator of the same. 

Serious and thoughtful from his childhood, young Penn was strongly 
impressed by the views of religious truth which Loe inculcated ; and the 
consequence was, that he and a few of his fellow-students who had been 
similarly affected, began to absent themselves from the established worship 
of the university, and to hold private meetings among themselves for 
devotional purposes. For this breach of the college rules a fine was 
imposed upon them by the authorities of the university. Neither Penn 
nor his associates were cured of their disposition to nonconformity by this 
act of severity; they still continued to hold their private meetings, and 
naturally became more zealous in their views as they saw those views pro- 
hibited and discountenanced. Their zeal soon manifested itself in an act 
of riot. An order having been sent down to Oxford by Charles II that 
the surplice should be worn by the students, as was customary in ancient 
times, Penn and his companions were so roused by what they conceived a 
return to popish observances, that, not content with disobeying the order 
themselves, they attacked those students who appeared in the obnoxious 



442 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

surplices, and tore them off their backs. So flagrant an outrage on col- 
lege discipline could not be allowed to pass without severe punishment, 
and accordingly Penn and several of his companions were expelled. As 
may be conceived, Admiral Penn was by no means pleased when his son 
returned home with the stigma attached to him of having been expelled 
from college; nor was he more satisfied when he learned the cause. Him- 
self untroubled with any such religious scruples as those which his son 
professed, he could not make any allowance for them, but, on the con- 
trary, insisted that he should give them up, and live as any young gentle- 
man of good family and loyal principles might be expected to do. The 
young man meeting his father's remonstrances with arguments in self- 
defense, the hasty old admiral turned him out of doors. 

Through his mother's intercession a reconciliation soon took place ; and 
the admiral determined, as the best means of finishing his son's educa- 
tion, and possibly of curing him of what he considered his over-religious- 
ness, to send him to spend a year or two in France. Penn accordingly 
left England in 1662, and was absent on the continent till 1664. On his 
return to England, his father was much pleased to find him so polished in 
demeanor and manners, and did not doubt but his intention in sending him 
abroad had been in a great measure fulfilled. By his advice Penn became 
a student of Lincoln's Inn, where he continued till 1666, when his father 
sent him over to Ireland to manage his pretty extensive estates in the 
county of Cork. In this commission he conducted himself entirely to his 
father's satisfaction, residing sometimes on the estates themselves, some- 
times in Dublin, where he had the advantage of mixing in the society 
attending the court of the Duke of Ormond, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, 
and his father's friend. While attending to his business in Ireland, how- 
ever, a circumstance befell him, which might have induced his father to 
have acted differently, could he have foreseen it. Being accidentally 
one day in Cork, he heard that Thomas Loe, the person whose preaching 
had so deeply affected him at Oxford, was to address a meeting of Qua- 
kers in that city. Penn could not think of losing the opportunity of again 
seeing and hearing his old friend, and accordingly he entered the place 
where Loe was to preach. He took his seat, and had waited for a few 
minutes, when the preacher rose, and commenced his sermon with the fol- 
lowing striking words : — ' There is a faith which overcometh the world ; 
and there is a faith which is overcome by the world.' The words, and the 
sermon which they introduced, seemed adapted to his own case. Had not 
his faith been one which had been overcome by the world? and was it not, 
therefore, a weak, poor, and useless thing? Such was the force of this 
reflection, strengthened as it was by intercourse with Loe, that he resolved 
from that day to devote himself to the service of religion, and to adhere 
to the sect whose principles he respected most. In short, from that time 
Penn became a professed Quaker. 

Nonconformity in religious observances was at that time somewhat dan- 
gerous. In Scotland, a religious persecution was fiercely raging; and 
although in other parts of the kingdom the spirit of bigotry on the part of 
the government did not manifest itself to the same extent, yet everywhere 
throughout Great Britain and Ireland dissenters were subject to grievous 
annoyances ; and it was in the power of any meddlesome or narrow-minded 
person to point to numerous persecuting laws existing in the statute-book, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT, 443 

and to demand that they should be put in force against them. According- 
ly, William Penn soon paid the price of his conscientiousness. Making it 
a point, ever after his meeting with Loe, to attend the religious assemblies 
of the Quakers in preference to those of the Established Church, he was 
apprehended, along with eighteen others, on the 3d of September 1667, 
and carried before the mayor of Cork, charged with transgressing the 
act against tumultuous assemblies passed seven years before. The mayor, 
perceiving Penn to be a gentlemen, offered him his liberty on condition 
that he would give security for his good behavior in future ; but Penn re- 
fused to comply with this condition, and was therefore committed to prison 
with the others. From prison he addressed a letter to the Earl of Orrery, 
then lord president of Munster, and a friend probably of Admiral Penn, 
requesting his inteference to procure the release of himself and his com- 
panions. The earl immediately ordered the release of Penn ; the others, 
it would appear, however, were permitted to remain in prison. 

Meanwhile some friend of the family, resident in Ireland, had conveyed 
to the admiral the unwelcome intelligence that his son had joined the Qua- 
kers. Without any delay the old man summoned his son home ; and their 
first interview was a stormy one. The admiral at length, finding that his 
son had become a confirmed Quaker, and losing hope of moving him further, 
only stipulated that the youth should consent to depart so far from the 
customs of his sect, as to take off his hat in the presence of the king, the 
Duke of York, and himself! After a violent struggle between filial 
affection and religious convictions, William announced that he could not 
agree even to this limited amount of hat worship, and was again turned 
out of doors. 

Thus driven out into the world, and disqualified by his previous educa- 
tion for earning his livelihood by any ordinary profession, Penn would 
have fared badly, had not his mother, without the admiral's knowledge, 
kept up a communication with him, and supplied him with money out of 
her own purse. Not long afterwards, being now in the twenty-fourth year 
of his age, he began to preach at meetings of those who, like himself, 
had embraced the tenets of the Quakers. About the same time, too, he 
commenced his career as a polemical pamphleteer — a character which he 
kept up till his dying day, having in the course of his life published an 
immense number of controversial pamphlets in defense of his sect and of 
religious liberty in general. The title of his first work, published in 
1668, was as follows : — ' Truth Exalted, in a short but sure Testimony 
against all those Religions, Faiths, and Worships, that have been formed 
and followed in the darkness of Apostacy ; and for that Glorious Light 
which is now risen, and shines forth in the Life and Doctrine of the des- 
pised Quakers, as the alone good old way of Life and Salvation.' To 
account for the somewhat bombastic appearance of this title, as well as 
for much in the conduct of William Penn and other early Quakers, which 
might otherwise seem difficult to explain, it must be mentioned that the 
early Quakers differed considerably from the modern Society of Friends 
with respect to the ideas which they entertained regarding the importance 
of their own sect. George Fox, William Penn, and the early Quakers in 
general, regarded Quakerism as a ' glorious light ' — a new dispensation, 
destined to abrogate existing forms of faith, and restore Christianity to its 
primitive purity. Hence their sanguine mode of speaking concerning 



444 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

their own mode of faith ; hence their extraordinary exertions to make pros- 
elytes ; and hence that activity, and even restlessness in society, which 
distinguished the early Quakers from their modern successors. 

William Penn was a great accession to the sect whose views he had 
adopted. Both by the publication of pamphlets and by public debates, 
he endeavored to make an impression in favor of the Quakers. One of 
his publications, a pamphlet, called ' The Sandy Foundation Shaken,' 
gave so much offense to some of the established clergy, and especially to 
the bishop of London, that Penn was apprehended, and sent as a prisoner 
to the Tower. During his imprisonment here, which lasted seven months, 
he wrote his ' No Cross, no Crown,' one of the most popular of all his 
works ; the leading idea of it being, ' that unless men are willing to lead 
a life of self-denial, and to undergo privations and hardships in the course 
of their Christian warfare ; that is, unless they are willing to bear the cross, 
they can not become capable of wearing the crown — the crown namely, of 
eternal glory.' At length Penn was discharged by an order from the 
king, who was probably moved to this act of leniency by his brother, the 
Duke of York, Admiral Penn's friend. 

The admiral by this time was disposed to be reconciled to his son, whose 
constancy to his opinions he could not help admiring, notwithstanding that 
he had no predilection for the opinions themselves. Partly to keep him 
out of harm's way, he sent him a second time on a mission of business to 
Ireland. While dutifully fulfilling the business on which he had been sent, 
Penn employed a great part of his time in Ireland in preaching and writing 
tracts in favor of Quakerism. He likewise visited many poor persons of 
his sect who were suffering imprisonment for their fidelity to their convic- 
tions ; and, by means of his representations and his influence he was able 
to procure from the lord-lieutenant the discharge of several of them. On 
his return to England he was kindly received by his father, and took up 
his abode once more in the paternal mansion. 

The spirit of intolerance had, in the meantime, become more rampant in 
the government ; and in 1670, parliament passed the famous act against 
.conventicles, by which it was attempted to crush nonconformity in England. 
The Quakers of course were visited with the full severity of the act ; and 
William Penn was one of its first victims. Proceeding one day to the 
place of meeting, which he attended in Gracechurch Street, he found the 
door guarded by a party of soldiers, who prevented him from entering. 
Others of the congregation coming up, gathered round the door, forming, 
with the chance loiterers, who were attracted by curiosity, a considerable 
crowd. Penn began to address them ; but had hardly begun his discourse 
when he and another Quaker named William Mead, who was standing near 
him, were seized by the constables, who were already provided with war- 
rants, for the purpose, signed by the lord mayor, and conveyed to Newgate, 
whence they were brought to trial at the Old Bailey sessions on the 3d of 
September, 1670. As this trial was really very important, we shall detail 
the proceedings at some length. The justices present on the bench on this 
occasion were Sir Samuel Starling, lord mayor of London ; John Howel, 
recorder ; five aldermen and three sheriffs. The jury consisted, as usual, 
of twelve men, whose names deserve to be held in honor for the noble man- 
ner in which they performed their duty. When the prisoners Penn and 
Mead entered the court they had their hats on, according to the custom of 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 445 

their sect. One of the officers of the court instantly pulled them off. On 
this the lord mayor became furious, and ordered the man to replace the 
hats on the heads of the prisoners, which was no sooner done, than the 
recorder fined them forty marks each for contempt of court in wearing their 
hats in presence of the bench. The trial then proceeded. Witnesses were 
called to prove that, on the 15th of August last, the prisoners had addressed 
a meeting of between three and four hundred persons in Gracechurch 
Street. Penn admitted that he and his friend were present on the occasion 
referred to, but contended that they had met to worship God according to 
their own conscience, and that they had a right to do so. One of the 
sheriffs here observed that they were there not for worshipping God, but 
for breaking the law. ' What law ?' asked Penn. ' The common law,' 
replied the recorder. Penn insisted on knowing what law that was ; but 
was checked by the bench, who called him ' a saucy fellow.' ' The ques- 
tion is,' said the recorder at length, ' whether you are guilty of this indict- 
ment.' ' The question,' replied Penn, ' is not whether I am guilty of this 
indictment, but whether this indictment be legal. It is too general and 
imperfect an answer to say it is the common law, unless we know where 
and what it is ; for where there is no law, there is no transgression ; and 
that law which is not in being, is so far from being common that it is no 
law at all.' Upon which the recorder retorted, ' You are an impertinent 
fellow, sir. Will you teach the court what law is ? It is lex non scripta; 
that which many have studied thirty or forty years to know, and would 
you have me tell you in a moment ?' Penn immediately answered, ' Cer- 
tainly, if the common law be so hard to be understood, it is far from being 
very common ; but if Lord Coke in his Institutes be of any consideration, 
he tells us that common law is common right, and that common right is the 
great charter privileges confirmed.' ' Sir,' interrupted the recorder, 
' you are a troublesome fellow, and it is not to the honor of the court to 
suffer you to go on.' ' I have asked but one question,' said Penn, ' and 
you have not answered me, though the rights and privileges of every Eng- 
lishman are concerned in it.' ' If,' said the recorder, ' I should suffer 
you to ask questions till to-morrow morning, you would be never the wiser.' 
' That,' replied the imperturable Penn, ' is according as the answers 
are.' After some further conversation, or rather altercation, the mayor 
and recorder became enraged. ' Take him away, take him away,' they 
cried to the officers of the court ; ' turn him into the bale dock.' This 
order was obeyed, Penn protesting as he was removed, that it was contrary 
to all law for the judge to deliver the charge to the jury in the absence of 
the prisoners. But now a second contest commenced — a contest between 
the bench and the jury. The latter, after being sent out of court to agree 
upon their verdict, unanimously returned the following one — ' Guilty of 
speaking in Gracechurch Street.' The bench refused to receive this ver- 
dict ; and after reproaching the jury, sent them back for half an hour to 
reconsider it. At the end of the half hour the court again met, and the 
prisoners having been brought in, the jury delivered precisely the same 
verdict as before, only this time they gave it in writing, with all their names 
attached. The court upon this became furious ; and the recorder address- 
ing the jury, said, ' Gentlemen, you shall not be dismissed until we have 
such a verdict as the court will accept ; and you shall be locked up without 
meat, drink, fire, and tobacco. "* r ou shall not think thus to abuse the 



446 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

court ; we will have a verdict by the help of God, or you shall starve for 
it!' On this Penn stood up and said: 'My jury, who are my judges, 
ought not to be thus menaced ; their verdict should be free, and not com- 
pelled ; the bench ought to wait upon them and not to forestall them. I 
do desire that justice may be done me, and that the arbitrary resolves of 
the bench may not be made the measure of my jury's verdict.' The court 
then adjourned, the jury, including one who complained of ill health, being 
locked up without food, fire, or drink. Next morning, on being brought 
in, they still returned the same verdict. They were violently reproached 
and threatened ; and the recorder even forgot himself so far as to say that 
' he had never till now understood the policy and prudence of the Span- 
iards in suffering the Inquisition among them ; and that certainly it would 
never be well in England till something like the Spanish Inquisition were 
established there.' The jury were again locked up without food, drink, 
tobacco, or fire, for twenty-four hours. On the third day, the natural and 
glorious effect of this brutality on the minds of Englishmen was produced. 
In place of the indirect acquittal contained in their former verdict, they 
now, with one voice, pronounced the prisoners ' Not guilty !' Upon some 
paltry legal pretense they were all fined for their contumacy, and sent to 
prison till the fine should be paid. Penn himself was shut up till he should 
pay the mulct for contempt of court. This he would not do ; but his 
father, it is thought, laid down the money for him, and he was liberated. 

Penn's father dying immediately after his liberation, left him a clear es- 
tate of £1500 a-year — a considerable property in those days. The old 
man had by this time been brought to regard his son's conduct in a more 
favorable light than he had done at first ; and one of his dying advices to him 
was, to 'suffer nothing in this world to tempt him to wrong his conscience. ' 

For twelve months after his father's death Penn proceeded as before, 
preaching habitually at meetings of persons of his own persuasion, writing 
tracts and treatises in defense of Quakerism, and on other theological and 
political topics, among which was an account of the recent trial of himself 
and Mead, and engaging also in oral controversy with several dissenting 
preachers who had inveighed against the Quakers from their pulpits. 
His activity soon brought him into fresh trouble. Towards the end of the 
year 1671, he was again apprehended on the charge of preaching to an 
illegal assembly, and brought before Sir John Robinson, lieutenant of the 
Tower, who was one of his judges on the former trial. Sir Samuel Star- 
ling was also present. Unable to convict the prisoner on the conventicle 
act, Sir John, who was resolved not to let him escape, adopted another 
plan, and required him to take the oath of allegiance to the king, well 
knowing that, as it was contrary to the principles of the Quakers to take 
an oath at all, he would refuse, and thereby subject himself to imprison- 
ment. 'I vow, Mr. Penn,' said Sir John Robinson, on his refusal, 'I am 
sorry for you. You are an ingenious gentleman ; all the world must al- 
low you, and do allow you that ; and you have a plentiful estate ; why 
should you render yourself unhappy by associating with such a simple peo- 
ple ?' 'I confess,' said Penn in reply, 'I have made it my choice to relin- 
quish the company of those that are ingeniously wicked, to converse with 
those that are more honestly simple.' 'I wish you wiser ! ' said Sir John. 
'And I wish thee better ! ' replied Penn. ' You have been as bad 
as other folks,' observed the judge ? ' When and where ? ' cried Penn, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 447 

his blood rising at this accusation of hypocrisy. 'I charge thee to tell the com- 
pany to my face.' 'Abroad and at home too,' said Sir John. Penn, in- 
dignant at this ungenerous taunt, exclaimed, ' I make this bold challenge 
to all men, women, and children upon earth, justly to accuse me 'with hav- 
ing seen me drunk, heard me swear, or speak one obscene word, much less 
that I ever made it a practice. I speak this to God's glory, who has ever 
preserved me from the power of these pollutions.' Then turning to his 
calumniator, and forgetting for a moment his wonted meekness, 'Thy 
words,' said he, 'shall be thy burden, and I trample thy slander as dirt 
under my feet ! ' 

The result of the trial was, that Penn was committed to Newgate for six 
months. In prison he composed and published several new works, all con- 
nected with the subject of religious toleration, especially as it concerned 
his own sect. On his release, he made a tour through Holland and Ger- 
many, apparently for the purpose of disseminating the doctrines of Qua- 
kerism ; but few particulars are known respecting this tour. On his return 
to England in 1673, being now in the twenty-eighth year of his age, 
he contracted a marriage with Gulielma Maria, daughter of Sir William 
Springett, of Darling, in Sussex, and a lady of great beauty and accom- 
plishments. After their marriage, they took up their residence at Rick- 
mansworth, Hertfordshire, where his wealth would have enabled Penn, 
had he so chosen, to lead the life of an influential country gentleman. 
Nothing, however, could cool the enthusiasm of Penn in behalf of what he 
esteemed a great and glorious cause ; and for three or four years after 
his marriage, he was incessantly occupied in the composition of controver- 
sial pamphlets, defending the Quakers against the attacks and misrepre- 
sentations of other sects, and in traveling from place to place for the pur- 
pose either of preaching, or of conducting a debate with an antagonist. 
Early in 1677, he removed his residence from Rickmans worth, in Herts, 
to Worminghurst, in Sussex. In the same year, in company with the cel- 
ebrated George Fox and Robert Barclay, he made a second religious tour 
through Holland and Germany, visiting, among others, the Princess Eliza- 
beth of the Rhine, daughter of the king of Bohemia, and granddaughter of 
James I of England, who had shown considerable interest in the doctrines 
of the Quakers, and who received him very graciously. On his return to 
England, we find him engaged in a remonstrance to parliament in behalf of 
the Quakers, which deserves some notice. At that time, as the readers of 
history well know, a strong feeling prevailed throughout the nation against 
the Roman Catholics, who were suspected of innumerable plots and conspi- 
racies against the church and state, which, for the most part, had no exist- 
ence except in the fancies of the most bigoted portion of the Protestants. 
The feelings against the Catholics became so high, that all the existing 
laws against them were rigorously put in force, and much persecution was 
the consequence — twenty pounds a-month being the penalty of absence 
from the established worship of the country. 

In order, however, to distinguish between the Roman Catholics and 
other dissenters, so that the former alone might suffer, it was proposed in 
parliament that a test should be offered, whereby, on taking a particular 
oath, a suspected party might escape. This of course was quite a suffi- 
cient method for dissenters in general, wiio had no objection to take the 
required oath ; but for Quakers, who objected to oaths altogether, the plan 



448 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

was of no advantage. On refusing to take the oath, they would be liable 
to be treated as Jesuits, or Roman Catholics in disguise. On this point 
William Penn presented a petition to the House of Commons, in which he 
prayed that, with regard to the clause for discriminating between Roman 
Catholics and others, the mere word of a Quaker should be deemed equiv- 
alent to an oath ; with this addition, however, that if any Quaker should 
be found uttering a falsehood on the occasion, he should be subject to exact- 
ly the same punishment as if he had sworn falsely. Being admitted to a 
hearing before a committee of the House of Commons, he spoke in support 
of his petition, insisting that it was hard that the Quakers ' must bear the 
stripes of another interest, and be their proxy in punishment.' t But 
mark,' he continued, in words which did him and his sect much honor, when 
contrasted with the general intolerance of those times, ' I would not be 
mistaken. I am far from thinking it fit, because I exclaim against the in- 
justice of whipping Quakers for Papists, that Papists should be whipped 
for their consciences. No : for though the hand pretended to be lifted up 
against them hath lighted heavily upon us, yet we do not mean that any 
should take a fresh aim at them, or that they should come in our room ; 
for we must give the liberty we ask, and cannot be false to our principles, 
though it were to relieve ourselves ; for we have good will to all men, and 
would have none suffer for a truly sober and conscientious dissent on any 
hand. And I humbly take leave to add, that those methods against per- 
sons so qualified do not seem to me to be convincing, or indeed adequate, 
to the reason of mankind ; but this I submit to your consideration.' The 
effect of Penn's representations was such, that a clause for the relief of 
Quakers was actually introduced into the bill then before the House : the 
prorogation of parliament, however, put a stop to the progress of the 
bill. 

Passing over Penn's further exertions, both by speech and writing, in 
the cause of Quakerism and of religious toleration in England, as an ac- 
count of these would not possess much interest now, we come to the most 
important event in his life — namely the foundation of the North American 
colony of Pennsylvania. 

PENN LED TO TAKE AN INTEREST IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES— OBTAINS 
A GRANT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

After various unsuccessful attemps, two English colonies had been plan- 
ted on the eastern coast of North America in the early part of the seven- 
teenth century. The more southern of the two was called Virginia, and 
was colonized principally by mercantile adventurers ; the more northern 
was called New England, and was colonized principally by Puritans, who, 
driven by persecution from the mother country, had crossed the Atlantic 
in order to enjoy liberty of conscience in a new country of their own found- 
ing. From the year 1620, a constant stream of emigrants from Great 
Britain had been pouring into these colonies ; so that, towards the latter 
part of the century, the coast on both sides of the Potomac river was 
overspread by a British population — those on the north side of the river 
calling themselves New Englanders, and those on the south side Virgin- 
ians. The manner in which the colonization was carried on was as fol- 
lows : — The king granted to some nobleman, or to some mercantile com- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 449 

pany, a certain territory roughly marked out ; this nobleman or company 
again either sold the property in lots to intending emigrants, or themselves 
organized an emigration on a large scale, and superintended the foundation 
of a colony on the territory in question. It is evident, therefore, that the 
purchase and sale of lands in America had become, in the reign of Charles 
II, a favorite branch of speculation ; some parties buying portions of 
land with an actual view to settle in the new world, or at least to possess 
property in it, others buying with the mere intention of selling again. 
Now, it so happened that, in the year 1664, the Duke of York, afterwards 
James II, who had obtained from his brother Charles II a grant of a great 
part of the New England coast, conveyed over a portion of it, under the 
name of New Jersey, to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. Lord 
Berkeley again disposed of his half share to two members of the Society 
of Friends — John Fenwick and Edward Byllinge. It appears that some 
dispute arose between these two individuals respecting their shares in the 
land which they had purchased ; for, in the year 1775, we find William 
Penn, who seems to have been a friend of both, acting as arbitrator be- 
tween them, and endeavoring to persuade Fenwick to yield, and, for the 
credit of the body to which he belonged, not to carry the dispute to a 
court of law. His remonstrances were effectual ; the difference between 
Fenwick and Byllinge was adjusted, and the former emigrated to New 
Jersey, apparently in the mere capacity of superintendent for Byllinge, 
while Byllinge himself remained at home. 

This was Penn's first connexion with the American colonies ; a connex- 
ion, it will be observed, quite casual, but which was followed by important 
consequences. Byllinge becoming involved in pecuniary difficulties, con- 
veyed over his property in New Jersey to his creditors, prevailing upon 
William Penn to act as trustee, along with two of the creditors, for the 
judicious application of the property to the purpose of discharging his 
debts. Penn entered on the business with much alacrity ; and after con- 
cluding an arrangement with Sir George Carteret, by which the boundaries 
of his and Byllinge's share of New Jersey were defined — the former un- 
der the name of East New Jersey and the latter under that of West New 
Jersey — he prepared to turn his position, as Byllinge's trustee for West 
New Jersey, to the best account. The property having been divided into 
a hundred lots, Fenwick, Byllinge's agent, was paid off with ten of these, 
and the remaining ninety were to be applied for the behoof of the credit- 
ors. All that was necessary now was to invite promising emigrants to settle 
in these lands ; and with this view Penn drew up a constitution, consisting 
of a number of articles of mutual agreement which the purchasers of the 
lands were to sign, and which were characterised by his own spirit of liber- 
ality and toleration. At the same time in order that no one might embark 
in the undertaking without a full knowledge of the condition of the country 
he was going to, and the difficulties which he must encounter, he and his 
colleagues published ' A description of West New Jersey,' embracing all 
the information they had it in their power to give. In consequence of these 
representations, about eight hundred respectable settlers, most of them 
Quakers, embarked for New Jersey in the beginning of 1678. 

Once led to take an interest in the American colonies, nothing was more 
natural for William Penn, situated as he was, a member of a persecuted 
sect, who had all his life been struggling ineffectually for the attainment 
29* 



450 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

for himself and his fellows of some measure of religious liberty, than to 
conceive the project of heading an emigration on a large scale, to consist 
of Quakers and other dissenters. Might he not be the instrument of foun- 
ding a new state, which, constructed upon better and sounder principles 
than those which regulated the old state of Europe, would one day become 
great and flourish ? Or even supposing that so noble a prospect were never 
to be realized, would it not in itself be a good and philanthropic action, to 
remove some hundreds of families from a land where they were suffering 
continual wrong for conscience sake, and plant them in a land where, sup- 
porting themselves by the sweat of their brow, they might still eat their 
bread in peace, and bless God the giver ? Such were the thoughts that 
recurred again and again to the mind of William Penn, as instance after 
instance of persecution presented itself to his view. Intelligence which 
he received of the prosperity cf the colonists, whom, in his capacity as 
trustee for Byllinge, he had been instrumental in sending out to New Jer- 
sey, confirmed him in the notion which he was indulging ; and at length 
he formed the decided resolution to head an extensive scheme of emigration 
on his own account. 

Fortunately the execution of this project was facilitated b} r a claim which 
Penn had upon government. His father, Admiral Penn, had at different 
times advanced sums of money to the needy and dissolute government of 
Charles II, which, together with arrears of pay, amounted to XI 6, 000 ; 
and as his father's heir Penn was of course entitled to the payment of this 
debt. In lieu of the money, Penn proposed that government should make 
him a grant of a tract of country in New England, yet uncolonised — the 
tract, namely, lying to the north of Maryland, bounded on the east by the 
Delaware river, extending as far to the west as Maryland, and as far to 
the north as was plantable. He had no doubt been led to fix on this terri- 
tory by favorable accounts which he had received of its resources. When 
the application was made to government, considerable opposition was offered 
to Perm's proposal, on the ground that he was a Quaker. At length, how- 
ever, on the 4th of March, 1681, a royal charter was granted, constituting 
Penn full and absolute proprietor, under the British crown, of all the land 
which he had petitioned for. The rights with which this charter invested 
him were most ample. ' The use, ' says his biographer, Mr. Clarkson, ' of 
all ports, bays, rivers, and waters in the specified territory, of their pro- 
duce, and of all islands, mountains, soils, and mines there, was wholly 
granted to him. He was to hold the territory in free and common soccage 
by fealty only, paying two beaver skins annually, and a fifth of all the gold 
and silver discovered, to the king. He had the power of making laws, 
with the advice, assent, and approbation of the free men of the territory 
assembled for the raising of money for public uses ; of appointing judges 
and other officers ; and of pardoning and reprieving, except in cases of 
willful murder and high treason. He had the power of dividing the pro- 
vince into towns, hundreds, and counties; of erecting and incorporating 
towns into burghs, and burghs into cities; of selling or alienating any part 
or parts of the said province, in which case the purchasers were to hold by 
his grant ; of constituting fairs and markets ; and of making ports, harbors, 
and quays. He had the power of assessing, reasonably, and with the ad- 
vice of the free men assembled, customs on goods laden and unladen, and 
of enjoying the same, saving only to the king such impositions as were and 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 451 

should be appointed by act of parliament. In the case of incursion by 
neighboring barbarous nations, or by pirates or robbers, he had power to 
levy, muster, and train to arms all men in the said province, and to act as 
their captain-general, and to make war upon and pursue the same.' To 
these general provisions were added many regulations in detail, the whole 
charter amounting to one of the most full and absolute ever granted to a 
subject. With regard to the name of the new territory, Penn proposed at 
first that it should be called New Wales, by way of companionship, it may 
be supposed, to New England. Objections however, being taken to this 
name, he proposed Sylvania, as one which the woody nature of the country 
rendered suitable ; and ultimately this name was adopted, with the prefix 
of the word Penn, in honor of William Perm's father, for whom both the 
king and the Duke of York had a great regard. Penn was anxious to 
have this prefix struck out, as apparently too assuming ; and he actually 
made application for that purpose : the king, however, insisted that the 
name Pennsylvania should remain, as accordingly it did. 

Penn immediately took steps for the colonization of his newly acquired 
territory. He first published a paper giving ' Some Account of the Pro- 
vince of Pennsylvania in America, lately granted under the Great Seal of 
England to William Penn ; ' and to this paper he annexed a statement of the 
terms on which he intended to sell his land to emigrants. According to 
this statement, he was to sell a hundred acres for forty shillings, reserving, 
for legal reasons, a perpetual quit-rent of one shilling for every hundred 
acres. He next published a list of those conditions as to the future man- 
agement of the colony on which he was willing to part with his land to 
purchasers. The most prominent of these conditions related to the manner 
in which he wished the native Indians to be treated by those who settled 
in the new territory. With a degree of humanity rare in that age, though 
quite in consonance with his own noble character, he forewarned all his 
adherents that he was determined to put the native Indians on a level with 
the colonists as regarded civic rights, and that all differences between the 
two parties should be settled by an equal number of referees from both 
sides. 

As it was deemed necessary, moreover, that intending settlers should 
have some previous idea of the form of government to be adopted in the 
new colony, Penn drew up a rough outline of such a constitution as he 
wished to be established, and as he had no doubt would meet the approba- 
tion of all likely to be interested. This constitution embraced twenty-four 
articles, of which the first, named by Penn the Great Fundamental, was 
as follows: — 'In reverence to God, the father of light and spirits, the au- 
thor as well as object of all divine knowledge, faith, and worship, I do for 
me and mine, declare and establish for the first fundamental of the govern- 
ment of my province, that every person that doth and shall reside therein 
shall have and enjoy the free profession of his or her faith and exercise of 
worship toward God, in such a way and manner as every such person in 
conscience shall believe is most acceptable to God. ' 

All the necessary preparations having been made, three ships full of 
emigrants set sail for Pennsylvania in the end of 1681. The superinten- 
dence of this first detachment was intrusted by Penn to his relative, Colo- 
nel Markham, assisted by commissioners. These were instructed to open 
up a communication with the natives, and to make all possible arrangements 



452 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

for the establishment of a peaceful relation between them and the future 
colony. With this view they carried a letter, writen in Penn's own hand, 
and addressed to the Indians ; of which remarkable document the follow- 
ing is a copy : — ' There is a great God and Power which hath made the 
world and all things therein, to whom you and I, and all people, owe their 
being and well-being, and to whom you and I must one day give an account 
for all that we have done in the world. This great God hath written his law 
in our hearts, by which we are taught and commanded to love, and to help, 
and to do good to one another. Now this great God hath been pleased to 
make me concerned in your part of the world ; and the king of the coun- 
try where I live hath given me a great province therein. But I desire to 
enjoy it with your love and consent, that we may always live together as 
neighbors and friends ; else what would the great God do to us ; who hath 
made us, not to devour and destroy one another, but to live soberly and 
kindly together in the world ? Now, I would have you well observe that 
I am very sensible of the unkindness and injustice which have been too 
much exercised toward you by the people of these parts of the world, who 
have sought to make great advantages by you, rather than to be examples of 
goodness and patience unto you. This, I hear, hath been a matter of trouble 
to you, and caused much grudging and animosities, sometimes to the shedding 
of blood, which hath made the great God angry. But I am not such a man, 
as is well known in my own country. I have great love and regard toward 
you, and desire to win and gain your love and friendship by a kind, just, 
and peaceable life ; and the people I send are of the same mind, and shall 
in all things behave themselves accordingly ; and if in anything any shall 
offend you or your people, you shall have a full and speedy satisfaction for 
the same, by an equal number of just men on both sides, that by no means you 
may have just occasion of being offended against them. I shall shortly 
come to see you myself, at which time we may more largely and freely con- 
fer and discourse of these matters. In the meantime, I have sent my com- 
missioners to treat with you about land, and a firm league of peace. Let 
me desire you to be kind to them and to the people ; and receive the pres- 
ents and tokens which I have sent you, as a testimony of my good-will to 
you, and of my resolution to live justly, peaceably, and friendly with you. 
I am your loving friend, William Penn.' 

Penn was busy making preparations to follow the settlers, whom he had 
already despatched, when he was afflicted by the death of his mother, for 
whom he had ever manifested the greatest affection. Shortly after this 
melancholy event, he published in full the constitution to which we have 
already alluded, under the title, ' The Frame of Government of the Prov- 
ince of Pennsylvania, in America, together with certain Laws agreed upon 
in England by the Governor and divers Freemen of the aforesaid Province, 
to be further explained and confirmed there by the first Provincial Council 
that shall be held.' After stating in the preface that he ' does not find a 
model of government in the world that time, place, and some singular 
emergencies have not necessarily altered, and that it is not easy to frame 
a civil government that shall serve all places alike,' he proceeds to detail 
the arrangements which, after due deliberation and consultation, he conclu- 
ded to be advisable in the meantime. The following is the summary of 
these arrangements, given by Penn's biographer, Mr. Clarkson : — ' The 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 453 

government,' he says, ' was placed in the governor and freemen of the 
province, out of whom were to be formed two bodies ; namely, a Provincial 
Council, and a General Assembly. These were to be chosen by the free- 
men ; and, though the governor or his deputy was to be perpetual president, 
he was to have but a treble vote. The provincial council was to consist of 
seventy-two members. One-third part — that is, twenty-four of them — 
were to serve for three years ; one-third for two ; and the other third for 
only one year. It was the office of this council to prepare and propose 
bills ; to see that the laws were executed ; to take care of the peace and 
safety of the province ; to settle the situation of ports, cities, market-towns, 
roads, and other public places ; to inspect the public treasury ; to erect 
courts of justice, institute schools, and reward the authors of useful dis- 
coveries. Not less than two-thirds of these were necessary to make a 
quorum ; and the consent of not less than two-thirds of such a quorum was 
required in all matters of moment. The general assembly was to consist, 
the first year, of all the freemen ; and the next of two hundred. These 
were to be increased afterwards according to the increase of the population 
of the province. They were to have no deliberative power ; but when bills 
were brought to them from the governor and provincial council, they were 
to pass or reject them by a plain " Yes " or " No." They were to present 
sheriffs and justices of the peace to the governor ; of the number presented 
by them, he was to select half. They were to be elected annually. All 
elections of members, whether to the provincial council or to the general 
assembly, were to be by ballot. This charter, or frame of government, 
was not to be altered, changed, or diminished in any part or clause of it, 
without the consent of the governor, or his heirs or assigns, and six parts 
out of seven of the freemen both in the provincial council and general as- 
sembly.' 

Another precaution which Penn took before departing for America de 
serves to be noticed. To prevent any future dispute between himself or 
his heirs, and the Duke of York and his heirs, with regard to the propri- 
etorship of Pennsylvania, he procured from his royal highness a written 
surrender of all his claims, real or supposed, to the lands in question. 
Not only so ; but being aware, also, that, adjoining the district which had 
been granted him by royal charter, there was a tract of land called ' the 
Territories,' already inhabited by Swedes and Dutch, and belonging to 
the Duke of York, the possession of which would, he conceived, be advan- 
tageous to the infant colony of Pennsylvania, he made application to the 
duke with a view to obtain it. The duke willingly agreed ; and by a deed 
of feoffment, dated August 24, 1682, the Territories were formally made 
over to William Penn and his successors. 

Nothing remained now but to take leave of his wife and children before 
embarking on an undertaking then more hazardous than, with our present 
notions of America and its distance from England, we can well conceive. 
This he did in a letter of counsel addressed jointly to his wife and children, 
some passages of which are so impressive and honorable to the writer, that 
we cannot refrain from giving a brief specimen : — ' My dear wife — Re- 
member thou wast the love of my youth, and much the joy of my life — 
the most beloved as well as most worthy of all my earthly comforts ; and 
the reason of that love was more thy inward than thy outward excellencies, 
which yet were many. God knows, and thou knowest it, I can say it was 



454 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

a match of Providence's making ; and God's image in us both was the first 
thing, and the most amiable and engaging ornament in our eves. Now I 
am to leave thee, and that without knowing whether I shall ever see thee 
more in this world, take my counsel into thy bosom, and let it dwell with 
thee in my stead while thou livest.' He next addresses himself to his chil 
dren. ' Be obedient to your dear mother, a woman whose virtue and good 
name is an honor to you ; for she hath been exceeded by none in her time 
for her integrity, humanity, virtue, and good understanding — qualities 
not usual among women of her worldly condition and quality. Therefore 
honor and obey her, my dear children, as your mother, and your father's 
love and delight ; nay, love her too, for she loved your father with a deep 
and upright love, choosing him before all her many suitors. And though 
she be of a delicate constitution and noble spirit, yet she descended to the 
utmost tenderness and care for you, performing the painfullest acts of 
service to you in your infancy as a mother and a nurse too. I charge you, 
before the Lord, honor and obey, love and cherish, your dear mother.' 

On the 1st of September, 1682, the ship Welcome, of three hundred 
tons burthen, set sail from Deal with William Penn and about a hundred 
other emigrants, mostly Quakers, onboard. She had not sailed many days 
when the small-pox broke out in the ship, and raged so violently, that about 
thirty of the passengers died. The rest arrived safely at their destination 
after a voyage of six weeks, the Welcome anchoring in the Delaware river 
about the middle of October. 

The territory of Pennsylvania which William Penn had selected in North 
America possessed natural advantages of no ordinary kind. ' It may be 
doubted,' says one authority, ' whether a more widely-diversified region 
exists upon the face of the earth, or one of similar area in which the vege- 
table and mineral productions are more numerous.' Scarcely any part is 
level ; the country is a perpetual alternation of hill and valley. Watered 
by many large rivers, as the Delaware, the Susquehanna, the Schuylkill, 
the Alleghany, the Ohio, etc., as well as by innumerable rivulets, it seemed 
a most inviting country for emigrants. A general perception of these ad- 
vantages had no doubt actuated Penn in his choice of this particular region. 
At the time, however, when he made the choice, all was wild and unculti- 
vated — a tract, for the most part, of jungly forest-land, traversed in silence 
by idle streams. ' At the beginning of the year 1681,' says the author of 
an American history of Philadelphia, ' the tract of ground upon which Phil- 
adelphia now stands was covered with forests ; and men and beasts had a 
pretty equal right to it. Tradition has preserved the anecdote, that, in the 
year 1678, a ship called the Shields of Stockton, the first that had ever 
ventured so high up the Delaware, approached so close to the shore in tack- 
ing as to run her bowsprit among the trees which then lined the bank, and 
the passengers on board, who were bound for Burlington, remarked upon 
it as an advantageous site for a town. Little could they foresee the city 
that was to be erected on that spot, or the contrast between its growth and 
that of the still humble village for which they were destined.' 

Sailing up the Delaware, Penn first reached the Territories, already 
mentioned as having been ceded to him by the duke of York, and as be- 
ing inhabited by Dutch and Swedes. These people, now Penn's subjects, 
and who had been prepared for his comingby Colonel Markham, were ready 
to give him a hearty welcome. About three thousand of them were asscm 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 455 

bled at Newcastle, where he first landed, a little below the site of the pres- 
ent Philadelphia. Here there was a magistracy and a courthouse, in which 
Penn, after formally taking possession of the country, delivered an address, 
assuring the inhabitants of his intentions to govern them in a spirit of kind- 
ness and regard for their interests. From Newcastle, Penn proceeded to 
New York, that he might form a better idea of affairs as they stood in a 
part of the country already colonized. Returning to Newcastle, he sum- 
moned a general assembly of the settlers, at a place called Upland, but to 
which he then gave the name of Chester. When the general assembly 
met, it consisted of free settlers indiscriminately from the province and 
from the territories : all such as chose to take part in the proceedings at 
this first assembly being, in terms of one of the articles of the constitution, 
at liberty to do so. A speaker having been chosen, one of the first acts of 
the assembly was to pass an act uniting the territories and the province, 
and naturalizing Swedes, Dutch, and all foreigners within the boundaries 
of the entire region. The laws drawn up by Penn in England Avere then 
confirmed, with some modifications and additions. Among these additions 
the following deserve notice : — ' All children of the age of twelve were to 
be taught some useful trade or handicraft, to the end that none might be 
idle in the province. All pleadings, processes, and records in courts of 
law were to be as short as possible. All fees of law were to be moderate, 
and to be hung up on tables in the courts. All persons wrongfully impris- 
oned or prosecuted were to have double damages against the informer or 
prosecutor. All fines were to be moderate. With respect to the criminal 
part of these laws, one new principle was introduced. William Penn was 
of opinion, that though the deterring others from offenses must continue to 
be the great end of punishment, yet in a community professing itself Christr- 
ian, the reformation of the offender was to be inseparably connected with 
it. Hence he made but two capital offenses — murder, and treason against 
the state ; and hence also all prisons were to be considered as workshops, 
where the offenders might be industriously, soberly, and morally employed. 
Thus all was begun fairly ; the settlers, most of them sensible and religious 
men, who had experienced the effects of intolerant and bad government, 
manifesting a laudable desire to lay down at the outset liberal and gener- 
ous principles for the government in all time coming of the colony which 
they would have the responsibility of founding. 

In the opinion of Penn, something was still wanting before he could 
proceed another step in the colonization of Pennsylvania. The greater 
number of his cotemporaries, to whom lands were ceded in these regions 
by the government at home, held that they had by that cession acquired 
all the necessary rights, and that no other parties were entitled to a voice 
in the matter. Not so, thought William Penn. We have s^en how he 
had instructed his commissioners to open up the way to a friendly com- 
munication with the native Indians, and how he had sent a letter to the 
latter, expressing his wish to ' enjoy the lands with their love and consent.' 

His commissioners had obeyed his instructions, and had made a bargain 
with the natives before his arrival. In order publicly to ratify this bar- 
gain in person, Penn, shortly after his arrival, made arrangements for meet- 
ing the chief men of the Indians, who were still numerous in the region. 
A grand convocation, accordingly, of the Indians and settlers, the latter 
headed by Penn, was held near the site of the present city of Philadel- 



456 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

phia, under the spreading boughs of a prodigious elm tree. The natives 
came to the place of meeting in great numbers, and all armed; Penn came, 
with his friends, unarmed. The only mark of distinction which the lead- 
er of the settlers presented, was a sash of blue silk network, and the 
parchment-roll which he held in his hand, and which contained the condi- 
tions of the treaty. The Indians, on his approach, threw down their arms, 
and seated themselves on the ground ; on which their chiefs — one of whom, 
as being the principal, wore a chaplet with a small horn attached, the prim- 
itive symbol of power — announced to Penn that they were ready to hear 
him. Tradition has preserved the main points in Penn's address on this 
memorable occasion. He began, ' The Great Spirit, who made him and 
them, who ruled the heaven and the earth, and who knew the innermost 
thoughts of man, knew that he and his friends had a hearty desire to live 
in peace and friendship with them, and to serve them to the utmost of their 
power. It was not their custom to use hostile weapons against their fel- 
low-creatures, for which reason they had come unarmed. Their object was 
not to do injury, and thus provoke the Great Spirit, but to do good. They 
were then met on the broad pathway of good faith and good will, so that 
no advantage was to be taken on either side, but all was to be openness, 
brotherhood, and love.' After these and other words, he unrolled the 
parchment, and by means of the same interpreter, conveyed to them, ar- 
ticle by article, the conditions of the purchase, and the words of the com- 
pact then made for their eternal union. ' Among other things, ' says Mr. 
Clarkson, 'they were not to be molested in their lawful pursuits, even in 
the territory they had alienated, for it was to be common to them and the 
English. They were to have the same liberty to do all things therein re- 
lating to the improvement of their grounds, and providing sustenance for 
their families, which the English had. If any disputes should arise be- 
tween the two, they should be settled by twelve persons, half of whom 
should be English, and half Indians. He then paid them for the land, 
and made them many presents besides from the merchandise which had 
been spread before them. Having done this, he laid the roll of parchment 
on the ground, observing again that the ground should be common to both 
people. He then added that he would not do as the Marylanders did — 
that is, call them children or brothers only, for often parents were apt to 
whip their children too severely, and brothers sometimes would differ ; nei 
ther would he compare the friendship between them and him to a chain, 
for the rain might sometimes rust it, or a tree might fall and break it ; but 
he should consider them as the same flesh and blood as the Christians 
and the same as if one man's body were to be divided into two parts. 

He then took up the parchment and presented it to the sachem who 
wore the horn in the chaplet, and desired him and the other sachems to 
preserve it carefully for three generations, that their children might know 
what had passed between them, just as if he had remained with them to 
repeat it.' 

The Indian chiefs answered in lengthened speeches, and pledged them- 
selves ' to live in love with William Penn and his children so long as sun 
and moon should endure.' The treaty was concluded — a treaty of which 
it has been remarked with truthful severity, that it was the only one con- 
cluded between savages and Christians that was not ratified by oaths, and 
the only one that never was broken ! The great elm-tree under whose 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 457 

boughs it was concluded stood for a hundred and thirty years after, an 
object of veneration to the people around. 

The purchase of Pennsylvania from the Indians having been concluded, 
and the land in a great measure surveyed by a person who had been 
brought out for the purpose, Penn, who had already established his own 
residence on an island in the Delaware, a few miles below the falls of 
Trenton, opposite the site of the present Burlington, and to which he had 
given the name of Pennsburg, next turned his attention to the foundation 
of a town in some advantageous locality. After mature deliberation, a 
place, called by the Indians Coaquannoc, was chosen as the site. It was 
the very spot which had struck the passengers on board the South Shields 
of Stockton, on their way to Burlington, as so well adapted for a city. 
A neck of land situated between two navigable rivers, the Delaware and 
the Schuylkill, with quarries of good building stone in the immediate 
neighborhood, the place seemed to be marked out by nature for the pur- 
pose. Accordingly, previous to Penn's arrival, some of the settlers whom 
he had sent out had taken up their habitations on the spot, erecting bark 
huts, the art of constructing which they were taught by the Indians ; or 
digging caves, which they fitted up so as to afford tolerable accommoda- 
tion, in the high bank overhanging the Delaware. 

The site of the city having been determined on, the surveyor, Thomas 
Holmes, drew up, under Penn's direction, a map or plan according to which 
the streets were to be laid out. 'According to this plan,' says Mr. 
Clarkson, ' there were to be two large streets, the one fronting the Dela- 
ware on the east, and the other the Schuylkill on the west, of a mile in 
length. A third, to be called High street, of one hundred feet broad, was 
to run directly through the middle of the city, so as to communicate with 
the streets now mentioned, at right angles — that is, it was to run through 
the middle from river to river, or from east to west. A fourth, of the 
same breadth, to be called Broad street, was to run through the middle 
also, but to intersect High street at right angles, or to run from north to 
south. Eight streets, fifty feet wide, were to be built parallel to High 
street — that is, from river to river ; and twenty of the like width, parallel 
to Broad street, crossing the former. The streets running from north to 
south were to be named according to their numerical order — First street, 
Second street, Third street, and so on; and those from east to west 
according to the woods of the country — as Vine street, Spruce street, 
Sassafras street, Cedar street, and so on. There was to be, however, a 
square of ten acres in the middle of the city, each corner of which was to 
be reserved for public offices. There was to be also, in each quarter of it 
a square of eight acres, to be used by the citizens in like manner as Moor- 
fields in London.' To the ' distractingly regular city,' as Mr. Dickens 
calls it, thus mapped out, but not one house of which had yet been built, 
he gave the name of Philadelphia, in token of the principle of brotherly 
love on which it was founded — brotherly love among English, Swedes, 
Dutch, Indians, and men of all languages and nations. 

The work of building commenced apace. Within a few months of Penn's 
arrival, as many as twenty-three ships, loaded with emigrants from Somer- 
setshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Wales and Ireland, sailed up the Dela- 
ware, and anchored off the site of the new town. Most of the emigrants 
they brought to the settlement were men such as Penn wished to see in his 



458 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

colony, sober and industrious persons, who had left Great Britain in order 
that they might lead a quiet and peaceable life, undisturbed by persecu- 
tion. A number of them brought out with them a variety of implements 
and pieces of machinery, which were of great use in the infant state of 
the colony. Accommodated first in temporary huts, or the caves before - 
mentioned, on the banks of the Delaware, they gradually distributed them- 
selves through the settlement at their pleasure — few of them, however, 
removing far at first from the site of the town. As these removed, and 
provided themselves with better residences, their old habitations, the Indian- 
built huts, and the caves on the river bank, were taken possession of by 
new-comers, who in their turn made way for others, mutual benevolence 
and assistance being the rule of the settlement. It was in one of the rude 
caves dug in the river bank that the first native Philadelphian was born. 
This person, whose name was John Key, and who died in 1767, at the age 
of eighty-five, always went by the name of First-born. 

In the spring of 1683 the affairs of the new colony presented a very 
flourishing appearance. The more recently-arrived settlers had expe- 
rienced some hardships during the winter, but on the whole, fewer than 
might have been anticipated, and the new year was entered upon with 
cheerfulness and hope. The following extract contains the recollections, 
in old age, of one of the first Pennsylvanian settlers, by name Richard 
Townsend, and may be taken at once as a succinct account of the rise of 
the colony, and as an illustration of the simple and devout character of 
the early settlers : 'After our arrival,' he says, ; we found it a wilderness. 
The chief inhabitants were Indians, and some Swedes, who received us in 
a friendly manner ; and though there was a great number of us, the good 
hand of Providence was seen in a particular manner, in that provisions 
were found for us by the Swedes and Indians at very reasonable rates, 
as well as brought from divers other parts that were inhabited before. 
After some time I set up a mill on Chester Creek, which I brought ready 
framed from London, which served for grinding corn and sawing boards, 
and was of great use to us. Besides, Avith Joshua Tittery, I made a net 
and caught great quantities of fish, which supplied ourselves and many 
others ; so that, notwithstanding it was thought near three thousand per- 
sons came the first year, we were so providentially provided for, that we 
could buy a deer for about two shillings, and a large turkey for about a 
shilling, and Indian corn for about two shillings and sixpence per bushel. 
And as our worthy proprietor treated the Indians with extraordinary 
humanity, they became very civil and loving to us, and brought us in abun- 
dance of venison. After our arrival, there came in about twenty families 
from High and Low Germany, of religious, good people, who settled about 
six miles from Philadelphia, and called the place German Town. About the 
time German Town was laid out, I settled upon my tract of land, which I 
had bought of the proprietor in England, about a mile from thence, where 
I set up a house and a corn-mill, which was very useful to the country for 
several miles round ; but there not being plenty of horses, people generally 
brought their corn on their backs many miles. I remember one man had 
a bull so gentle that he used to bring his corn on him instead of a horse. 
Being now settled within six or seven miles of Philadelphia, where I left 
the principal body of friends, together with the chief ^lace of provisions, 
flesh meat was very scarce with me for some time, of which I found the 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 459 

want. I remember I was once supplied, by a particular instance of Provi- 
dence, in the following manner : As I was in my meadow mowing grass, a 
young deer came and looked on me. I continued mowing, and the deer 
in the same attention to me. I then laid down my scythe and went towards 
him, upon which he ran off a small distance. I went to my work again, 
and the deer continued looking on me ; so that several times I left my 
work to go towards him, but he still kept himself at a distance. At last, 
as I was going towards him, and he, looking on me, did not mind his steps, 
he ran forcibly against the trunk of a tree, and stunned himself so much 
that he fell ; upon which I ran forward, and getting upon him, held him by 
the legs. After a great struggle, in which I had almost tired him out, and 
rendered him lifeless, I threw him on my shoulders, holding him fast by 
the legs, and with some difficulty, on account of his fresh struggling, carried 
him home, about a quarter of a mile, to my house ; where, by the assist- 
ance of a neighbor who happened to be there, and who killed him for me, 
he proved very serviceable to my family. I could relate several other acts 
of Providence of this kind, but omit them for brevity. As people began 
to spread, and to improve their lands, the country became more fruitful, so 
that those who came after us were plentifully supplied ; and with what we 
exceeded our wants, we began a small trade abroad ; and as Philadelphia 
increased, vessels were built, and many employed. Both country and trade 
have been wonderfully increasing to this day, so that, from a wilderness, 
the Lord, by his good hand of providence, hath made it a fruitful land ; 
on winch things to look back, and observe all the steps, would exceed my 
present purpose.' 

To this we may add an extract from a letter written by Penn himself to 
a society of traders in England, who had purchased a large quantity of 
land in Pennsylvania, and which sketches the history of the colony down 
to the date at which it was written, August 1683 : — ' The country,' he says, 
' lies bounded on the east by the river and bay of Delaware and Eastern 
Sea. It hath the advantage of many creeks, or rivers rather, that run 
into the main river or bay, some navigable for great ships, some for small 
craft. Our people are mostly settled upon the upper rivers, which are 
pleasant and sweet, and generally bounded with good land. The planted 
part of the province and territories is cast into six counties — Philadelphia, 
Buckingham, Chester, Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex — containing about 
four thousand souls. Two general assemblies have been held, and with 
such concord and despatch, that they sat but three weeks, and at least 
seventy laws were passed, without one dissent in any material thing. And 
for the good government of the said counties, courts of justice are estab- 
lished in every county, with proper officers — as justices, sheriffs, clerks, 
constables — which courts are held every two months. Philadelphia, the 
expectation of those that are concerned in this province, is at last laid out, 
to the great content of those here that are anyways interested therein. 
The situation is a neck of land, and lieth between two navigable rivers, 
Delaware and Schuylkill ; whereby it hath two fronts upon the water, each 
a mile, and two from river to river. But this I will say for the good pro 
vidence of God, that of all the many places I have seen in the world, I re 
member not one better seated ; so that it seems to me to have been ap 
pointed for a town, whether we regard the rivers, or the conveniency of 
the coves, docks, springs, the loftiness and soundness of the land, and the 



460 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

air, held by the people of these parts to be very good. It is advanced, 
within less than a year, to about fourscore houses and cottages, such as 
they are, where merchants and handicrafts are following their vocations as 
fast as they can ; while the countrymen are close at their farms. Some 
of them got a little winter corn in the ground last season, and the generali- 
ty have had a handsome summer crop, and are preparing for their winter 
corn. They reaped their barley this year in the month called May, the 
wheat in the month following ; so that there is time in these parts for an- 
other crop of divers things before the winter season. We are daily in 
hopes of shipping to add to our number ; for, blessed be God, here is both 
room and accommodation for them. I bless God I am fully satisfied with 
the country, and entertainment I got in it ; for I find that particular con- 
tent which has always attended me, where God in his providence hath 
made it my place and service to reside.' 

Even in Pennsylvania, young as the colony was, and composed of better 
materials than most colonies, crime soon made its appearance. Before the 
first grand jury summoned in the province in March, 1683, a settler named 
Pickering was brought to trial for issuing counterfeit silver coin — an of- 
fense which one would not have expected to find at so early a stage in the 
history of a new society. The man having been found guilty, was sentenc- 
ed to pay a fine of forty pounds, to be employed towards the erection of a 
court-house — a much more lenient sentence than would have been award- 
ed in the mother country. Before the same jury a woman named Mar- 
garet Mattson was tried for witchcraft. The verdict returned deserves 
notice for its peculiarity : it was, that the accused was ' guilty of having 
the common fame of being a witch, but not guilty in manner and form as 
she stands indicted.' This verdict probably meant that the jury found the 
prisoner guilty of a notoriously malicious disposition — the true offense of 
many of the poor wretches whom the barbarous British justice of that day 
condemned to the stake. 

At midsummer 1684 the population of the colony amounted to upwards 
of seven thousand souls — English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Dutch, Swedes, 
and Germans. About twenty different townships had been established ; 
and Philadelphia could boast of a population of two thousand five hundred 
persons, well lodged in about three hundred houses, all regularly built ac- 
cording to the prescribed plan. 

Attracted by Penn's reputation for just and honorable dealing, and by 
reports of the flourishing condition of the settlement, ships were arriving 
in quick succession with new settlers from different countries of the old 
world. Seeing the success of his project thus so far happily realized, 
Penn, who had now been two years in America, resolved to return to 
England. His reasons for doing so were twofold. In the first place, a 
dispute had arisen between him and Lord Baltimore, the proprietor of 
the adjoining province of Maryland, as to the boundaries of their respec- 
tive territories; and this dispute had at length become so warm, that 
there was no hope of settling it except by being personally present to 
represent the state of the case to the home government. Again, intelli- 
gence had reached Penn in America that the dissenters in the mother 
country, and especially those of his own persuasion, were suffering greater 
persecutions than ever ; and even if he had not hoped to effect something 
in their behalf by his personal influence at court, it was Penn's nature, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 461 

wherever he saw persecution going on, to desire to be in the midst of it, 
either to help the sufferers, or at least to write against the oppressors. 
Accordingly, on the 12th of August, 1684, William Penn set sail for Eng- 
land, having made all necessary arrangements for the government of the 
colony during his absence. The supreme power was vested in the provin- 
cial council; as president of which he named Thomas Lloyd, a Quaker 
preacher, who had emigrated from Wales. 

In February, 1685, four months after Penn's return to England, 
Charles II died, and was succeeded by his brother the Duke of York, 
under the title of James II. It has already been mentioned that the 
duke had always manifested a liking for Penn, at first as the son of his 
friend, Admiral Penn, and afterwards on account of his own merits. This 
liking he continued to exhibit in a very marked manner after his accession 
to the crown ; and Penn, to improve the opportunities of usefulness which 
his free access to the king afforded him, took up his residence at Kensing- 
ton, in order to be near the palace. The following passage from Gerard 
Croese's history of the Quakers will give an idea of the intimate terms on 
which Penn was with James II. ' William Penn,' says Croese, ' was 
greatly in favor with the king, and the Quakers' sole patron at court. 
The king loved him as a singular and sincere friend, and imparted to him 
many of his secrets and counsels. He often honored him with his com- 
pany in private, discoursing with him of various affairs, and that not for 
one, but many hours together, and delaying to hear the best of his peers, 
who at the same time were waiting for an audience. Penn being so 
highly favored, acquired thereby a number of friends. Those also who 
formerly knew him, when they had any favor to ask at court, came to, 
courted, and entreated Penn to promote their several requests. Penn 
refused none of his friends any reasonable office he could do for them, but 
was ready to serve them all, but more especially the Quakers, and these 
wherever their religion was concerned. They ran to Penn without inter- 
mission, as their only pillar and support, who always caressed and received 
them cheerfully, and effected their business by his interest and eloquence. 
Hence his house and gates were daily thronged by a numerous train of 
clients and suppliants, desiring him to present their addresses to his 
majesty. There were sometimes there two hundred or more.' Earl 
Buchan, in his life of Fletcher of Saltoun, relates an instance of Penn's 
great influence at the court of James II. By his advice many exiled 
Presbyterians were permitted to return to their native country, and among 
others Sir Robert Stuart of Coltness, who had taken refuge in Holland. 
On his return, however, Sir Robert ' found his estate and only means of 
subsistence in the possession of the Earl of Arran, afterwards Duke of 
Hamilton. Soon after his coming to London he met Penn, who congratu- 
lated him on his being restored to his native country. Coltness sighed, 
and said, "Ah, Mr. Penn, Arran has got my estate, and I fear my situa- 
tion is about to be now worse than ever." " What dost thou say ? " says 
Penn ; " thou surprisest and grievest me exceedingly. Come to my house 
to-morrow, and I will set matters right for thee." Penn went immedi- 
ately to Arran. "What is this, friend James," said he to him, "that I 
hear of thee ? Thou hast taken possession of Coltness's estate. Thou 
knowest that it is not thine." "That estate," says Arran, "I paid a 
great price for. I received no other reward for my expensive and trou- 



462 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

blesome embassy in France than this same estate ; and I am certainly 
much out of pocket by the bargain." "All very well, friend James," 
said the Quaker; "but of this assure thyself, that if thou dost not give 
me this moment an order on thy chamberlain for two hundred pounds to 
Coltness, to carry him down to his native country, and a hundred a-year 
to subsist on till matters are adjusted, I will make it as many thousands 
out of thy way with the king." Arran instantly complied; and Penn 
sent for Sir Robert, and gave him the security.' 

Although it is certain that, in thus acting the part of private adviser to 
the king, William Penn had the good of the country in view ; and although 
there can be no doubt that, in that capacity, he rendered many services to 
the cause of civil and religious liberty, yet the prudence of his conduct in 
so mixing himself up with court affairs is somewhat questionable. At all 
events, his intimacy with the king subjected him to many imputations and 
suspicions, which it was difficult to clear away. The efforts of James to 
restore the supremacy of the Roman Catholic church being then the great 
subject of interest in the nation, it was concluded that Penn was privy to 
all the king's plans and measures ; that he was cooperating with him for 
the overthrow of Protestantism ; in short, that he was a Papist. The 
absurdity of such rumors would have been evident to any one who had 
taken the trouble to look back on Penn's former life ; but in a time of pub- 
lic excitement, the extravagance of a story is no security against its being 
believed. Members of the Church of England, Protestant dissenters of 
all denominations, even the Quakers themselves, joined in the cry against 
Penn, and he became one of the most unpopular men in England. To 
say that he was a Papist, was not enough ; he was stigmatised as a Jesuit, 
rearing the mask of a Quaker, in order the better to accomplish his pur- 
poses. It was currently reported that he had been educated at St. 
Omer's ; that he had taken priest's orders at Rome ; that the pope had 
given him a dispensation to marry; and that he was in the habit of officia- 
ting at the celebration of mass before the king at Whitehall and St. 
James'. Of these rumors Penn took no notice, except when they reached 
him through some of his friends, who were anxious that he should take 
some steps to exculpate himself. On such occasions he used to say that 
he had a personal regard for the king, and that he believed him to mean 
well, and at heart to be in favor of toleration; that as for the king's 
secret and arbitrary schemes for the restoration of the Catholic religion, 
he knew nothing of them ; that his aim had ever been to use his influence 
' to allay heats, and moderate extremes, even in politics ; ' and that the 
only ground on which he could conceive the charge of his being a Papist 
to have been founded, was his anxiety to admit all sects alike to the bene- 
fits of religious freedom. 

These representations were of no avail in clearing his reputation with 
the public ; and accordingly, in the year 1688, when James II was expell- 
ed from the kingdom, and William of Orange appointed his successor, Penn 
was one of those who were likely to suffer from their friendship with the 
fallen monarch. Four different times he was arrested and examined on a 
charge of being a Jesuit, and a secret partisan of the exiled king ; but no 
instance of guilt could be proved against him. On one of these occasions, 
when he was examined before King William in council, a letter was pro- 
duced which James II had sent to Penn, but which government had inter- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 463 

cepted. In this letter James desired Penn 'to come to his assistance, and 
to express to him the resentments of his favor and benevolence.' On be- 
ing asked why King James wrote to him, Penn replied that this was no 
fault of his : that if the king chose to write to him, he could not prevent it. 
As for the king's meaning in the letter, he supposed it was that he should 
assist in an attempt to restore him to the throne. This, however, he had 
no intention to do. He had always loved King James, and had received 
many favors from him and he should be willing to render him any private 
service he could, but nothing more. This candid and manly defense pro- 
duced its effect, and Penn was discharged. 

Wearied out with these annoyances, and having no great public duty 
now to detain him in England, seeing that the toleration he had so long 
struggled for was realised, at least to a great extent, under the govern- 
ment of King William, Penn was anxious to return to his American colony, 
where his presence was greatly desiderated, on account of various differen- 
ces which had broken out among the settlers. He was preparing to set 
sail in 1690, when his departure was prevented by a fresh charge of trea- 
son preferred against him by a wretch of the name of Fuller, who was af- 
terwards publicly declared to be a cheat and impostor, but whose true char- 
acter was not then known. Not wishing to run the risk of being convicted 
on the oath of such a man, who would not scruple, of course, as to the 
means he would employ in making out his case, Penn lived in great seclu- 
sion in London for several years, occupying himself in writing replies to 
the letters he received from America, and in composing numerous tracts 
on subjects congenial to his tastes and disposition. In the year 1693, his 
misfortunes reached their height. Early in the year he was deprived of 
the governorship of Pennsylvania, which was annexed, by royal commis- 
sion, to that of the province of New York. Towards the end of the same 
year his wife died. Before this time, however, a reaction had begun in 
his favor. His own character began to be better appreciated by King 
William, while that of his accuser, Fuller, became disgracefully notorious. 
Accordingly, Penn being admitted to plead his cause before the king and 
council, was honorably acquitted ; and shortly after, by a royal order, 
dated the 20th of August 1694, he was reinstated in his government. 

It was not, however, till the year 1699 that Penn returned to Pennsyl- 
vania, from which he had been absent about fifteen years. The interval of 
five years between his restoration to the governorship and his return to the 
colony was spent in preaching tours through England and Ireland, and in 
conducting those controversies out of which he appeared to be out of hi3 
natural element. In 1696 he contracted a second marriage with Hannah, 
daughter of Thomas Callowhill, a merchant of Bristol ; and not long after- 
wards his eldest son, by the former marriage, died in his twenty-first year. 

Accompanied this time by his wife and family, Penn returned to Amer- 
ica in November 1699, and immediately commenced revising the conduct 
of his substitutes during his absence, and adopting new measures for the 
good of the colony. A discussion has been raised as to the wisdom and 
disinterestedness of Penn's government of Pennsylvania during this his sec- 
ond visit, and indeed during the latter part of his proprietorship ; some con- 
tending that he did not show the same liberality as at the outset, and oth- 
ers defending him from the charge. Among the former, the most distin- 
guished critic of Penn is Benjamin Franklin, whose judgment is, that Penn 



464 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

began his government as a man of conscience, proceeded in it as a man of 
reason, and ended it more as a man of the world. Penn's most zealous 
apologist against this charge of Franklin is his biographer, Mr. Clarkson. 
To examine minutely the arguments on both sides, would not answer any 
good purpose ; it may be sufficient to remark, that the charge of Franklin 
is founded on certain changes introduced by Penn into the political con- 
stitution of Pennsylvania, to increase his own authority as governor, and 
that it does not effect the general spirit in which Penn fulfilled his impor- 
tant trust, which was uniformly that of mildness, justice, and benevolence. 
It was not to be expected that a constitution or frame of government pre- 
pared on the other side of the Atlantic by the mere pen, and transplanted 
to the new world, would satisfy the actual wants of the colony, or require 
no change. Accordingly, that there should be differences of opinion be- 
tween the colonists and the governor on some points, or among the various 
classes of the colonists themselves, was natural enough ; the merit of Penn 
and the early Pennsylvanians was, that, notwithstanding these differences, 
the general spirit of the administration was healthy and tolerant. 'Gov- 
ernments,' said Penn himself, 'depend upon men, rather than men upon 
governments. Like clocks, they go from the motion which men give them. 
Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad. If it be ill, they 
will cure it. No government could maintain its constitution, however ex- 
cellent it was, without the preservation of virtue.' Thus it was that, al- 
though Pennsylvania at its commencement had its political disputes, it had 
a security for prosperity in the character of its founders. 

Two objects which occupied a great share of Penn's attention in his 
capacity of governor of Pennsylvania, were the condition of the negroes 
who had been imported into the settlement, and the civilization of the North 
American Indians with whom the colonists were brought into contact. 
' Soon after the colony had been planted,' says Mr. Clarkson, ' that is in the 
year 1682, when William Penn was first resident in it, some few Africans 
had been imported ; but more had followed. At this time the traffic in 
slaves was not branded with infamy as at the present day. It was con- 
sidered, on the other hand, as favorable to both parties : to the American 
planters, because they had but few laborers in comparison with the extent 
of their lands ; and to the poor Africans themselves, because they were 
looked upon as persons thus redeemed out of superstition, idolatry, and 
heathenism. But though the purchase and sale of them had been adopted 
with less caution upon this principle, there were not wanting among the Qua- 
kers of Pennsylvania those who, soon after the introduction of them there, be- 
gan to question the moral licitness of the traffic. Accordingly, at the yearly 
meeting for Pennsylvania in 1688, it had been resolved, on the suggestion 
of emigrants from Crisheim, who had adopted the principles of William 
Penn, that the buying, selling, and holding men in slavery was inconsistent 
with the tenets of the Christian religion. In 1696, a similar resolution 
had been passed at the yearly meeting of the same religious society for the 
same province. In consequence of these noble resolutions, the Quakers 
had begun to treat their slaves in a manner different from that of other 
people. In 1698, there were instances where they had admitted them 
into their meeting-houses, to worship in common with themselves.' 

Penn, on his return, keenly took up the cause of the negroes, both in his 
private capacity as a member of the Society of Friends, and in his public 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 46c 

one as governor. ' He began to question,' says Mr. Clarkson, ' whether, 
under the Christian system, men ought to be consigned to unconditional 
slavery ; whether they ought to be bought and sold. This question he 
determined virtuously, and in unison with the resolutions of the two fore- 
mentioned yearly meetings of the Quakers. He resolved, as far as his 
own powers went, upon incorporating the treatment of the negroes, as a 
matter of Christian duty, into the discipline of the religious body to which 
he belonged. He succeeded ; and a minute was passed by the monthly 
meeting of Philadelphia, and properly registered there, by which a meeting 
was appointed more particularly for the negroes once every month ; so 
that, besides the common opportunities they had of collecting religious 
knowledge by frequenting the places of public worship, there was one day 
in the month in which, as far as the influence of the monthly meeting 
extended, they could neither be temporally nor spiritually overlooked. 
Having secured their good treatment in a certain degree among those of 
his own persuasion, his next object was to secure it among others in the 
colony, on whom the discipline of the Quakers had no hold, by a legisla- 
tive act. This was all he could do at present. To forbid the bringing of 
slaves into the colony was entirely out of his power. He had no command 
whatever over the external commerce of the mother country. He was 
bound, on the other hand, by his charter, to admit her imports, and at this 
moment she particularly encouraged the slave trade. His first step, then, 
was to introduce a bill into the assembly which should protect the negroes 
from personal ill treatment, by fair trials and limited punishments, when 
they committed offenses; and which, at the same time, by regulating their 
marriages, should improve their moral condition. This he did with a view 
of fitting them by degrees for a state of freedom ; and as the bill compre- 
hended not only those negroes who were then in the province and territo- 
ries, but those who should afterwards be brought there, he hoped that it 
would lay the foundation of a preparatory school for civilization and liberty 
to all of the African race.' This bill, unfortunately, he was unable to 
carry, at least in its full extent. But the good effects of his exertions, so 
far as they did succeed, were ultimately seen. From the time that the 
subject of negro treatment was introduced into the discipline of the Penn- 
sylvanian Quakers by Penn, it was never lost sight of by that body. In- 
dividual Quakers began to refuse to purchase negroes, others to emanci- 
pate those in their possession ; and at length it became a law of the society 
that no member should hold slaves. In the year 1780, not a Quaker pos- 
sessed a slave in Pennsylvania ; and from that time slavery dwindled away 
in the state, till, in the year 1810, there were only eight hundred slaves 
in Pennsylvania, in a population of nearly a million. 

Penn's success with the Indians was similar. Unable to do much for 
them legislatively, he did much by his example and influence, visiting them 
personally, and trying by all means to establish a friendly commercial in- 
tercourse with them. Whatever advances in the arts of civilized life were 
made in the early part of the eighteenth century by the Indian tribes of 
the northwest, were due originally to William Penn ; and for more than 
fifty years after his death, his name was remembered among them as that 
of a ' true and good man. ' 

Penn was roused from his quiet and benevolent labors in behalf of the 
colonists, the negroes, and the Indians, by the intelligence that a movemen 
30* 



466 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

had been begun in England for the abolition of the proprietary system of 
governing the American colonies. Deeply interested in this intelligence, 
he thought it due to his interests to embark for England, where, accord- 
ingly, he arrived in December 1701. 

The bill which had brought him from America was not proceeded with ; 
and the accession of Queen Anne to the throne in 1702 was a favorable 
event for his interests. Penn, however, never returned to America, but 
spent the remaining sixteen years of his life in England. It is melancholy to 
add that these last years of the existence of so good a man were clouded 
with misfortune. His outlay on Pennsylvania had far exceeded the im- 
mediate returns which the property could yield ; and the consequence was, 
that he was involved in pecuniary embarrassments. To meet these, he was 
obliged, in 1709, to mortgage the province for .£6600. The loss of a law 
suit added to his difficulties ; and for some time he was a prisoner within 
the rules of Fleet. In 1712, he agreed to sell his rights to government 
for £12,000. The bargain, however, was never concluded, owing to his 
being incapacitated by three apopletic fits, which, following each other rap- 
idly, deprived him to a great extent of memory and consciousness. He 
lingered on, however, till the 30th of July 1718, when he died at Rus- 
combe, in Berkshire, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. 

Penn's appearance and personal habits are thus described by Mr. Clark- 
son : — ' He was tall in stature, and of an athletic make. In maturer years 
he was inclined to corpulency; but used a great deal of exercise. His 
appearance at this time was that of a fine portly man. He was very neat, 
though plain in his dress. He walked generally with a cane. He had a 
great aversion to the use of tobacco. However, when he was in America, 
though he was often annoyed by it, he bore it with good-humor. Several 
of his particular friends were one day assembled at Burlington ; while they 
were smoking their pipes, it was announced to them that the governor's 
barge was in sight, and coming up the river. The company supposed that 
he was on his way to Pennsburg, about seven miles higher up. They con- 
tinued smoking ; but being afterwards unexpectedly informed that he had 
landed at a wharf near them, and was just entering the house, they sud- 
denly concealed their pipes. Perceiving, from the smoke, when he entered 
the room what they had been doing, and discovering that the pipes had 
been hid, he said pleasantly, ' Well, friends, I am glad to see that you are 
at least ashamed of your old practice.' 'Not entirely so,' replied Sam- 
uel Jennings, one of the company ; 'but we preferred laying down our pipes 
to the danger of offending a weak brother. ' They then expressed their 
surprise at this abrupt visit, as, in his passage from Philadelphia, not only 
the tide, but the wind had been furiously against him. He replied, with a 
smile on his countenance, ' that he had been sailing against wind and tide 
all his life. ' 

The colony made rapid progress after Penn's death, settlers being at- 
tracted to it from all parts of the old world by the freedom of its constitution 
and its natural advantages. The proprietorship was vested in the heirs of 
Penn by his second marriage, his children by his first marriage having 
inherited his British estates, which, at the time of Penn's death were of 
greater value than his American property. In the year 1752, while Penn- 
sylvania was still a British colony, the French made encroachments on it 
from the north-west, and built Fort Duquesne — now Pittsburg. Philadel- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 467 

phia, the capital of Pennsylvania, speedily grew in size and importance. 
Its name is associated with gome of the most distinguished events in the 
history of the United States. It was there that the delegates of the vari- 
ous colonies assembled in the year 1774, when they declared against the 
right of the mother country to tax the colonies ; and it was also there that 
the famous declaration of independence was proclaimed in 1776. On the 
conclusion of the war of independence, Penn's descendants sold their right 
of proprietorship over Pennsylvania to the American government for 
£130,000. Philadelphia continued to be the seat of the federal govern- 
ment till the year 1800. In the present day it is a large and populous 
city, celebrated for the number of its foundations and benevolent institu- 
tions, all less or more originating in the philanthropic principles early in- 
troduced into Pennsylvania. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

This celebrated individual, the youngest but two of a family of seven 
teen children, was born at Boston, in Massachusetts, on the 17th of Janu- 
ary, 1706. His father was at first a dyer, and afterwards a soap-boiler 
and tallow-chandler, and had quitted England in order to escape the prose- 
cution of the non-conformists, under Charles II. His son Benjamin was 
sent to a grammar-school at eight years of age, with a view of being edu 
cated for the church ; but this design was soon abandoned, and the subject 
of our memoir, after having made a slight progress in writing and arithme 
tic, returned home, and assisted at his father's trade. This employment 
was very irksome to Franklin, whose inclinations had become directed to a 
sea-faring life ; and it was at length agreed that he should be apprenticed 
to his cousin who was a cutler. An obstacle to this, however, arose in the 
amount of premium required, and he was eventually bound, in his twelfth 
year, to his brother James, a printer. 

He soon made great progress in this business, and an acquaintance formed 
with several booksellers' apprentices, enabled him to indulge his love of 
reading, by borrowing books, which they had facilities to obtain. ' It has 
often happened to me,' he says, in a memoir of the early part of his life, 
' to pass the greater part of the night in reading by my bed-side, when the 
book had been lent to me in the evening, and was to be returned the next 
morning, lest it might be missed or wanted.' This disposition being noticed 
by a Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a large collection of books, he offered 
the use of them to Franklin, who soon became an author, and composed 
several little pieces in verse. Two of these, a ballad, called ' The Light- 
house Tragedy,' and a song on the noted pirate, Blackboard, were, by his 
brother's directions, printed : but the most unpoetic part of the story re- 
mains to be told — their author was despatched about the town to sell them. 
Franklin says, ' the first had a prodigious run, because the event was re- 
cent, and had made a great noise ;' but ' they were wretched verses in point 
of style — mere blindman's ditties.' His father seems to have been of the 
same opinion, for he ridiculed the productions ; ' and thus,' says their au- 
thor, ' my exultation was checked, and I escaped the misfortune of being 
a very miserable poet.' At this period he formed an acquaintance with a 
young man of the name of Collins, who was also a great lover of books. 
They were frequently together, ind were both fond of disputation, which 



468 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

they sometimes carried on in writing. This, probably, assisted in bringing 
out some of the dormant qualities of Frankl»'s mind ; but his style was 
greatly inferior to that of his rival, to improve which he took the following 
method : — ' I bought,' he says, ' an odd volume of The Spectator, read it 
over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing ex- 
cellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view, I took some 
of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, 
laid them by a few days ; and then, without looking at the book, tried to 
complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, 
and as fully as it had been expressed before in any suitable words that should 
occur to me. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered 
some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of 
words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I 
should have acquired before that time, if I had gone on making verses ; 
since the continual search for words of the same import, but of different 
length to suit the measure, or of different sound, for the rhyme, would have 
laid me under constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have 
tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. There- 
fore I took some of the tales in the Spectator, and turned them into verse ; 
and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them 
back again. I also, sometimes, jumbled my collection of hints into confu- 
sion, and, after some weeks, endeavored to reduce them into the best or- 
der, before I began to form the full sentences and complete the subject. 
This was to teach me method in the arrangement of my thoughts. By 
comparing my works with the original, I discovered many faults, and cor- 
rected them ; but sometimes had the pleasure to fancy that, in certain par- 
ticulars of small consequence, I had been fortunate enough to improve the 
method of the language ; and this encouraged me to think that I might, in 
time, come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely am- 
bitious. 

Franklin added to his habits of industry a self-denial and control over 
his passions, even at this early age, which were truly surprising. When 
about sixteen, a work fell into his hands, which recommended vegetable di- 
et : this he determined to follow, and undertook to provide for himself, up- 
on his brother's allowing him one-half of the ordinary expense of his board, 
of which half, even, he contrived, by great abstemiousness, to save a con- 
siderable portion. Here was a new fund for the purchase of books ; and 
he accordingly obtained such as enabled him to perfect himself in those el- 
ementary branches of knowledge in which he was deficient, among which 
were arithmetic and geometry. 

In 1720, his brother established a public paper, entitled The New Eng- 
land Courant, the second that had appeared in America. Franklin was 
employed to distribute the copies, and, occasionally, being present at the 
meetings which were held at his brother's house, by a number of literary 
characters, who were contributors, his love of authorship was rekindled, 
and he sent a communication in the usual way, but in a feigned hand. 
It was received, and commented upon in Franklin's hearing ; who, in his 
memoir, tells us, he had, ' the exquisite pleasure to find that it met with 
their approbation, and that, in the various conjectures they made respect- 
ing its author, no one was mentioned who did not enjoy a high reputation 
in the country for talents and genius.' Many other articles were written, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 469 

and forwarded in the same manner, and, being equally well received, their 
author made himself known ; expecting that the discovery would insure 
for him more respect and greater fraternal indulgence than he had previ- 
ously experienced. His brother, however, continued to treat him with 
much rigor, and being a man of ungovernable passions, frequently proceed- 
ed to the extremity of blows. ' This severe and tyrannical treatment,' says 
Franklin, ' contributed, I believe, to imprint on my mind that aversion to 
arbitrary power, which, during my whole life, I have ever preserved.' 

The brothers, however, had soon occasion to be reconciled with each oth- 
er. James, in consequence of an offensive article in the Courant, was ta- 
ken into custody, and imprisoned for a month ; Benjamin, during that pe- 
riod, was intrusted with the management of the paper, in which he inserted 
several pasquinades against the governor and other persons in authority. 
James's enlargement was accompanied with an arbitrary order, that he 
should ' no longer print the newspaper called The New England Courant.' 
To evade this order, it was determined that his brother's indentures should 
be given up, and the paper, in future, be printed in the name of Benjamin 
Franklin. A new contract was at the same time secretly entered into be- 
tween the parties, by which Benjamin's services were to be secured for the 
remainder of the term of his former apprenticeship ; but, a fresh quarrel 
arising, Franklin thought proper to separate from his brother ; ' dishonor- 
ably,' as he candidly acknowledges, ' availing himself of the circumstance 
that the contract could not safely be produced.' 

Being unable to obtain employment in Boston, he determined upon going 
to New York ; but, apprehending his father would object to this resolution, 
he sold a part of his books to procure a small sum of money, and departed 
privately. On his arrival at the latter place, he applied for employment to 
a printer, who, having no occasion for his services, recommended him to 
extend his journey to Philadelphia. 

His arrival at Philadelphia is thus recorded by himself: — ' I was in my 
working-dress, my best clothes being to come from New York by sea. I 
was c vered wi h dirt ; my pockets were filled with shirts and stockings ; 
I was unacquainted with a single soul in the place, and knew not where to 
seek a lodging. Fatigued with walking and rowing, and having passed the 
night without sleep, I was extremely hungry, and all my money consisted 
of a Dut Ji dollar, and about a shilling's worth of coppers, which I gave to 
the boatmen for my passage. At first they refused it on account of my 
having rowed ; but I insisted on their taking it. Man is sometimes more 
generous when he has little money than when he has plenty ; perhaps to 
prevent his being thought to have but little. I walked towards the top of 
the street, gazing about, till near Market Street, where I met a boy with 
bread, and, inquiring where he had bought it, I went immediately to the 
baker he directed me to. I asked for biscuits, meaning such as we had 
at Boston ; that sort, it seems, was not then made in Philadelphia. I then 
asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none. Not knowing the 
different prices, nor the names of the different sorts of bread, I told him to 
give me threepenny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three 
great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it ; and, hav- 
ing no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eat- 
ing the other. Thus I went up Market Street, passing by the door of Mr. 
Read, my future wife's father, when she, standing at the door, saw me, 



4T0 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appear- 
ance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut street, and part of Wal- 
nut street, eating my roll all the way ; and, coming round, found myself 
again at Market street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for 
a draught of river water ; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the 
other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat 
with us, and were waiting to go farther. Thus refreshed, I walked again 
up the street, which, by this time, had many clean dressed people in it, who 
were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into 
the great meeting-house of the Quakers, near the market. I sat down 
among them, and, after looking round awhile, and hearing nothing said, be- 
ing very drowsy, through labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell 
fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when some one was 
kind enough to rouse me. This, therefore, was the first house I was in, or 
slept in, in Philadelphia.' 

He was not long in obtaining employment with a printer of the name of 
Keimer ; and, during his stay at Philadelphia, was favorably noticed by the 
governor, Sir William Keith, who frequently invited him to his table ; and 
at length promised to advance the funds requisite to place him in business 
on his own account. He had previously advised his young p-oteg& to pro- 
ceed to Boston and ask assistance from his father, who, however, gave no 
encouragement to the scheme, but dismissed Franklin with his blessing, who 
retured to Philadelphia. Sir William now recommended him to visit Eng- 
land, in order to procure an adequate stock of printing materials, and estab- 
lish a connection with some London booksellers ; and offered to furnish him 
with letters of credit and introduction. Upon this recommendation, Frank- 
lin set sail for England, but the ship which carried him to London, in De- 
cember, 1724, was found to have carried none of the promised letters from 
the governor of Pennsylvania. 

He was now thrown entirely upon his own resources, and having taken 
lodgings in Little Britain, at one shilling and ninepence per week, he got 
into work at Palmer's printing-house, in Bartholomew Close, in which em- 
ploy he continued for nearly a year. From Palmer's he removed to Watts's, 
near Lincoln's Inn Fields, where, by his companions, he was dubbed the 
Water- American. ' From my example,' he says, ' a great many of them 
left off their muddling breakfast of beer, bread, and cheese, finding they 
could, with me, be supplied from a neighboring house with a large porrin- 
ger of hot water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbled with bread, and a 
bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer, viz., three-halfpence.' 
About this period, he fell in with some deistical companions, renounced his 
religious principles, commenced sceptic, and published A Dissertation on 
Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain, in answer to Wollaston's Reli- 
gion of Nature. This work introduced him to the notice of Sir Hans 
Sloane, Dr. Mandeville, Dr. Pemberton, and other eminent persons, though 
Franklin acknowledged the printing of it as one of the errors of his life. 
After having been in London eighteen months, he accepted the offer of a 
Mr. Denham, a merchant of Philadelphia, to return w r ith him as his clerk, 
at a salary of ,£50. He arrived at Philadelphia on the 11th of October, 
1726 : but, Mr. Denham dying in the following year, his clerk was com- 
pelled to return to his former occupation, and again entered into the em- 
ploy of Keimer ; acting in the several capacities of letter-founder, ink-ma- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 471 

ker, engraver, and coppcr-plate-printer. The press which he used in the 
latter calling was constructed by himself, and was the first erected in Amer- 
ica. A quarrel with Keimer, led to a final separation between him and 
Franklin, who now entered into partnership with a young man of the name 
of Meredith. ' We had scarcely,' says Franklin, ' opened our letters and 
put the press in order, before George House, an acquaintance of ours, 
brought a countryman to us, whom he had met in the street inquiring for 
a printer. All our cash had been expended in the variety of particulars 
we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being 
our first fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any 
money I have ever since received.' The frugality and industry of Frank- 
lin soon brought their business into a thriving condition, and he began to 
think of establishing a newspaper, when he was anticipated by Keimer, who 
started one of his own. He now wrote, in conjunction with a friend, a se- 
ries of papers called The Busy Body, which so much eclipsed the publica- 
tion of his rival, that he was glad to dispose of his paper, at any price, to 
Franklin. Meredith proving inattentive to business, Franklin was pursua- 
ded to dissolve partnership, and take the concern entirely into his own 
hands, which he was enabled to accomplish, through the liberal assistance 
of two acquaintances, who were members of the Junto. This was a club, 
established by Franklin, for the discussion of subjects connected with mor- 
als, politics, and natural philosophy ; it eventually became the centre of 
thought for the whole people ; and contributed, in a great degree, to the 
success of their struggle for independence. 

In September, 1730, he married a female to whom he had been previ- 
ously attached, when she was Miss Read, but who, during his absence, had 
conceived herself forgotten, and given her hand to a potter, of the name 
of Rogers. This person had involved himself in debt, and fled to the West 
Indies, but Franklin's affection was not damped by the probability of the 
lady's first husband being still alive, and he consented to make her his 
spouse. 

In 1732, he published his celebrated almanac, under the name of 
Richard Saunders, more generally known as Poor ' Richard's Almanack,' 
and which became so celebrated for its numerous happily-expressed and 
valuable moral maxims. These were collected, many years afterwards, in- 
to a little tract, called The Way to Wealth ; having for its object the ex- 
tension of industry and economy, habits which no man ever practiced more 
successfully than Franklin himself. Dr. Bard a Scotchman, residing in 
Philadelphia, used to say to him, 'The industry of this Franklin is superior 
to any thing of the kind I ever witnessed. I see him still at work when 
I return from the club at night, and I find he is at it again in the morning, 
before his neighbors are out of bed.' On one occasion, having laid down 
a rule that he would compose a sheet a day of a particular work, in folio, 
he had the misfortune, after his evening's labor, to derange two whole 
pages. Such, however, was his perseverance, that he distributed and com- 
posed them anew before he retired to bed. 

In 1736, he commenced his political career, by being appointed clerk to 
the general assembly ; and, in the following year, entered upon the duties 
of post-master. He was also appointed an alderman, and put into the com- 
mission of the peace ; but took no part in the business of the bench, com- 
monly employing himself, while sitting with his brother magistrates, ' in 



472 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

contriving magic squares and circles.' From this period, till 1744, he was 
actively and usefully employed in instituting fire companies, erecting pub- 
lic buildings, and establishing philosophical societies. In 1744, during the 
war between England and France, he particularly distinguished himself in 
procuring means of resistance against the enemy, and succeeded in bring- 
ing over the Quakers to give their pecuniary aid. They were, however, 
particularly scrupulous not to acknowledge that their grants were connect- 
ed with the principle of warfare. When, therefore, the assembly was ap- 
plied to, for a certain quantity of gunpowder, the members would not com- 
ply with the request; but voted <£3,000 to be placed in the hands of the 
governor, ' for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat, or other grain.' The 
governor was advised not to accept the grant, but he replied — ' I shall take 
the money ; " other grain" means gunpowder.' Franklin, hearing of this, 
suggested that the insurance companies, which were also well stocked with 
Quakers, might likewise very properly contribute their aid, by a grant for 
the purchase of fire-engines. 

In 1745, he published an account of his newly-invented fire-place ; and, 
in 1747, was elected a member of the general assembly ; in which he was 
an active defender of the rights of the citizens in opposition to the encroach- 
ments of the proprietaries. He introduced several measures relative to the 
local government of Philadelphia ; and busily employed himself in estab- 
lishing public schools and founding hospitals. In 1749, he took one of 
his workmen into partnership ; and was thus enabled to devote a consider- 
able portion of his time to scientific pursuits, of which it is now time to give 
some account. At this period, our readers need not, perhaps, be told that 
electricity was a science which could hardly be said to consist of anything 
more than a collection of unsystematized and ill-understood facts. Franklin's 
attention seems to have been first directed to this subject in 1746, when, 
being at Boston, he met with a Dr. Spence, who had lately arrived from 
Scotland, and showed him some electrical experiments. They were not 
very expertly performed, ' but being,' said Franklin, ' on a subject quite 
new to me, they equally surprised and pleased me. Soon after my return 
to Philadelphia, our library company received, from Mr. Peter Collinson, 
F. R. S., of London, a present of a glass tube, with some account of the 
use of it in making experiments. I eagerly seized the opportunity of re- 
peating what I had seen at Boston ; and, by much practice, acquired great 
readiness in performing those also which we had an account of from Eng- 
land, adding a number of new ones. I say much practice, for my house 
was continually full, for some time, with persons who came to see these 
new wonders. To divide a little of this incumbrance among my friends, 
I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown in our glass-house, with 
which they furnished themselves ; so that we had, at length, several per- 
formers.' 

None were now more zealous in electrical investigations, than Franklin ; 
he was continually devising new experiments, and falling upon important 
results. He exhibited the power of points in drawing and throwing off the 
electrical matter ; and made the grand discovery of a positive and negative 
state of electricity. By means of this discovery he satisfactorily explained 
the phenomena of the Leyden phial, which was at that time exciting the 
wonder of all Europe, and had caused philosophers so much perplexity. 
His happiest conjecture, however, was that of the identity between light- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 473 

ning and the electric fluid, though it was not till 1752, that he was enabled, 
effectually, to establish this important fact. He had long entertained the 
bold idea of ascertaining the truth of this doctrine, by actually drawing 
lightning from the clouds ; and at length it occurred to him that he might 
procure communication between them and the earth by means of a common 
kite. With this simple apparatus, he awaited the approach of a thunder- 
cloud, and the kite was raised, but no sign of electricity appeared. His 
suspense and anxiety were almost insupportable ; when suddenly he ob- 
served the loose fibres of the string to move ; he presented his knuckle to 
to the key by which it was held, and received a strong spark. On this ex- 
periment depended the fate of his theory. Repeated sparks were drawn 
from the key — a phial was charged — a shock given — and this brilliant dis- 
covery placed upon an immutable basis. 

Franklin, from time to time, forwarded accounts of his experiments to 
England, for the information of the Royal Society ; but they were not ad- 
mitted into the printed transactions of that learned body. His friend, Mr. 
Collinson, gave them to Cave, for insertion in The Gentleman's Magazine ; 
but Cave, with great judgment, thought proper to publish them separately, 
in a pamphlet, the preface to which was written by Dr. Fothergill. By the 
additions which were subsequently made to this little work, it swelled into 
a quarto volume, and became the text-book of the science. It was trans- 
lated into French, German, and Latin, and attracted the attention of all 
the philosophers in Europe. In France, the highest honors were paid to 
Franklin's labors : Buffon, D'Alibard, and De Lor, repeated and confirmed 
his experiments ; and the king himself, Louis XV, became a spectator of 
them. Russia, even, participated in this ardor, and the amiable Richmann 
fell a martyr to his zeal — an unfortunate flash from the conductor putting 
a period to his existence. Eventually, the Royal Society began to recon- 
sider the matter ; and Franklin's grand experiment, the object of which 
had, at first, been treated with ridicule, was verified by Canton, and other 
members. Franklin was, accordingly, without solicitation, elected a fel- 
low, and had paid to him the unusual honor of being chosen without pay- 
ment of the customary fees. He was also presented with the Copley med- 
al for the year 1753 ; and, at a subsequent period, he had the degree of 
LL.D. conferred upon him by the Universities of St. Andrew's, Edin- 
burgh, and Oxford. 

We now resume our account of Franklin's political career. In the year 
just mentioned, he was presented* with the degree of M.A.,by the College 
of Cambridge, in New England ; and, in the same year, he was appointed 
deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies. The American post- 
office had never previously made any returns for the revenue ; but under 
the management and improvements of Franklin, it yielded to the crown 
three times as much as the post-office of Ireland. In 1754, he drew up 
his celebrated Albany Plan of Union, as a means of defense against the 
depredations of the Indians. The rejection of this plan was followed by 
the introduction of British troops into the colonies ; this produced taxation, 
and was soon succeeded by the war, which ended in the final loss of Amer- 
ica to the mother-country. 

In 1755, when the expedition of Gen. Braddock, to dispossess the French 
of some of their encroachments, was in preparation, a difficulty arose for 
want of wagons, which Franklin supplied to the number of one hundred and 



474 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

fifty. The expedition, however, failing, he was in danger of a ruinous loss, 
but was relieved from his obligations by the interference of the governor. 
He was, subsequently, instrumental in forming a militia bill ; and he was 
appointed colonel of the Philadelphia regiment of one thousand two hun- 
dred men, which he held until the troops were disbanded by order of the 
English government. 

On the 27th of July, 1757, Franklin arrived in London, in the character 
of a^ent to the general assembly, for the purpose of advocating the privi- 
leges of the people against the illiberal and unjust encroachments of the 
proprietaries. Much prejudice and delusion existed at the time in relation 
to the affairs of America ; and Franklin, in consequence, published, anony- 
mously, a work, entitled An Historical Review of the Constitution and 
Government of Pennsylvania. During his sojourn in England, he was en- 
gaged in a variet}' of political controversies, and was examined before a 
committee of the whole house of commons, relative to the practicability of 
enforcing the stamp act, which, in consequence of the information he afford- 
ed, was repealed. He returned to Philadelphia in the summer of 17C2 ; 
and shortly afterwards re'eeived the thanks of the assembly, and a grant of 
£5,000. In 1764, through the exertions of the proprietaries, he lost his 
seat in the house ; but there still remained in it a majority of his friends, 
and he was appointed to resume his agency at the court of Great 
Britain. 

In 1766, he visited Holland and Germany ; and, in the following year, 
France, where Louis XV showed him particular marks of attention. Af- 
ter his return to England he got embroiled relative to some political papers 
which had been clandestinely furnished to him, and which he forwarded to 
America, where they were published. He was, in consequence, dismissed 
from his office of deputy postmaster-general, after having been summoned 
before the privy-council, and severely censured. He was now looked up- 
on by government with considerable jealousy, and it was proposed to arrest 
him upon the charge of fomenting a rebellion ; but being apprised of this 
intention, he contrived to leave England secretly, in March, 1775. 

On his return to Philadelphia, he was elected a delegate to the congress, 
and took an active part in bringing about a revolution. It was at this pe- 
riod he wrote the following memorable letter to his old friend in England, 
Mr. Strahan, the king's printer : — 

'Philadelphia, July 5, 1775. 
' Mr. Strahan : — You are a member of parliament, and one of that ma- 
jority which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to 
burn our towns, and murder our people. Look upon your hands ! They 
are signed with the blood of your relations. You and I were long friends : 
— you are now my enemy, and I am 

Yours, i B. Franklin.' 

In 1776, although in his seventy-first year, he was called upon by Con- 
gress, to proceed to France, for the purpose of completing the negotiations 
begun by Silas Deane ; and, in 1777, he was appointed plenipotentiary to 
the French court. He had now not only created a host of political ene- 
mies in Great Britain, but was also attacked by certain philosophical oppo- 
nents. Mr. Wilson, F.R.S., protested against pointed conductors, and per- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 475 

formed several experiments, in order to prove the superiority of knobs. In 
consequence of Wilson's declarations, the pointed lightning conductors were 
taken down from the queen's palace, a circumstance which gave rise to the 
following epigram: — 

' Whilst you, great George, for safety hunt, 
And sharp conductors change for blunt, 

The empire's out of joint : 
Franklin a wiser course pursues : 
And all your thunder fearless views, 

By keeping to the point.'' 

A definitive treaty of peace having been signed between Great Britain 
and the United States, on the 3d of September, 1783, Franklin requested 
to be recalled home. He arrived at Philadelphia in September, 1785, and 
was afterwards twice elected president of the assembly. His last public 
act was the signing of a memorial, on the 12th of February, 1789, for the 
abolition of slavery. 

He had been, for many years, subject to attacks of the gout, to which, 
in 1782, was added a nephritic colic ; and, about the same period, he 
suffered the first pains of a disease, the most distressing in the list of bodily 
infirmities. They were three things he had always dreaded ; and he used 
to observe, that, in relation to this complication of disorders, he was ' some- 
thing like the woman who had always entertained a great aversion to pres- 
byterians, parsons, and Irishmen, and at last married an Irish presbyte- 
rian parson.' These maladies confined him to his bed during the greater 
part of the last year of his life ; but, notwithstanding the severe pains he 
labored under, his natural cheerfulness never forsook him. His mental 
faculties were unimpaired, and his memory continued unaffected to the last 
hour of his existence. He was often obliged to take large doses of opium ; 
but, in his moments of ease, he amused himself with reading, or in affec- 
tionate conversation with his family. He died on the 17th of April, 1790, 
and was buried on the 21st of April, in the cemetery of Christ's Church, 
Philadelphia. On the occasion of his funeral, every possible mark of pub- 
lic respect was shown to his memory : a general mourning, for one month, 
was ordered throughout America ; and the national assembly of France 
paid a like honor in remembrance of his virtues. 

PETER THE GREAT. 

Peter, Czar, or Emperor of Russia, usually styled The Great, was one 
of the most remarkable persons in the history of modern times. A sketch 
of his life may therefore prove interesting, as furnishing an example of 
what may be accomplished for the benefit of mankind by one enterprising 
mind. But first as regards the country over which itwas his fortune to 
rule. 

Russia is a territory of vast extent in the northern part of Europe and 
Asia. Presenting every variety of climate, this extensive region, which 
is really an aggregation of various countries, was inhabited in the seven- 
teenth century by a barbarous people, having little intercourse with the 
more civilized nations of the earth. The degree of advancement in 
knowledge or social usages was very much that of Turkey in recent times 



476 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

The Russian people knew little or nothing of the useful arts, were rude 
in manners, dressed in cumbrous garments, and the men wore long beards, 
according to the ancient Asiatic custom* There was scarcely any kind of 
school-learning or education ; even the priests were grossly ignorant and 
superstitious. For one thing, they believed and taught that the world was 
created in autumn, when the fruits were ripe ; unconscious that, when it i& 
autumn in one hemisphere, it is spring in the other. 

At the period to which we refer — the middle of the seventeenth cen 
tury, or about the time of the Commonwealth in England — the Russiai 
people might have been divided into four classes : the Boyards or noblemen 
who estimated their wealth by the number of serfs or slaves upon their es 
tates — these wretched serfs, of course, by far the most numerous body of 
all ; and the military, a turbulent set, who, as we shall see, often resorted 
to the most violent means to obtain their ends. Indeed so common and 
revolutionary had been revolts of the Strelitzes, or soldiery of the capital, 
that the government has been epigrammatically called 'a despotism tem- 
pered by assassination.' The fourth class, and one which often took part 
in the factions of the time, were the priesthood, the established religion 
being the form of the Greek church. The monarchy was absolute, the 
will of the sovereign being law ; but it was not, as Poland was, an elective 
monarchy. The male issue, however, of the ancient sovereigns failing, 
and several pretenders to the throne having miserably perished, the chief 
Boyards assembled a council, at which they elected a youth, named Michael 
Romanow, to be czar. He was the son of a powerful nobleman, and 
related, by the mother's side, to the ancient czars. This took place in 
1613, at the period when his father was detained a prisoner by the Poles, 
with whom the Russians were at war. An exchange of prisoners, however, 
was soon after effected ; and it is thought that, during the life of the old 
man, he governed, though in his son's name. It is not our purpose to 
enter into the wars or troubles of this reign. Michael Romanow made no 
alteration in the state, either to the improvement or corruption of the 
administration. He died in 1645, and was succeded by his son Alexis 
Michaelowitz (or son of Michael), who ascended the throne by hereditary 
right. 

Alexis, who was the father of Peter the Great, appears to have been more 
enlightened than any of his predecessors. He introduced manufactures 
of silk and linen ; and, though unable to keep them up, he had the merit 
of their first establishment. He endeavored to form something like a code 
of laws, imperfect though they were ; and he peopled the deserts about 
the Wolga and the Kama with Polish and Tartarian families, whom he had 
taken prisoners in his wars, employing them in agriculture — before his 
reign, prisoners of war being the slaves of those to whose lot they fell. 
But he had little^jme to perfect his plans, being snatched away by a sud- 
den death in 1677^ at the age of forty-six. Alexis had been twice married. 
By his first wife, the daughter of the Boyard Meloslauski, he left two sons, 
and either four or six daughters. By his second wife, who was the daugh- 
ter of the Boyard Nariskin, and who survived him, he left Peter and the 
Princess Nathalia, the former having been born at Moscow on the 80th of 
May 1672. Alexis had caused his eldest son, Theodore, to be acknowl- 
edged his successor a year before his death, and he ascended the throne 
at the age of fifteen : this prince inherited his father's abilities and dispo- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 477 

sition, but was of a sickly, feeble constitution. The second son was Ivan, 
or John, who was miserably infirm, being almost blind and deaf, and subject 
to convulsions. Of the six daughters, we need only mention Sophia, who 
was less remarkable for her great talents than for the wicked and mischiev- 
ous use she made of them. 

Peter was but four years old at the time of his father's death, and was 
for a while little regarded. But the czars married without regard to birth, 
and had likewise the power of choosing a successor ; and, conscious that 
his brother Ivan was incapacitated by his infirmities for governing, Theodore, 
on his deathbed, nominated his youngest brother Peter heir to the crown. 
This occurred when Peter was in his tenth year, but not before his prom- 
ising abilities had aroused the jealousy of his sister Sophia. Probably from 
the difficulty of finding suitable husbands for them, it had been the custom 
for the daughters of the czars to retire into a monastery ; but this design- 
ing princess had no such inclination ; and on the death of Theodore, she 
found herself almost the natural guardian of two brothers, one of whom 
was, from his infirmities, incapable of governing ; and the other, on account 
of his youth, she believed it possible to depose. In a word, she aimed at 
sovereignty, although pretending to advocate the claim of Ivan, and repre- 
senting that she desired only to hold the reins for him. 

A succession of revolts was the consequence of her stratagems and in- 
trigues ; and the most savage cruelties were perpetrated by all parties. 
Sophia evidently sought some pretense for deposing Peter, and according- 
ly she employed emissaries to stir up the soldiery against the Nariskin 
family, especially the two uncles of Peter, spreading a report that one of 
them had put on the imperial robes, and had attempted to strangle prince 
John ; adding, moreover, that the late czar, Theodore, had been poisoned 
at their instigation by a Dutch physician. Finally, she made out a list of 
forty noblemen, whom she denounced as enemies to the state, and deserv- 
ing of death. The mutineers began by attacking two nobles, named Dal- 
gorouki and Matheof, whom they threw out of the palace windows. These 
unfortunates were received by the Strelitzes on the points of their spears, 
and speedily despatched, their dead bodies being afterwards dragged into 
the great square. Soon after this, meeting with Athanasius Nariskin, 
brother to the young czarina, and one of the uncles of Peter, they mur- 
dered him in like manner, and, breaking open the doors of a church where 
some of the proscribed had taken refuge, they dragged them from the al- 
tar, and stabbed them to death. But it would be a horrible task to narrate 
the atrocities which followed — the murder of the innocent physician and of 
the other Nariskin, and the dreadful tortures by the knout, and other forms 
which were practiced on the wretched victims. 

Finally, Sophia succeeded in associating the name of her imbecile broth- 
er in the sovereignty ; the two princes, John and Peter, being proclaimed 
joint czars in 1682, and herself denominated co-regent with them. She 
then publicly approved of the outrages which had been committed, and re- 
warded the perpetrators of them, confiscating, for this purpose, the estates 
of the proscribed ; and so completely did she enjoy all the honors of a sov- 
ereign, thet her hust was engraven on the public coin. She signed all des- 
patches, held the first place in the council, and exercised unlimited power. 
But new insurrections broke out; and finally, she was induced to strength- 
en her authority by admitting to her councils her favorite and lover, prince 



478 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Basil Galitzin, whom she created generalissimo, minister of state, and lord- 
keeper. This new minister was a man of distinguished abilities, and had 
received a much better education than the rest of his countrymen. One 
of his prudent measures was to distribute the most mutinous of the Stre- 
litzes among difFerent regiments, situated at distant parts of the empire. 

While Galitzin was engaged with the army, Sophia governed. and acted 
at Moscow as if altogether independent of her brothers the czars. A cir- 
cumstance, however, soon took place which put an end to her intrigues and 
interference. In 1689, Peter's marriage with Eudoxia Federowna Lapu- 
chin, effected through the influence of his prudent mother, withdrew him in 
a great measure from those dissipating vices which Sophia had done all in 
her power to encourage, and thus gave him a new hold on the affections of 
the people. Sophia having desired to be present, as regent, at a religious 
celebration at which czars themselves were commonly present, Peter op- 
posed it in vain ; and a few faithful Strelitzes having betrayed to him her in- 
tention to assassinate him, with his wife, mother, and sister, he took refuge 
with them for a while in the convent of the Trinity. Here he summoned 
to his aid General Gordon, a Scotchman, who, with all the foreign officers, 
immediately hastened to Peter. The young czar soon found himself sur- 
rounded by numerous friends ; and these, animated by his personal bravery, 
and encouraged by his affable and generous demeanor, quickly put him in 
a position to resist the machinations of his sister. He accordingly compelled 
Sophia to take the veil, while Galitzin and a few others were banished to 
Siberia. Peter now hastened to Moscow, into which he made a solemn 
entrance, and in sight of all the people embraced Ivan, who left the whole 
of the power in the more able hands of his brother. From this instant he 
began to reign in reality as Peter I, although the name of the infirm Ivan 
remained as joint czar till his death in 1696. 

One of the most cruel wrongs Sophia had committed on her brother, 
was that of keeping him in ignorance, and surrounding him, at the very 
age when character is formed, with every temptation to excess and dissi- 
pation. It cannot be supposed that he escaped the contamination of such 
lures ; but most truly has it been said, that ' his virtues were all his own, 
his vices those of his education and country.' He early evinced one qual- 
ity of a great mind — the comprehension of his own ignorance, joined to 
the most ardent thirst for knowledge. His, too, was that faculty insepara- 
ble from the man born for a great ruler — that quick and certain apprecia- 
tion of the character and talents of others, which always enabled him to 
know the fit instrument with which to work out his plans. Thus, happen- 
ing to dine one day at the house of the Danish minister, he was struck with 
the manners and conversation of the private secretary, at once perceiving 
the superiority of his mind. This was a youthful Genevese, named Le 
Fort, who had been educated for a mercantile profession ; but being of an 
adventurous disposition, and early displaying decided military talents, had 
enlisted as a volunteer, and served in the low countries. After encounter- 
ing several dangers, and having a narrow escape of transportation to Si- 
beria, though for Avhat offense we cannot discover, he found his way to 
Moscow, and obtained employment in the capacity we have mentioned. 

Le Fort had received the advantages of a European education, and pos- 
sessed great powers of observation. It was he who explained to the 
czar the wonderful superiority of the trained and disciplined troops of 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 479 

western Europe over the wild soldiery of Russia ; and now it was that Peter 
conceived the daring plan of annihilating the Strelitzes, who had so often 
been instrumental in setting up and deposing monarchs. But his measures 
were at present cautious and secret. Soon after his friendship — for it 
deserved the name — with his young adviser, the czar formed a regiment 
on the European system, to which he appointed Le Fort colonel ; and, to 
give his people a lesson of subordination, he entered himself as drummer ! 
Indeed, as we shall see, it was his custom to aim at the root of all knowl- 
edge, and thoroughly master the subjects he took in hand ; and he knew 
that he could not more thoroughly acquire a knowledge of military affairs 
than by passing through all the gradations of the profession. 

It was through the same individual that Peter became acquainted with 
another person, who, in the sequel, exercised scarcely less influence in the 
empire than Le Fort himself. This was Menzikoff, a youth of the very 
humblest origin, who sought his fortune in Moscow at the age of fourteen, 
and became apprentice to a pastry-cook. He used to hawk cakes and pies 
about the streets, recommending them in a kind of song of his own com- 
posing. It was while engaged in this occupation that he attracted the 
attention of Le Fort, who entered into conversation with him, and, pleased 
with his ready wit, brought him to the czar. On Peter he must have 
made an equally favorable impression, for we find him mentioned as a royal 
page soon afterwards. 

About the same time that Peter organized the body-guard under Le 
Fort's direction, he commenced building some vessels, with which he pur- 
posed sailing down the Don, and attacking Azoph, which was then in the 
hands of the Turks. A reference to the map of Europe will show the 
importance of this place, which is in fact the key to the Black Sea ; and 
nothing proves more completely the genius of Peter the Great, than the 
intuitive knowledge he possessed of the importance of maritime power, 
and the wants of his vast empire. Hemmed in by enemies — for in those 
days neighboring states were commonly such — the Black Sea commanded 
by the Turks, and the Baltic by the Swedes, he felt that his country could 
never be great till seaports were wrested from them. Former czars had 
issued edicts forbidding their subjects to travel beyond the empire. Peter 
saw that the great difficulty was, not to keep people in, but for anybody 
to get out ; and he knew there was no better method of enlightening 
the ignorant, and of removing prejudices, than to encourage the influx 
of civilized strangers, and to afford facilities for his own people to travel in 
other countries. We are the last who would find merit in the exploits of 
mere military heroes or conquering rulers, but it is impossible to withhold 
our admiration from the youthful czar at this period of his career. The 
Ottoman empire was then one of the most powerful states in the world. 
A very few years before, Vienna had been besieged by 200,000 Turks, 
and the Emperor Leopold compelled to flee from his capital ; and Sweden 
was a country greatly superior in the scale of civilization, possessing dis- 
ciplined and experienced troops — soon to have Charles XII, the most 
warlike monarch in Europe, at their head. But it was not from any love 
of ' the game of war ' that Peter contemplated aggressions on his neigh- 
bors, but as the necessary means to a great end. He could not humanize 
his people without seaports ; so seaports he was determined to have. 

It is said that, in his childhood, Peter I had an absurd dread of water; 



480 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

indeed to such an extent, that crossing a river would throw him into con- 
vulsions. A story is told of his having narrowly escaped drowning Avhen about 
five years old, the fright received on that occasion being the origin of this 
future antipathy ; but, for our own part, we have very little faith in the 
tradition of the czar's ' hydrophobia.' He was subject all his life to epileptic 
fits ; but as his brothers had been afflicted with something similar, they 
were most probably hereditary. Perhaps the story of his dread of water 
was invented, to heighten the wonder of his achievements on that element. 
At all events, if it ever existed, it must early have been conquered ; for in 
his boyhood he appears to have amused himself by paddling about the river 
Yausa, which passes through Moscow, in a little Dutch skiff, which had 
attracted him, from its being so superior to the flat-bottomed boats with 
which alone he was acquainted. Even when he had never seen the ocean, 
and was five ' hundred miles distant from the sea, he comprehended the 
wants of his vast unwieldy empire, and resolved that it should become a 
maritime power. 

Accordingly, in 1695, he sailed down the Don, and attacked Azoph ; 
but this first campaign was unsuccessful, chiefly in consequence of the 
desertion of an artillery officer named Jacob, who nailed up the Russian 
cannon, turned Mohammedan, and, going over to the Turks, defended the 
town against his former master. The czar, however, was not likely to be 
discouraged by a single failure. He renewed his attack the following year ; 
and as the death of his brother John just at this time had thrown into his 
treasury the income which had maintained the dignity of the nominal czar, 
he had the means of strengthening and supplying his forces in a more efficient 
manner. The new ship-yard at Woronetz, on the Don, furnished him in 
the summer of 1696 with a fleet of twenty-three galleys, two galleasses, and 
four fire-ships, with which he defeated the Turkish fleet off Azoph. All 
relief by sea being now cut off, he pushed the siege with renewed vigor, 
and in two months — July 29 — the Russians entered Azoph. To secure 
the possession of this key to the Black Sea, he enlarged and strengthened 
the forts, constructed a harbor capable of admitting heavy vessels, and gave 
orders for fifty-five war-ships to be built, at the same time keeping in view 
the construction of a canal whereby to connect the Don and the Volga. 

A year or two before these events Peter had divorced himself from his 
wife, whom he had married in his boyhood — a wife chosen for him, not a 
partner of his own choice. Many reasons have been assigned for this step ; 
but the true one appears to be, that she was a woman of mean intellect, a 
slave of superstition and bigotry, the mere creature of the priests, and that, 
consequently, she opposed herself to all his plans of reformation ; for the 
priests, knowing that their power would melt away before the torch of 
knowledge, lost no opportunity of vilifying the czar, and thwarting his 
schemes if possible. Peter certainly committed an error of judgment in 
leaving his son Alexis under her care, as the result proved ; but to our 
mind it was a proof of kindness and consideration to the mother, which 
reveals a more feeling heart than historians generally allow him to have 
possessed. 

A desirable seaport acquired, and an unsuitable wife got rid of, Peter's 
next step was to send a number of young Russians to finish their education 
in Italy, Germany, and Holland. Hitherto Russia had been without an 
official representative in any of the states of Europe ; but the czar fitted 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 481 

out a splendid embassy to the States-General of Holland, of which Le Fort 
and Menzikoffwere the principal plenipotentiaries, Peter himself accompa- 
nying them, though simply as an attache to the mission. The ease and 
security with which he left his vast empire to the government of deputies, 
prove how firmly established was his power. Passing through Riga, on his 
way to Holland, he sought permission to visit the fortifications ; but was 
refused by the Swedish governor — an indignity which Peter resolved to 
punish by and by. Proceeding through Prussia, he was received by tho 
king with great respect, and with all the pomp and circumstance of royalty. 
Here Peter separated himself from the embassy, and proceeded to Holland, 
traveling privately, and as fast as possible. He arrived at Amsterdam 
fifteen days before his ambassadors, and engaged a small apartment in the 
dockyard belonging to the admiralty. He soon afterwards adopted the 
habit of a Dutch skipper, and in that dress proceeded to Saardam, where 
he enrolled himself as a journeyman carpenter, under the name of Peter 
Michaeloff, in the employment of a ship-builder named Calf. Here he 
lived in a little shingle hut for seven weeks, made his own bed, and prepared 
his own food — corresponded with his ministers at home, and labored at the 
same time in ship-building. 

Such was the manner in which Peter the Great proposed to acquire the 
art of ship-building ; as willing to work as a carpenter for this purpose, as 
he had been for another to do a drummer's duty in his model regiment 
Truly does one of his earliest biographers remark, ' that many sovereigns 
have laid down their authority from weariness of the cares and troubles of 
empire, but he alone quitted his dominions in order to study the art of 
governing them.' What a picture of Peter the Great presents itself to the 
contemplative mind at this period ; and what a meeting must that have 
been which accidentally took place between him and the duke of Marlbor- 
ough at Saardam ! For the English noble was well aware that, in the 
workman ' Peter Michaeloff,' he beheld the undisputed proprietor of a quar- 
ter of the globe, the autocrat who had the power of life and death over all 
its inhabitants ; in short, the czar of Muscovy. Peter was at this time, 
1697, twenty-five years of age, and is described as a large, powerful man, 
with bold and regular features, dark-brown hair, that fell in natural curls 
about his neck, and a dark, keen eye, which glanced from one object to 
another with singular rapidity. He was dressed on that occasion in a red 
woolen shirt and duck trousers, and a sailor's hat, and was seated, with an 
adze in his hand, upon a rough log of timber which lay upon the ground. 
He was conversing with great earnestness and much gesticulation with some 
strangers, his countenance displaying, by its strong and varying expression, 
the interest he took in their discourse. The soldier-duke — is it not easy to 
imagine the contrast of costume and character ? — approached, and opened 
a slight conversation by some remarks on the art of ship-building. While 
they were thus engaged, a stranger in a foreign costume appeared, bearing 
an enormous letter in his hand ; the journeyman started up, and snatching the 
packet, tore off the seals, and eagerly perused it, while the stately Marlbor- 
ough walked away unregarded ! 

Who can tell what this very despatch contained ! Most probably life or 

death, freedom or slavery, fame or fortune, of one or many of his subjects 

hung upon the word of that 'foreign journeyman.' It was while handling 

the compass an 1 the adze at Saardam that the confirmation was brought 

31* 



482 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

him of the double, or rather rival, nomination of Augustus, elector of Sax- 
ony and prince of Conti, to the vacant throne of Poland ; and Peter, al- 
ready assuming the right to be a king-maker, promised to assist Augustus 
with thirty thousand troops. Meanwhile his army was gaining fresh victo- 
ries near Azoph ; but Peter had a nobler ambition than the desire of mili- 
tary glory. He continued to improve himself in different arts, passing 
frequently from Saardam to Amsterdam to hear lectures on anatomy ; and 
he made himself capable of performing several operations in surgery. 
He also mastered the Dutch language, and made considerable progress in 
mathematics, civil engineering, and the science of fortification ; besides 
visiting every literary, charitable, or scientific institution, and the paper- 
mills, saw-mills, and all manufacturing establishments, Avhich he examined 
carefully, with the intention of introducing similiar ones into his own em- 
pire. 

' What is that ?' was his constant exclamation at beholding anything 
new ; nor would his inquiring mind rest for a moment till he obtained an 
explanation. We can fancy the astonishment of the quiet, lethargic Hol- 
landers at this energetic prince, who, though choosing to work as a carpen- 
ter, took no pains to conceal his rank ; flying about the country with an 
activity of mind and body equally incomprehensible to them, and seeking 
knowledge with more ardour and avidity than other princes had ever 
60ught even pleasure. 

Peter spent about nine months in the Netherlands, during which time a 
sixty-gun ship was completed from his own draught and model, and at 
much of the carpentry of which he worked with his own hand. This ves- 
sel, said to be an admirable specimen of naval architecture, he sent to 
Archangel — for as yet the czar had not a seaport on the Baltic. He then 
crossed over to England, where he was received with great attention by 
William III, who deputed the Marquis of Caermarthen to attend him, and 
devote himself to the service of the czar. Peter's chief object was to ex- 
amine the dockyards and maritime establishments of England as he had 
done those of Holland ; but though he still preserved his incognito, he no 
longer worked as a journeyman. Yet, according to an old writer, ' he 
would often take up the tools and work with them ; and he frequently con- 
versed with the builders, who showed him their draughts, and the method 
of laying down, by proportion, any ship or vessel.' At first he lodged in 
York Buildings, while in London; and the last house next the river, on 
the east side of Buckingham Street, near the Strand, is said to have been 
inhabited by him ; but afterwards, that he might be near the sea, he occu- 
pied a house belonging to the celebrated John Evelyn at Deptford. 

Under the date of January 30, 1698, we find in Evelyn's diary as fol- 
lows : — ' The czar of Muscovy being come to England, and having a mind 
to see the building of ships, hired my house, Saye's Court, and made it 
his court and palace, new furnished by the king.' And just about this 
time Mr. Evelyn's servant writes to his master thus : — 'There is a house 
full of people, and right nasty. The czar lies next your library, and dines 
in the parlour next your study. He dines at ten o'clock, and at six at 
night ; is very seldom at home a whole day ; very often in the king's yard, 
or by water, dressed in several dresses. The king is expected there this 
day : the best parlour is pretty clean for him to be entertained in. The 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 483 

king pays for all he has.' What a glimpse one gets at the past through 
such gossip as this ! 

Though the czar did not now carry his enthusiasm so far as to work as a 
carpenter, yet his fondness for sailing and managing boats was as eager 
here as in Holland. Sir Anthony Deane and the Marquis of Caermarthen 
were almost daily with him on the Thames, sometimes in a sailing yacht, 
and at others rowing in boats — an exercise in which both the czar and the 
marquis are said to have excelled. The Navy Board received directions 
from the Admiralty to hire two vessels, to be at the command of the czar 
whenever he should think proper to sail on the Thames, to improve him- 
self in seamanship. In addition to these, the king made him a present of 
the Royal Transport, with orders to have such alterations and accommoda- 
tions made in her as his czarish majesty might desire ; and also to change 
her masts, rigging, sails, etc. in such a way as he might think proper, to 
improve her sailing qualities. But his great delight was to get into a 
small-decked boat belonging to the dockyard, and taking only Menzikoff, 
and three or four others of his suite, to work the vessel with them, he be- 
ing the helmsman. By this practice he said he should be able to teach 
them how to command ships when they got home. Having finished their 
day's work, they used to resort to a tavern in Great Tower Street, close 
to Tower Hill, to smoke their pipes, and to drink beer and brandy. The 
landlord had the czar of Muscovy's head painted, and put up for his sign, 
which continued till the year 1808, when some one took a fancy to the 
old sign, and offered the then occupier of the house to paint him a new one 
for it. A copy was accordingly made from the original, which maintains 
its station to the present day, as the sign of the ' Czar of Muscovy.' 

While in England, Peter also directed his attention to engineering ; and, 
what is curious, received a doctorate from the university of Oxford. He 
took into his service upwards of five hundred persons — officers, engineers, 
cannoneers, surgeons, etc ; in particular, a body of skillful engineers and 
artificers, whom he despatched to Russia, for the purpose of carrying out 
a great project which he had already arranged in his own far-seeing mind. 
This was to open a communication, by locks and canals, between the rivers 
Volga and Don and the Caspian Sea. And it may convey an idea of the 
ignorance and superstition with which Peter had to contend, that this noble 
scheme raised an outcry among the priests and nobles, who declared it 
was ' a piece of impiety to turn the streams one way which Providence 
had directed another.' Ferguson, the celebrated engineer and geometri- 
cian, entered into his service, and was the first person who brought arith- 
metic into use in the exchequer of Russia. Previously, they had made 
use only of the Tartarian method of reckoning, by balls strung upon a 
wire. 

In the latter end of 1698, Peter returned to Holland on his way home ; 
and on taking leave of King William, he presented him with a ruby of 
the value of ,£10,000, drawing it from his waistcoat pocket, 'wrapped up 
in a bit of brown paper.' It was truly a royal present, though not given 
after a very royal fashion ; but Peter had a great contempt for forms and 
ceremonies, and William III was far too sensible a man to stand very 
greatly upon them. Peter also, in return for the attentions bestowed on 
him by the Marquis of Caermarthen, conferred on that nobleman the right 
to license every hogshead of tobacco exported to Russia, and to charge 



484 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

five shillings for each license. This must have brought a large revenue, 
for an English company had thought it worth while to pay .£15,000 for 
the monopoly of the exportation. While in London, his attention was 
forcibly attracted to the magnificent building of Greenwich Hospital, which, 
until he had visited it, and seen the old pensioners, he had some difficulty 
in believing to be anything but a royal .palace. King William having 
asked him one day how he liked his hospital for decayed seamen, the czar 
answered, ' If I were the adviser of your majesty, I should counsel you to 
remove your court to Greenwich, and convert St. James' into a hos- 
pital.' 

From Holland, Peter traveled to Vienna, most probably to have an 
interview with the emperor of Germany, who was no doubt very glad to 
obtain an ally against his old enemies, the Turks. He was received with 
great pomp ; but, in the midst of the festivities which marked his arrival, 
news reached him that an insurrection had broken out in Moscow, though 
it had already been quelled by the energy and decision of General Gordon, 
whom he had left in authority. This intelligence, however, induced him 
to give up a visit to Italy, which he had intended ; and traveling with his 
usual speed, he hastened back to his capital. He soon discovered that the 
Strelitzes had been instigated to rebellion by the Princess Sophia, who, 
taking advantage of her brother's absence, had hoped to resume her 
authority. Several of the ringleaders were hanged within sight of Sophia's 
window, and others condemned to a more cruel death, and broken on the 
wheel. Certainly, when we consider how sanguinary the laws were at 
that period, even in the most civilized states of Europe, we cannot consider 
this retaliation undue severity on the part of Peter ; indeed it appears to 
have been a necessary step to secure his own authority. As for the absurd 
stories which were current at the time, and which we are sorry to find 
repeated by many respectable writers, no credit should attach to them. 
We mean the stories of the wholesale massacres which took place — Peter 
and his chief officers turning butchers themselves, and reveling in this 
preappointed slaughtering with as little compunction as sportsmen when 
they find themselves in a preserve of game. A closer examination of 
facts and authorities dispels the whole as an idle report, exaggerated as it 
traveled from mouth to mouth, and quite out of keeping with the real 
circumstances of the case. It is true that Peter had already done a great 
many things ' with his own hand ' that sovereigns had seldom done before ; 
but then they were things which no one but himself was clever enough to 
do. His indifference to war (except as the means to his great ends'), com- 
mented on with evident astonishment by an English churchman, whom he 
conversed with when he visited Oxford, is a proof that he was not of a 
sanguinary disposition ; and besides this, he wanted men so much both for 
soldiers and workmen, that he could not spare the two or three thousand 
subjects who are said to have been beheaded, or otherwise slaughtered, for 
after-dinner pastime. It is much more likely that he should have set them 
to work in the hardest and meanest capacity on the canals and bridges he 
was already forming. 

In 1699, Peter experienced a severe loss in the death of his friend and 
counselor, General Le Fort, on whom he bestowed funeral honors similar 
to those awarded to former sovereigns. He assisted, himself, in the pro- 
cession, marching after the captains as a lieutenant, which rank he held in 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 485 

Le Fort's regiment. It was also about this time that he lost his able gen- 
eral, Gordon, whose soldierly qualities had been so essential to him in the 
reformation of his army. Menzikoff, who had risen from obscurity by his 
talents and activity, now became the favorite and counselor of Peter. 
The Strelitzes — those instruments of insurrection and turbulence — were 
now supplanted by twenty-seven new regiments of infantry and two of 
cavalry, who, within three months, were disciplined and brought into march- 
ing order. Nothing but merit and length of services was regarded in the 
appointment of officers. Besides the reconstitution of the military, Peter 
now devoted himself with incessant activity to the internal regulation of 
his empire, which assumed, by degrees, the appearance of a new creation. 

It was now that the czar turned his attention to change the inconvenient 
customs of his people. To do this, he began by levying a tax upon long 
beards and petticoats ; patterns of closebodied coats being hung up in pub- 
lic places. But so attached were they to old customs, that his revenue 
was increased, instead of their dress being altered. His next proceeding 
savors somewhat of the ludicrous. He stationed tailoi's and barbers at 
each of the gates of Moscow, whose duty it was to cut the beard and whis- 
kers of every man who entered, and 'to cut his petticoats all round about.' 
In the process of the latter mutilation, the victim was made to kneel down, 
when his garments were clipped on a level with the ground. An anecdote 
is told which has something almost affecting, in the proof it affords of the 
earnestness with which these poor people clung to their unclean and incon- 
venient habits. The czar on one occasion met an old man coming from the 
barber, and addressed him, saying that he looked like a young man, now 
he had lost his beard ; upon which the man put his hand into his bo- 
som, and drew forth the beard which had been cut off, telling the czar he 
should preserve it, in order to have it put into his coffin, that he might be 
able to produce it to St. Nicholas in the other world ! 

About this time the czar altered the commencement of the year from the 
1st of September to the 1st of January — a proceeding which gave almost 
equal offense to his people, who thought he was undertaking to change the 
course of the sun. He next instituted assemblies for the encouragement of 
social intercourse between the sexes, that people might have a reasonable 
opportunity of forming suitable marriages. Hitherto wives had been 
sought in the Asiatic manner — the bride being given away or sold by her 
parents, without being previously seen by the intended bridegroom. And 
while all these social and moral reformations were going on, Peter was 
building a fleet on the Don, connecting that river with the Volga, and 
planning to wrest a sea-coast territory from a warlike nation, on which 
to build a new metropolis — St. Petersburg. 

Hitherto the capital of Russia had been Moscow, which, being inland, 
was ill adapted for commerce. With a view to remedy this defect, Peter 
fixed on a sitj for his new capital at the mouth of the river Neva, and ad 
joining the Gulf of Finland. But the land in this quarter was not his own : 
it belonged to Sweden. His object was therefore to seize upon one or two 
provinces, add them to Russia, and then commence building his town. It 
is distressing to have to relate such a circumstance of a man whom, on 
other grounds, we are inclined to respect. According to the way in which 
history is usually written, the commission of such acts is not only not rep- 
robated, but in some cases is commended. We, however, cannot unite in 



486 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

glossing over acts of injustice, even though they be done by kings. Peter 
was guilty of rapacity, and the only excuse that can be found for him is, 
that he did nothing more than what all sovereigns of his time considered it 
no crime to commit. To attain his desired end in this and other respects, 
Peter, in 1700, entered into a political alliance with Augustus, king of Po- 
land and elector of Saxony, and the king of Denmark. These three poten- 
tates combining against the youthful Charles of Sweden — who, by a sort 
of miracle, proved himself, at eighteen years of age, the greatest general 
in Europe — the czar determined to take from him the provinces of Ingria 
and Carelia ; Augustus desired to regain Esthonia and Livonia, ceded by 
Poland to Charles XI ; and Denmark wished to regain Holsten and Sles- 
wick. Peter invaded Ingria at the head of 60,000 men ; and, desirous to 
find some pretext for his aggressions, could choose no better one than that 
his ambassadors had been charged exorbitant prices for provisions while 
passing through that province on their way to Holland ; though he also re- 
minded them that he himself had been insulted by being refused a sight ol 
the citadel of Riga ! 

At the latter end of September Peter laid siege to Narva, a fortified 
town on the river Narowa, just at the time that Charles was engaged with 
the Danes, and putting an end to the war in Denmark. This, however, 
was accomplished in a few weeks ; and then, at the head of only 0000 
troops, he came to the relief of Narva. Peter, probably astonished that 
the place had held out so long, but never doubting of ultimate success, left 
the army encamped before Narva to meet a body of nearly 30,000 men, 
whom he had sent for. The reason of this proceeding cannot be easily 
explained ; for certainly the presence of the czar was most required with 
the main body, already 60,000 strong, at the scene of action. Probably 
he went forth to meet the reinforcement only from the restlessness of mind 
and impatience of delay which were part of his character. It was a false 
step, however. During his absence, on the 19th of November, Charles 
came up to Narva, and taking advantage of a tremendous snow-storm, 
which beat directly in the faces of the Russians, fell upon them, and with 
his 9000 men completely routed or captured an army of nearly seven 
times the number. The prisoners taken were nearly 40,000 ; and the in- 
convenience of the long petticoats was at last discovered, since they hin- 
dered a great number from — running away ! Never was a more igno- 
minious defeat, though the czar bore it with the greatest philosophy. 'I 
know very well,' he said, 'that the Swedes will have the advantage of us 
for a considerable time ; but they will teach us at length to beat them.' 

On the occasion of this defeat, the priests composed a prayer to St. 
Nicholas, which was publicly offered up. It besought his assistance against 
those ' terrible, insolent, furious, dreadful, invincible destroyers,' who had 
fallen upon them ' like lions and bears deprived of their young — frighten- 
ing, wounding, and killing them by thousands ' — and declaring that such 
calamities could only have befallen them from ' witchcraft and sorcery.' 
Peter, however, did not wait for the help of St. Nicholas. He entered into 
negotiations with the kings of Denmark and Poland to assist him with 
troops, and to keep up the quarrel with Charles XII ; at the same time he 
melted the church and convent bells of Moscow to found cannon, and 
made every preparation for his intended campaign in the ensuing spring. 
But amid all his preparations for war, Peter never lost sight of those pro- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 487 

jects which were to bring forth their fruits in peace. At this period he 
was founding hospitals and schools, erecting linen and paper factories, and 
importing sheep from Saxony, gathering together smiths, braziers, and arti- 
ficers of every description, and having the mines of Siberia explored for ore. 

It is not our purpose to detail the battles and sieges which took place 
in the course of the following year or two, although we must mention one 
of them mo-e particularly, as it was the occasion of introducing to Peter a 
person who henceforth took part in his fortunes. Marienburg was a little 
town on the confines of Ingria and Livonia, which, besieged by Peter's 
army, surrendered at discretion. Either through accident or design, the 
Swedes who defended it set fire to the magazine, which so incensed the 
Russians, that they destroyed the town, and carried away all the inhabi- 
tants. Annng the prisoners was a young girl of about sixteen years of 
age, a Livor.ian by birth, who had been brought up from charity in the 
house of a Lutheran minister. There is no reason to suppose she had 
occupied anj higher station than that of servant in his family ; but it is 
said that she had been married to a Swedish soldier, who fell in the siege, 
the very day before it took place. This widowed orphan was taken to the 
camp of one of the Russian generals. Precisely how or when Peter first 
saw her, can aever be known ; but the best authenticated and most likely 
story is, that while engaged in handing round dried fruits and liquors at 
the house, or in the tent of Prince Menzikoff, the Livonian slave, known 
only by the name of Martha, first attracted the attention of the czar. Accor- 
ding to his invariable custom, when pleased by the manners or countenance 
of any one, :ie entered into conversation with her, and soon discovered 
that she possessed a mind of more than ordinary intelligence. To this she 
joined, as events proved, a cheerful and lively disposition, a kind heart, and 
an amiable temper. No doubt Peter had penetration enough to see that 
she was precisely the woman who could share his enthusiasm, sympathise 
in his plans, and be, in short, the wife he wanted. The meanness, or 
indeed obscarity of her birth, was no obstacle to him; he had absolute 
power to raise her to the loftiest condition in his empire ; and, accordingly, 
by the name of Catherine, which she now adopted, he married her at first 
privately, but a few years afterwards with the state and ceremony of 
public nuptials. Thus was chosen the partner of his throne, and his 
successor upon it. 

It was scon after these events — 1700 — that the death of ' the patriarch,' 
or supreme head of the Russian church, afforded the czar an opportunity 
of beginning some wholesome reforms in that quarter. He had thought 
it necessary to commence his military career by fulfilling the humblest 
duties of a soldier, and we have seen that he set about learning the art of 
ship-building by working with his own hands ; but when he boldly annihi- 
lated the office of patriarch, and placed himself, without any preparatory 
steps, at the head of the church, he probably thought there was nothing 
the priests could teach him which he desired to learn. Certainly a set of 
men who believed that sanctity dwelt in a beard, and who were in the habit 
of placing letters of introduction to their patron saint in the hands of 
deceased persons when laid in their coffins, were not likely to meet with 
much respect from a great reformer like Peter I: and the few whose 
glimmer of intelligence raised them above the gross superstition and 
corruption of the mass, must have experienced all the temptations of self- 



488 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

interest to oppose themselves to the projects of the czar ; for they must 
have known that the nation once enlightened, their power would be gone. 

Let us however, not be misunderstood in the use we may make of the 
words 'nation' and 'people.' As a nation — as a people— -the Russians 
are not to this day sufficiently enlightened to choose their own legislators and 
enjoy a constitutional form of government ; and, sunk in the ignorance and 
barbarism from which Peter partially raised them, a perfect despot, such as 
he was, was the only ruler that could have had power enough to help them. 

The printing-press, which Peter had introduced, vomited fcrth libels of 
various sorts upon him ; and he was denounced as Antichrist bj the priests. 
A few, however, defended him from this charge, but only because ' the 
number six hundred and sixty-six was not to be found in his name, and ho 
had not the sign of the beast.' 

It was about this time that the czar took an excellent oitportunity of 
showing that new customs are generally better than old ones. On the 
occasion of the marriage of one of his sisters, he invited the principal 
Boyards and ladies of Moscow to celebrate it, requiring them to appear 
dressed after the ancient fashion. The dinner was served up in the man- 
ner of the sixteenth century. By an ancient superstition, it was forbidden 
to kindle a fire on a wedding day ; accordingly, though it vas winter, no 
fire was permitted. Formerly, the Russians never drank wine, so nono 
was provided ; and when the guests murmured at any of the unpleasant 
arrangements, Peter replied, 'These were the customs of ycur ancestors, 
and you say old customs are the best.' A practical lesson of more force 
than wordy arguments, and one that might aiford a useful hint in much 
toore recent times. 

Having obtained the provinces he required, Peter set aboub building St. 
Petersburg ; in the execution of which work he overcame difficulties which 
would have discouraged any other man. The spot he fixed upon was a 
miserable morass, half under water, without wood, or clay, or stones, or 
building materials of any kind ; with a barren soil, and a climate of almost 
polar severity. The resolution to build this city has always been spoken 
of as an act of extreme rashness ; for, to its other disadvantages, it was 
liable to be flooded by the waters of the gulf on the prevalence of a south- 
west wind, more particularly if the wind should blow at a time when the 
ice of the Neva was breaking up in the summer thaws. 

Whether Peter was aware of all these disadvantages, is not clearly as 
certained. It is only certain that, notwithstanding every drawback, he 
continued the building of St. Petersburg, which, under his marvelous 
energy, soon became a splendid city, adapted for commerce with all the 
world. What he began, his successors have finished ; and St. Petersburg 
now vies in grandeur with any city in Europe. Although never seriously 
injured by flooding, as was anticipated, it has on divers occasions been ex- 
posed to great alarm, and the safety of the inhabitants has been endanger- 
ed. Indeed inundations are so frequent in many of the low parts, that 
water is as much dreaded in St. Petersburg as fire in many other cities; 
accordingly, precautions have been taken to guard as much as possible 
against any such calamity. When an inundation is anticipated, a cannon 
is fired from the Admirality, and signal-flags hoisted on the steeples, and 
the alarm-gun is repeated every hour until the danger appears at an end. 

When the river rises so high as to lay the lowest streets under water, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 489 

the al&xin-gun is fired every quarter of an hour ; and in proportion as the 
peril increases, the cannons are more frequently fired, until minute-guns 
are understood to be a cry of despair, summoning boats to the assistance 
of the drowning people. 

The highest inundation of which there is any record occurred on the 
17th of November 1824; and in every street there is a painted mark, 
showing the height to which the waters rose. The Russians speak with a 
shudder of the sufferings which took place on that occasion. The rise of 
the river was at first gradual and stealthy; but, impelled by a furious 
west wind, it soon came streaming through the streets, lifting some of the 
carts and equipages from the ground, but drowning many horses, which were 
unable to extricate themselves from the heavier vehicles to which they were 
attached. A description is given of the trees in the public squares being 
as much crowded with human beings as they had ever been seen with spar- 
rows ; and a story is told of a gardener who, having been engaged in 
clipping some trees on an acclivity, had not observed the rise of the water 
until it was too late to seek any other refuge than the roof of a garden pa- 
vilion. But here he was joined by such a host of rats and mice, that he 
was in no small danger of being devoured by them. Fortunately, however, 
a dog and a cat sought refuge in the same spot, and, with such powerful 
allies, he remained in safety all night. The river subsided to its accus- 
tomed channel the next day ; but, dreadful as the loss of life and property 
had been, the worst effects had still to follow. Many houses fell in from 
the injury they had received, and it was long before the damp could be ex- 
pelled from those which remained. Almost universal sickness was the 
consequence, and a fearful mortality from the epidemics which raged for 
weeks afterwards. 

To return, however, to Peter. His chief antagonist was Charles XII 
of Sweden, one of the greatest soldiers of his age. Charles had evident- 
ly nothing more dignified in his nature than might belong to a gladiator or 
prize-fighter. He lived as if men came into the world to fight, and for 
nothing else. He had no idea of such a condition as peace. He laughed 
at all social and domestic ties, and made a jest of the severest trials of hu- 
man affections. He had not a heart capable of love or friendship himself, 
and despised all those who had. He was simply destructive ; no fertiliz- 
ing or humanizing influence followed his career ; and when, at a later pe- 
riod, his absence on a disastrous expedition had been protracted for years, 
and his neglected and impoverished subjects besought him to return home, 
his answer was, that he would send 'one of his boots to govern them' — a 
sorry jest, but one that sufficiently showed his nature. 

'His was a name at which the world grew pale, 
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.' 

Peter, on the other hand, never encouraged war, except for the further- 
ance of some great object. While fighting battles, he was at the same 
time planning cities, founding hospitals and scholastic institutions, form- 
ing canals, building bridges, and traveling about to superintend every- 
thing himself, under all circumstances, and in all seasons ; and by such 
means undermining his constitution, and sowing the seeds of disease, which 
carried him off in the prime of life. In his early years his habits were 



490 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



intemperate, It is true ; but though he is reported to have said, 
reform my people, but I cannot reform myself,' he did reform the 



I can 

my people, but I cannot reform myself,' he did reform those per- 
nicious habits which had been systematically inculcated by the machina- 
tions of the infamous Sophia, and in the latter part of his life lived abste- 
miously. Peter was a creator, constructor, and reformer among his people, 
and well deserved the title of Great. 

While Charles was busy elsewhere, Peter took the opportunity of again 
attacking Narva. He laid siege to it by sea and by land, although a large 
body of his troops were still in Poland, others defending the works at St. 
Petersburg, and another detachment before Derpt. But after several 
assaults on one side, and a most determined resistance on the other, 
Narva was at length taken, the Czar being among the first to enter the 
city sword in hand. His behavior on this occasion must have gained him 
the respect and even the affection of his new subjects. The besiegers had 
forced their way into the town, where they pillaged and exercised all the 
cruelties so common with an infuriate soldiery. Peter ran from street to 
street, rescued several women from the brutal soldiers, and endeavored by 
every means to put an end to violence and slaughter, killing with his own 
hand two of the ruffians who had refused to obey his orders. He entered 
the town-hail, whither the citizens had run in crowds for shelter, and, lay- 
ing his reeking sword upon the table, he exclaimed, ' This sword is not 
stained with the blood of your fellow-citizens, but with that of my own 
soldiers, which I have spilt to save your lives ! ' 

As soon as Peter had acquired the provinces he wished, he became 
anxious for peace ; but violence always suggests reprisals ; and Charles 
was by no means inclined to lose a portion of his territory without further 
fighting. He in fact determined on undertaking an inroad into Russia, 
and dictating a treaty of peace at Moscow. Peter, who knew the nature 
of the Russian territory and population, was not alarmed at this decision 
of his rival. His clear intellect perceived the difficulties which the rigor- 
ous climate and vast extent of country to be traversed must present to an 
invading army, and he took measures quietly to increase these impedi- 
ments. The army of Charles ravaged the country wherever they went, 
and put to death, without remorse, hundreds of the peasantry, whom they 
suspected of concealing from them grain or other provisions. It may con- 
vey some idea of the demoralizing influence of war, and the strange dis- 
torted notions which prevailed, to mention that the chaplain of the king 
of Sweden praises these executions as acts of justice on the part of his 
master ! 

The Czar, with his army, retreated slowly before the advancing enemy 
— thus drawing them on, step by step, into the heart of a barren country, 
until the northern monarchs and their followers were lost to the world 
among the wildernesses of ancient Scythia. But the circumstances of the 
Czar were very different from those of the invader. He was at home, 
knew even the wilderness, and was in safe and convenient communication 
with his own cities and magazines. His hundred thousand men were well 
provided, and, before the snow r s of winter set in, were in comfortable quar- 
ters. About this time Mazeppa, the hetman of the Cossacks, deserts from 
Peter to Charles, and so far changes the purpose of the latter, that instead 
of proceeding direct to Moscow, he resolves first to reduce the Ukraine, 
which is a fertile territory lying between ancient Poland and Moldavia, 



BIOGKAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 491 

and was then, as now, belonging to Russia. Some of the Swedish officers 
implored their king to halt, and go into the best quarters they could find 
for the winter. But no; he would go on; and after the loss of thousands 
of his men from cold, hunger, disease, and misery of all sorts, he laid 
siege to Pultowa, a town of the Ukraine, in the month of May, 1709, 
with the remnant of 80,000 men, now numbering less than 20,000 ! 

On the 15th of June the Czar came up to assist his besieged town ; by 
a feint, which deceived the Swedes, he succeeded in throwing 2000 men 
into the place ; and a few days afterwards the famous battle of Pultowa 
took place, at which the Swedish army was completely routed and 
destroyed. Both sovereigns appeared in the front of the battle, although 
Charles, having received a wound a few days before, which had broken 
the bones of his foot, was carried about in a litter, to give directions ; and 
the litter being shattered by a cannon-ball, he was then supported on the 
pikes of his soldiers, several of whom fell in this dangerous service. 
However, when all was over, desperation lent him strength ; for he was 
able to make his escape on horseback. In its results, this battle was one 
of the most important ever fought in Europe. Had the Czar fallen, there 
can be no question his people would have sunk back into the barbarism 
from which he was striving to draw them, and Denmark, Poland, and 
Russia, must have received laws from the brutal Swede. By the mercy 
of Providence these horrors were averted ; and henceforth Charles became 
an object of pity rather than dread. 

After the battle, Peter invited the Swedish officers taken prisoners to 
dinner, and drank to their health as 'his masters in the art of war.' His 
prophetic words at Narva were now verified: the Swedes had indeed 
taught the Russians to beat them. However, the greater part of these 
c masters ' — officers, subalterns, and privates — were sent to Siberia ; for 
Charles had refused an exchange of prisoners previous to the battle, and 
now Peter would not grant it. Meanwhile Charles escaped to Bender, 
and took refuge among the Turks. By his emissaries he represented to 
the sultan the growing power of Russia, revived in him the desire to 
recover Azoph, and to expel the Russians from the Black Sea ; and finally 
succeeded in bringing about a declaration of war from Turkey against the 
Czar. The Turks commenced hostilities by imprisoning the Muscovite 
ambassador, upon which Peter levied an army, and marched to the frontier 
of Turkey at the head of 40,000 men. Before setting out, however, he 
made a public proclamation of his previous marriage with Catherine, who 
insisted upon accompanying him in this campaign. 

It is a singular circumstance that, in this expedition, Peter fell into an 
error almost identical with that which had led to the overthrow of his rival. 
Charles had trusted to the representations of the double traitor Mazeppa, 
who promised to supply him with food and men ; and Peter allowed himself 
to be led into a hostile and barren country, relying on the faithless hospo- 
dar of Moldavia, who had promised him similar assistance. On reviewing 
the coincidence, one cannot help fancying that perhaps, after all, there 
might be less of stratagem on the part of the czar than chance movements, 
which led the Swede on to his ruin, or surely he would not have been blind 
to the consequences of conduct so similar. To be brief: when Peter had 
crossed the river Pruth, he found himself near Jassy, hemmed in between 
an army of Turks and another of Tartars, with a rapid river rolling between 



492 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

him and his dominions, with scarcely any provisions, and without perceiv 
ing the means of procuring them ; and in this manner were the 40,000 
Russians held at bay by enemies whose numbers were said to amount to 
200,000. Still they fought desperately ; a sort of protracted battle going 
on for three days, during which time 18,000 men were lost. The situation 
of the czar was dreadful. One can imagine the agony of mind he must 
have endured at the thought of perhaps himself being paraded as a captive 
at Constantinople : yet retreat was impossible ; and escape from death or 
capture seemed equally hopeless. 

In this hour of torture and distress the czar shut himself up in his tent, 
either to take counsel of himself, or to hide his deep mortification. He 
gave strict orders that no one should disturb him ; but the wife who had 
shared his perils, and knew his heart, ventured to transgress these com- 
mands, and made her way to his side. She found him in terrible convul- 
sions — an attack of the fits to which he was subject having been brought 
on by the agony of his mind. Catherine, who possessed an extraordinary 
power of calming him on these occasions, applied the usual remedies ; and, 
assuming a cheerful manner, described the idea which had suggested itself 
to her mind as a means of escaping the threatened ruin. 

Certainly this idea was so simple and natural a thing, under the circum- 
stances, that the only marvel is, that it had not occurred to Peter himself 
and his entire staff. She proposed that a negotiation should be attempted ; 
and, to comply with the custom of approaching the grand vizier with pres- 
ents, she stripped herself of her jewels, and ransacked the camp for every 
article of value that might make a suitable offering. It is not likely that, 
on this military tour, she had encumbered herself with any costly orna- 
ments, and two black foxes' skins are the only articles Ave find specially 
mentioned. 

She it was who chose the officer she considered most intelligent and 
trustworthy for the important mission to the vizier, and she it was who gave 
him his instructions. Some hours having elapsed after his departure, it 
was feared that he had been killed, or was detained a prisoner ; and a 
council of war was held, at which we find Catherine was present. At this 
council it was resolved that, if the Turks refused to enter into a treaty of 
peace, rather than lay down their arms and throw themselves on their 
mercy, the Russians would risk their lives by attempting to cut their way 
through the enemy. During this interval, Peter, despairing of any favor- 
able results from the mission, and reduced to despondency, wrote to the 
senate at Moscow — ' If I fall into the hands of the enemy, consider me no 
longer as your sovereign, and obey no commands which shall proceed from 
the place of my confinement, though it should be signed by my own hand. 
If I perish, choose the worthiest among you to succeed me.' 

The return of the messenger, however, prevented these desperate meas- 
ures, for he brought the intelligence that an honorable treaty had been 
agreed to by the vizier. The partisans of Charles XII have always up- 
braided what they call the cowardice of the Turkish governor on this occa- 
sion ; but it seems to us that he behaved in a dignified and enlightened 
manner, and, in consenting to put an end to the war, consulted the inter- 
ests of his country, a hundred times more than if he had sacrificed fresh 
troops in opposing the czar, and driving the Russian army to desperation. 
Hostilities were suspended immediately ; and soon afterwards articles were 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 493 

signed, by which Azoph was surrendered to the Turks, the czar excluded 
from the Black Sea, the Russian army withdrawn beyond the Danube, and 
the promise given of a free passage to Charles XII through Russia to his 
own dominions. Much as this seems for Peter to have sacrificed, that 
Catherine's services were considered extraordinary is proved beyond ques- 
tion ; and several years afterwards, on the occasion of her being crowned 
empress, Peter again publicly acknowledged them, referring to that ' des- 
perate occasion ' in these words — ' She signalized herself in a particular 
manner by a courage and presence of mind superior to her sex, which is 
well known to all our army, and to the whole Russian empire.' 

The fury of Charles on hearing of this treaty knew no bounds. He 
sought the Turkish camp, and insulted the vizier to his face, who retorted 
only by some bitter sarcasms on his own prostrate condition. He refused 
to take advantage of his right to return home ; and, still nourishing the in- 
sane hope of being able to attack Moscow, he lingered at Bender till 1714, 
when the Turks, heartily tired of their troublesome guest, sent an army to 
dislodge him, and he made his way to Sweden in the disguise of a courier. 

Of Charles XII of Sweden we need only further say that he fell from 
a chance ball, which entered his temple, and killed him on the spot, on the 
11th of December 1718, while conducting the siege of Frederickshall, a 
small town in Norway ; just in time, according to some historians, to 
prevent a union with his old opponent the czar to disturb the government 
of Great Britain. If the mere existence of such a scourge as Charles 
XII were not in itself too grave a subject for mirth, one might be amused 
at the acknowledgments of his panegyrist Voltaire, who, in summing up 
his character, alludes to his great qualities, of which he says — ' One alone 
would have been enough to immortalize any other prince ;' and yet admits 
that they caused the misery of his country. And that his ' firmness, be- 
come obstinacy, led to the sufferings of his army in the Ukraine, and its 
detention in Turkey ; that his liberality degenerated into profusion, and 
ruined Sweden; that his justice sometimes' — we should say very often — 
4 approached to cruelty ; and that the maintenance of his authority verged 
upon tyranny.' Moreover, that he ' gained empires to give them away.' 
Yes ; for the mere pleasure, to him, of fighting and slaughtering ! What 
a pity he was not born a butcher instead of a king ! If an admirer ac- 
knowledged thus much, what was the truth likely to have been ? 

Meanwhile Peter had been going on with his mighty reforms, notwith- 
standing the opposition of the ignorant and superstitious priesthood, who 
worked on the people by every means in their power. They taught them 
that all these alterations were in direct opposition to the will of Heaven ; 
and among other tricks, persuaded them that the pictures of the saints 
wept at their transgressions. This deception was contrived by making a 
cavity behind the head of the picture, and filling it with water ; then, when 
the occasion arrived that it was proper for the tears to flow, a little fish 
was put into the water, which, splashing about, forced out the water at the 
eyes of the painting. 

In 1715-16, Peter indulged himself by making a second tour in Eu- 
rope, taking Catherine with him. He visited Saardam, where, eighteen 
years before, he had worked as a ship-builder ; and where he was now 
received with every demonstration of honor and regard. It is related 
that he showed the czarina, with much interest, the little cabin in which 



494 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

he had worked and lived. There were some political reasons which detained 
Peter for nearly three months in Holland. He was nearer the centre of 
intelligence than at home concerning the purposes of other powers, some 
of whom were plotting against him. However, after conducting a cor- 
respondence, and drawing up a treaty with France, he returned to St 
Petersburg, traveling by way of Berlin. 

We come now to a dark and mysterious passage in the life of Peter 
the Great. Alexis, Peter's son by his divorced wife, appears to have 
possessed naturally but an inferior intellect, joined to that species of 
low cunning which often belongs to it, without any moral qualities to 
counterbalance such defects ; and unfortunately his mistaken education had 
confirmed him in his vices and follies. We have already mentioned that, 
on his marriage being dissolved, Peter allowed his son to remain with his 
mother. The consequence was, that from an early age he was placed under 
the control of the priests, who not only instilled into his mind their own 
superstitious notions, but taught him that the changes in the government 
and manners of the people effected by the czar were acts offensive to God. 
It is impossible to help sympathizing with Peter in the disappointment he 
must have felt at finding his only son a stupid, and yet mischievous and 
profligate creature ; for the only son which Catherine brought him died a 
mere infant. Remembering that the Russian succession was vested in the 
will of the autocrat, who was supposed to have a perfect right to bequeath 
the sovereignty to whomsoever he pleased, every candid reader will ac- 
knowledge that Peter was quite justified in disinheriting his unworthy son, 
whose first act, on gaining the reigns of government, would have been to 
undo, to the best of his ability, the great works of his predecessor. But 
it is impossible to justify the extreme severity of the czar, although we can 
comprehend the excuses which might be offered for it. Not that historians 
do offer them, for they seem, almost without exception, to dwell on the 
darkest side of the question, almost without remembering the provocatives 
to his wrath. The simple truth is a deep enough tragedy. 

When Alexis was about twenty years of age, which appears to have 
been as soon as Peter discovered the mischief that was done, he tried to 
repair it, by placing a different order of persons about him, and sending 
him to travel. When he came back, he married him to an amiable and 
intelligent princess of the house of Brunswick, who died in less than four 
years, literally of a broken heart, from the neglect, cruelty, and profligacy 
of her brutal husband. After her death, Peter wrote a letter to his son, 
which concluded with these words: — 'I will still wait a little time to see 
if you will correct yourself; if not, know that I will cut you off from the 
succession as we lop off a useless member. Don't imagine that I mean 
only to frighten you ; don't rely upon your being my only son ; for if I 
spare not my own life for my country and the good of my people, how 
shall I spare you ? I would rather leave my kingdom to a foreigner who 
deserves it, than to my own son who makes himself unworthy of it.' 
And in a subsequent letter, Peter said — 'Take your choice ; either make 
yourself worthy of the throne, or embrace a monastic state.' 

But Alexis seemed not at all inclined to do either ; although, during 
fits of pretended penitence, he was willing to do anything. There is no 
doubt, however, that the terror of the Czar was, that even if his son 
entered a monastery, he might still at his death be placed at the head of 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 495 

that party who were opposed to reform, and so recover the throne. It 
seems to us that this dread of future ruin to the country is the true expla- 
nation of Peter's severity ; for, taking into account the barbarism of the 
times, and the sanguinary laws all over Europe, we can find no evidence 
of a cruel disposition in the history of Peter the Great. 

Before the Czar set out for Germany and France, he visited his son, 
who was then on a bed of sickness. On this occasion Alexis solemnly 
promised that, if he recovered, he would embrace a monastic life ; but his 
father was no sooner out of Russia, than the prince became suddenly well, 
and entered upon his former life of riot and dissipation. Some intelligence 
of what was occurring at home reached the Czar, and he wrote a peremp- 
tory letter to his son, desiring him either to enter a monastery without 
delay, or join him at Copenhagen. Upon this Alexis declared his inten- 
tion of going to Copenhagen, and drew money from Menzikoff for his 
traveling expenses. But, apparently frightened at the thought of meeting 
his father — and really it is easy to fancy the incensed czar an object of 
great terror to the culprit — he proceeded to Vienna, there to concoct some 
treasonable schemes with the emperor of Germany, who, however, alarmed 
at the probable consequences, got rid of him ; and from Vienna he turned 
his steps to Naples. His plan seems to have been to get out of his fath- 
er's way as far as possible, and wait the chances of life and death that 
might place him in some new position. But Peter I, either as a sovereign 
or a father, was not a personage to be treated in this manner. Accord- 
ingly, we find him despatching two messengers to Naples, to bring Alexis 
back to Moscow by fair means or foul. There is evidence that he accom- 
panied them, on the solemn assurance of his father's forgiveness ; and this 
deception certainly gives the darkest hue to the trial and condemnation 
which followed. 

As soon as Alexis arrived at Moscow, which was in February, 1718, a 
council was called, at which he was publicly disinherited ; and after a long 
private conference with the czar, the particulars of which never trans- 
pired, Alexis was arraigned as a criminal, and tried for conspiring against 
his father's life and throne by a body of ' ministers and senators, estates 
military and civil.' Peter was so accustomed to make his own will the 
law, that in this array of judges there is clear evidence that he wished in 
some measure to throw the responsibility from his own shoulders, or rather 
to seem to do so ; for no doubt the judges only strove to decide in the 
manner which should best please their master. After all, the condemna- 
tion chiefly rested upon the confession of Alexis himself, and the acknowl- 
edgments of his mistress, his companions, and his confessor ; and the 
words of these were wrung from them on the rack. Certainly Alexis 
made himself out to be much more guilty than any other evidence proved; 
and yet the czar's only excuse for revoking his pardon was, that it had 
been promised ' on condition that he confessed everything.' 

There can be no doubt that this weak and vicious young man had been 
quite ready to lend himself to any plot ; or, according to his own words, 
' If the rebels had asked me to join them in your lifetime, I should most 
likely have done so — if they had been strong enough.' And in answer to 
another question, he said that he ' had accused himself in confession of 
wishing the death of his father; ' but that the priest had replied that God 
would pardon it, as they all wished it as much. 



496 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

At last he is found guilty. A council of clergy, who are among those 
referred to for a sentence, quote from the Bible, and especially Absalom's 
case, and recommend mercy. But further transgressions are said to have 
come to light, and the ministers, senators, and generals unanimously con- 
demned him to death, without stating the manner or time of the same, and 
of course well knowing that the breath of the czar could revoke their edict. 

Whether Peter intended to save his son, or really to permit his execu- 
cution, is among those secrets which history can never pierce. The sen- 
tence alone literally terrified Alexis to death ! On hearing it read, he fell 
into a fit, from the effects of which he never recovered, although he re- 
gained his senses sufficiently to implore the presence of his father. An 
interview was granted, at which it is said both father and son shed tears ; 
and finally, after receiving the pardon of the czar, and the consolations 
of religion, the miserable Alexis breathed his last in prison on the 7th of 
July. 

The most absurd stories were current for a long time, and repeated 
from mouth to mouth, and copied by one biographer after another. They 
are still to be found in many otherwise grave authorities. The very 
number and variety of these tales falsify them all. The czar was accused 
of poisoning his son (sending openly one messenger after another for the 
poison); other accounts say that he knouted him to death with his own 
hands ; others, that he cut off his head himself, and had it privately 
stitched on again. The best argument against such fables is, that if Peter 
really wished his son's death, he had only to let the so-called ' course of 
justice ' have its way. Besides, the circumstance of his receiving extreme 
unction, when on the point of death, is a fact authenticated and estab- 
lished. 

As may be imagined, Catherine did not escape her share of these accu- 
sations; but all the evidence which remains tends to prove that, so far 
from meriting them, she endeavored to incline her husband to the side of 
mercy, 

We are drawing near the close of the active and eventful life of Peter 
the Great. We need not dwell upon his Persian campaign, in which, after 
having found a pretext for a quarrel, because he wanted one, he acquired 
those sunny provinces to the south of the Caspian, which compensated for 
the loss of Azoph. ' It is not land I want, but water,' was his frequent 
exclamation, when studying the requirements of his vast empire. The 
ruler who had first evinced his love of maritime affairs by paddling a skiff 
upon the Yausa, and who had inherited only a wild and barbarous inland 
country, was now the master of a respectable navy, the lord of the sunny 
Caspian and of the icy Baltic. 

After his return from Persia in 1722, we find him, as usual after any 
lengthened absence, instituting examinations for mal-administration. The 
vice-chancellor Schaffiroff, one of his favorites, was condemned to death ; 
but on the scaffold his punishment was commuted to banishment. Menzi- 
koff was sentenced to pay 200,000 rubles into the exchequer, and was de- 
prived of a great part of his income, and flogged by the emperor's own 
hand. For the infliction of this punishment Peter used his dubina — a cane 
of thick Spanish reed. Several others were disgraced, flogged, or heavily 
fined — thus at once showing the czar's impartiality, and proving how well 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 497 

be knew the impossibility of reforming the masses while corruption existed 
in high places. 

In July 1724, Peter again conducted a fleet against Sweden, to enforce 
his claims on Sweden and Denmark in behalf of the duke of Holstein. 
Having effected this purpose, he returned to Cronstadt, where he celebra- 
ted, by a splendid parade, the creation of his navy, which now consisted 
of forty-one ships of war, with 2106 cannon, and 14,960 seamen. It was 
on this occasion that he caused the little skiff we have mentioned to be 
brought from Moscow, and to be consecrated by the name of the Little 
Grandsire — the father of the Russian navy. This little shallop is still pre- 
served at St. Petersburg with almost religious veneration. 

The last years of this great monarch's life were employed in providing 
against the inundations to which his new capital was exposed in the autumn, 
in continuing the Ladoga canal, and in the erection of an academy of sci- 
ences. He turned his attention next to the examination and punishment 
of state criminals ; to the promotion of the labors of the legislative body ; 
and the establishment of the order of ' Alexander Newsky ;' the improve- 
ment of the condition of the monks ; the banishment of the Capuchins from 
Russia ; and a new commercial treaty with Sweden. He also betrothed 
his favorite daughter Anna to the duke of Holstein in 1724, having already 
placed the crown, with great pomp, upon the head of his wife Catherine 
on the 18th of the preceding May, in token of his love and gratitude. He 
likewise provided that an education should be given to the surviving son 
of the unhappy Alexis, such as would become a future emperor of Russia 
— his only son by Catherine having died, as before mentioned, when a 
child, in 1717. 

Peter had been for a considerable time in a weak state of health ; but he 
owed the acceleration of his death to an act of humanity. Late in the au- 
tumn of 1724, going to visit the forge and manufactory of arms at Syster- 
beck he saw a boat filled with soldiers and sailors stranded, and sent a 
shallop to assist, but which failed in the attempt. Determined to gain his 
end, he set out for the spot himself; and as his vessel could not quite reach 
the spot, he leaped into the water, and waded to the boat, which he aided 
in getting off. A severe cold followed this dangerous but humane act, and 
this, in addition to the painful disorder from which he had long been suffer- 
ing, brought on the most fatal symptoms. These came on so suddenly at 
last, and his sufferings were so great, that he was unable to make his last 
wishes perfectly intelligible. There is, however, little or no doubt that he 
intended to 'appoint his wife his successor. His words, so far as they 
could be understood, expressed this ; and on the very day of his death she 
succeeded him without opposition. Catherine watched by his bedside, with- 
out quitting him, for the last three nights of his life ; and he breathed his 
last in her arms January 28, 1725, being only in his fifty-fourth year. 

The reader of this brief biography may sum up the character of Peter 
the Great more satisfactorily than we can do it for him ; for different 
minds will estimate differently his services to his country. That he was a 
man of powerful and original genius, who did everything himself, and was 
never the instrument of others, must be conceded on all hands. His ardor 
was joined with prudence and resolution. His violent passions and sensual 
excesses were the fruits of the barbarism of his nation, his imperfect edu- 
cation, and uncontrolled powr. His services to a people so ignorant and 
32* 



498 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

barbarous were of the greatest possible value ; indeed all of good that Rus- 
sia now enjoys may, without much exaggeration, be ascribed to him. But, 
for him, or such as him, they might have remained till now as rude and 
powerless as when he found them. Among the Russians his name is vene- 
rated as it deserves to be. St. Petersburg, the city of his love and of his 
creation — ' the western portal of the empire ' — is now a magnificent me- 
tropolis, with palaces, arsenals, quays, bridges, academies, and temples, 
rising one beyond another ; albeit that the severity of its climate must for- 
ever be a drawback to its many advantages. 

COUNT RUMFORD. 

Benjamin Thompson, better known by the name of Count Rumford, 
which he afterwards acquired, was bora at Woburn in Massachusetts on the 
26th of March 1753. His ancestors appear to have been among the ear- 
liest of the colonists of Massachusetts, and in all probability came originally 
from England. They seem to have held a respectable rank among their 
neighbors, and to have been for one or two generations moderately wealthy. 

Ebenezer Thompson, the grandfather of Count Rumford, held a captain's 
commission in the militia of the province, and was therefore a man of some 
repute in the place where he resided. Count Rumford's father, whose 
name was also Benjamin, dying while his son was a mere infant, the moth- 
er and child continued in the grandfather's house, which had been their 
home even while the husband was alive. In October 1755, however, the 
old man died, leaving a small provision for his grandson, barely sufficient, 
it would appear, to maintain him till he should arrive at an age to be able 
to do something for himself. In the following year Mrs. Thompson, whose 
maiden name was Ruth Limonds, married a second husband, Josiah Pierce, 
also a resident in Woburn ; and the boy accompanied his mother to the house 
of his stepfather, who stipulated, however, that he should receive the 
weekly sum of two shillings and fivepence for the child's maintenance till 
he attained his eighth year. His grandfather's little legacy seems to have 
furnished the means of meeting this demand. 

As soon as young Thompson was able to learn his letters, he was sent to 
the school of his native town, taught by a Mr. John Fowle, who is said to 
have been 'a gentleman of liberal education, and an excellent teacher ;' 
and here in company with all the children of the place, he was taught 
reading, writing, arithmetic, and a little Latin, having the reputation, it is 
said, of being a quick boy. At the age of eleven he left the school of 
Woburn, and joined one taught by a Mr. Hill at Medford, under whose 
care he made greater advances in mathematics than he had attempted un- 
der Mr. Fowle. The only circumstances from which we can form an idoa 
of the progress he made, is the statement that his knowledge of mathemat- 
ics and astronomy wa,s sufficient to enable him to calculate eclipses. 

At thirteen years of age Thompson was bound apprentice to Mr. John 
Appleby, a respectable merchant in Salem, the second town in point of 
sixe in Massachusetts, although at that time it must have been little moro 
than a village. His occupations with Mr. Appleby were principally those 
of a clerk in the counting-house ; and he appears to have had sufficient 
leisure, while attending to his duties, to extend his reading and his ac- 
quaintance with scientific subjects. At this time also he began to exibit a 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 499 

taste for designing and engraving, as well as for mechanical invention. 
Among other contrivances upon which he exercised his ingenuity, was one 
for solving the famous problem of the Perpetual Motion ; a chimera upon 
which young men of a turn of mind similar to his often try their untaught 
powers. One evening, we are informed, the young speculator was so sure 
that he had at length found out the Perpetual Motion, that he set out with 
the secret in his head to Woburn, intending to communicate it to a friend 
and old schoolfellow, Loammi Baldwin, in whose knowledge in such matters 
he placed great confidence. Loammi spent the night discussing the pro- 
ject with him, and so sensibly, that we are told young Thompson became 
convinced of the mechanical impossibility of his or any other Perpetual 
Motion, and returned to his counting-house in Salem next morning, resolv- 
ed to attempt something less magnificent and more practicable. 

About this time the differences between the mother country and the 
American colonies were beginning to assume a serious aspect. The impo- 
sition of the famous stamp tax in 1765 had excited great indignation among 
the colonists, and its repeal in the following year was celebrated with pro- 
portionate rejoicings. At Salem, where the commercial interest predomi- 
nated, it was determined that there should be a great display of fireworks 
on the occasion ; and as the town did not possess a professional pyrotech- 
nist, Mr. Appleby's clerk contrived to get his services in that capacity 
accepted. Unluckily, while preparing some detonating mixture, he han- 
dled the pestle so as to cause an explosion, by which he was so severely 
burnt that his life was despaired of. At length he was able to remove from 
his mother's house at Woburn, to which he had been carried after the ac- 
cident, and resume his employment at Salem. The renewed attempts of 
the mother country, however, to impose taxes on the colonies, followed as 
they were by the resolution of the merchants in the colonies not to import 
any of the products of the mother country, produced such a stagnation of 
trade in Salem, as at other towns, that Mr. Appleby, having no occasion 
for the further services of a clerk, was glad to give young Thompson up 
his indentures, and allow him to return to Woburn. 

This happened apparently in 1767 or 1768; and for a year or two 
afterwards, Thompson's course of life seems to have been wavering and 
undecided. In the winter of 1769 he taught a school at Wilmington ; and 
some time in the same year he seems to have thoughts of pursuing the 
medical profession, for which purpose he placed himself under Dr. Hay, 
a physician in Woburn, and entered zealously upon the study of anatomy 
and physiology. While with Dr. Hay, he is said to have exhibited greater 
fondness for the mechanical than for other parts of the profession, and to 
have amused himself by making surgical instruments. How long Thompson 
pursued his medical studies is uncertain; in 1770, however, we find him 
resuming his mercantile avocations, in the capacity of a clerk in a dry-goods 
store at Boston, kept by a Mr. Capen. He was in Boston during the 
famous riots which took place on the attempt to land a cargo of tea from a 
Bri tishvessel contrary to the resolution of the colonists against admitting 
British goods. Mr. Capen's business seems to have declined in the critical 
circumstances of the colony, as Mr. Appleby's had formerly done ; and 
Thompson was again obliged to return to Woburn. During the summer 
of 1770, he attended, in company with his friend Baldwin, a course of 
lectures on experimental philosophy delivered in Harvard College ; and at 



OOO AMEBIC AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

no time of his life does he seem to have been so busily intent upon the 
acquisition of knowledge. Besides attending the lectures of the professor, 
he instituted experiments of his own of various kinds, some of which were 
the germs of valuable conclusions which he published in after-life. In 
particular, we may mention a course of experiments which he began for 
ascertaining and measuring the projectile force of gunpowder. 

Thompson, though still only in his seventeenth year, had acquired that 
degree and kind of reputation which it is usual for youths of his stamp to 
obtain among intelligent acquaintances ; and late in 1770, he was invited 
by Colonel Timothy Walker, one of the most important residents in the 
thriving village of Rumford, now Concord, in New Hampshire, to take 
charge of an academy in that place. Accepting the invitation, Thompson, 
says his American biographer, Dr. Renwick, ' found himself caressed and 
welcomed by a society not wanting in refinement or pretensions to fashion. 
His grace and personal advantages, which afterwards gained him access 
to the proudest circles of Europe, were already developed. His stature 
of nearly six feet, his erect figure, his finely-formed limbs, his bright blue 
eyes, his features chiseled in the Roman mould, and his dark auburn hair, 
rendered him a model of manly beauty. He acquired an address in the 
highest degree prepossessing ; and at the counter of the Boston retailer, 
had learnt, from its fashionable customers, the polish of manner and dialect 
which obliterates all peculiarities that are provincial, and many of those 
that are national. He possessed solid acquirements far beyond the standard 
of the day, and had attained already the last and highest requisite for 
society — that of conversing with ease, and in a pure language, upon all the 
subjects with a knowledge of which his mind was stored. In addition, he 
possessed the most fascinating of all accomplishments, for he had a fine 
voice ; and although far from a proficient in music as a science, sang with 
taste, and performed on several instruments.' With such advantages the 
young schoolmaster appears to have made an impression on not a few 
female hearts in the country village where he shone ; on none, however, 
so decidedly as on that of Mrs. Rolfe, a colonel's widow, possessed of what 
was then considered a large fortune, and although considerably older than 
himself, still young and handsome enough, according to his biographer, ' to 
render it probable that a feeling more creditable than one arising from 
interested motives led him to seek her hand.' However this may be, the 
affair was soon brought to a happy conclusion. On giving out his vacation 
for the year 1772, the young schoolmaster stepped into the widow's car- 
riage and then drove together to Boston, where he fitted himself with a 
dress in the extreme of fashion of the day, scarlet being then a favorite 
color. Clad anew from top to toe, he reentered the equipage, which 
whirled away towards Woburn. The astonishment of the villagers at 
seeing their young townsman in such a guise, and in such company, was 
past description. ' Why, Ben, my child,' said his mother, gazing at his 
splendid outfit as he dismounted at the door, ' how could you spend your 
whole winter's earnings in this way? ' In the presence of his fair compan- 
ion the youth could hardly explain, and he was obliged to employ a friend to 
break the subject of his intended marriage to his mother. No objections 
were offered on her part, although she took twenty-four hours to deliberate 
on the matter ; and the happy uair drove back to Rumford, where the wed- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 501 

drng was forthwith celebrated, the bridegroom being then in his twentieth 
year. 

After his marriage, Thompson took his place as one of the wealthiest 
inhabitants of the district in which he resided, and mixed in the best soci- 
ety which the colony afforded. It was not long before he made the 
acquaintance of his Excellency John Wentworth, the governor of the 
colony, who, anxious, no doubt, in the critical circumstances in which the 
American dependencies of Great Britain were then placed, to attach to 
the party which sided with the mother country as many influential colonists 
as he was able, lost no time in endeavoring to gain over so promising a 
man as Thompson. A vacancy having occurred in a regiment of the New 
Hampshire militia, Governor Wentworth gave the commission, which was 
that of major, to his new friend : an act of attention which, while it seems 
to have been gratifying to Thompson, did not fail to procure him much ill- 
will from the officers already in the service, over whose heads he had been 
promoted. From this period Thompson began to be unpopular in his native 
province. He was represented as a friend of Great Britain, and an enemy 
to the interests of the colonies ; and this charge was the more readily 
believed, on account of the marked kindness with which he continued to 
be treated by the governor, and the indifference which he exhibited to those 
political questions which were agitating all around him. The truth seems 
to be, that not only was Thompson, as a man in comfortable circumstances, 
and fond of the consideration and opportunities of enjoyment which they 
afforded him, averse to any disturbance, such as a war between the colonies 
and the mother country would cause, but that his constitution and temper- 
ament, his liking for calm intellectual pursuits, disqualified him from taking 
part in political agitation. Many men who have distinguished themselves 
in literature and science have, as a matter of principle, kept themselves 
aloof from the controversies and political dissensions of their time, alleging 
that, however important such questions might be, it was not in discussing 
them that their powers could be employed to most advantage. In the case 
of Thompson, however, who as yet had not begun to lay claim to the char- 
acter of a man devoted to scientific pursuits, his countrymen thought, not 
altogether unreasonably, that they had grounds of complaint. What 
employment was he engaged in, that he ought to be exempted from the duty 
of a citizen — that of taking an interest in public affairs ? So, probably, 
the most candid and considerate of the American patriots reasoned ; and 
as for the great mass of the populace, they condemned him in the usual 
summary manner in which the public judges. Not a name was more 
detested in Massachusetts than that of Benjamin Thompson. He was de- 
nounced as a sycophant of the British — a traitor to the interests of the 
colonies — an enemy of liberty. To such a length did the public hatred 
of him proceed, that at length, in the month of November 1774, the mob 
of Concord had resolved to inflict on him the punishment which several 
other unpopular persons had already experienced — that of being tarred 
and feathered in the open streets. Receiving intelligence of the design 
of the mob before it could be carried into execution, Thompson had no 
alternative but to withdraw from Concord to some other part of the prov- 
inces where political excitement did not run so high. Accordingly, he 
quitted his wife and an infant daughter, who had been born in the previous 
year, and took refuge first in his native town of Woburn, from which he 



502 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

afterwards removed to Charleston. From Charleston, after a few months 
residence, he went to Boston, which was then garrisoned by a British army 
commanded by General Gage. 

Thompson was well received by General Gage and the officers of the 
British army ; and his intercourse with them, while it probably gave him a 
stronger bias towards the side of the mother country than he had yet 
exhibited, did not contribute to remove the bad opinion his countrymen had 
formed of his patriotism. Having returned in the spring of 1775, to his 
native town of Woburn, where he was joined by his wife and daughter, he 
again ran the risk of being tarred and feathered. The mob surrounded 
the house where he resided early one morning, armed with guns and sticks, 
and but for the interference of his old friend Loammi Baldwin, who arrived 
at the spot in time to use his influence with the crowd, serious consequences 
might have ensued. 

The commencement of open hostilities between the colonists and the 
British troops in May 1775, made Thompson's position still more critical. 
As a major in the militia of the province, he would probably have acted on 
the side of the patriots, obeying the orders of the' Provincial Congress, 
which had superseded the old government ; but the odium attached to his 
name was such, that his very zeal on the patriotic side Avould have been 
misrepresented. In order, therefore, to clear himself of all suspicion, and 
that he might thenceforth live on good terms with his countrymen, he 
demanded a trial before the Committee of Correspondence established at 
Woburn by authority of the new power. The trial was granted : he was 
put under arrest; and an advertisement was inserted in the newspapers 
for all who had charges to prefer against his patriotism to come forward. 
Besides the general allegation of his being a Tory, and a friend and cor- 
respondent of Governor Wentworth and General Gage, the only charge 
made against him on his trial was, that he had been instrumental in send- 
ing back to their colors two British deserters, having procured their pardon 
from General Gage during his residence in Boston. This, which ought 
properly to have been regarded as a mere act of mercy, was construed in 
a less favorable manner by Thompson's judges ; and although, on the 
conclusion of his trial, the court declared that he had done nothing which 
could legally be considered as a crime, he was set at liberty without the 
satisfaction of a full and formal acquittal. Against this treatment he 
protested in the strongest manner, insisting that he should either be pun- 
ished as guilty, or declared innocent ; but his protests were unheeded. 

With a view, apparently, to convince his countrymen of his patriotism 
by actual service, or possibly because he could enjoy more quiet in the 
army than the ill-will of his fellow-citizens would allow him in his own 
house, Thompson, as soon as his trial was over, joined a detachment of the 
troops of Congress stationed at Chelsea. ' In the hopes of obtaining a 
commission,' says his biographer, ' he paid great attention to tactics, and 
assisted at the drills of the yet undisciplined forces. He also took up the 
study of fortification, which he pursued with his usual ardor. Towards 
the close, however, of the summer of 1775, his position had become irk- 
some, and even dangerous. Suspicions, which it seemed impossible to 
allay, shut against him all access to military rank in the continental army. 
He now could not go from place to place within the lines of the army, 
without being pointed at as the famous Tory Thompson ; and though mili- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 503 

tary discipline sheltered him from actual violence, he was exposed to insults 
that a man of spirit could not brook, and which his position prevented him 
from resenting. If thus treated within the army, he might infer what 
awaited him when he should emerge from the out-posts of the camp.' In 
these circumstances, he came to the desperate resolution of leaving his na- 
tive country. ' I cannot any longer/ he writes to his father-in-law on the 
14th of August 1775, ' bear the insults that are daily offered to me. I 
cannot bear to be looked upon and treated as the Achan of society. I 
have done nothing that can deserve this cruel usage. And notwithstanding 
I have the tenderest regard for my wife and family, and really believe I 
have an equal return of love and affection from them, though I feel the 
keenest distress at the thoughts of what Mrs. Thompson and my parents 
and friends will suffer on my account, and though I foresee and realize the 
distress, poverty, and wretchedness that must attend my pilgrimage in un- 
known lands, destitute of fortune, friends, and acquaintances, yet all these 
evils appear to me more tolerable than the treatment which I meet with at 
the hands of my ungrateful countrymen.' 

Two months after writing the above, he carried his resolution into effect. 
Paying off his debts, and converting some of his property into cash, with 
the expressed intention of removing to some of the southern states, where 
he might live'in greater security, he set out from Cambridge, the head- 
quarters of the American army, on the 10th of October 1775, accompan- 
ied by his half-brother, Josiah Pierce, who took leave of him at the nearest 
post-town. ' From that hour,' says his biographer, ' until the close of the 
revolutionary struggle, his friends ?nd relatives were without any positive 
tidings of his fate.' From accounts afterwards received, it appeared that 
he had reached Newport on the 11th of October, apparently undecided as 
to his future movements ; that there finding a boat belonging to the British 
frigate Scarborough, he went on board that vessel, and was afterwards 
landed at Boston, which his friend General Gage, as commander of the 
British garrison, was at that time maintaining against the American forces. 
Here he remained under the protection of the British till the evacuation of 
the town in March 1776, when he again embarked on board the Scarborough, 
and set sail for England, the bearer of despatches from General Gage to 
Lord George Germain, the British secretary of state for colonial affairs. 
Thus had he fairly renounced all connexion with his native country, and 
gone to push his fortunes in the old world. 

Arriving in England, as he did, the bearer of gloomy despatches, and 
sustaining the equivocal character of a deserter from the American cause., 
Thompson soon proved that he was a man who could command his fortune 
anywhere. The capacity in which he had come over introduced him to 
various public men, who could not fail to be struck by his abilities, as well 
as charmed by his manner ; and the consequence was, that in a short time 
after his arrival he was offered a post in the colonial office. Probably 
the minister was of opinion that none of all the American refugees, who 
then swarmed in London, was able to render such assistance as Thomp- 
son in conducting the department over which he presided. 

Of whatever nature were the services which Thompson rendered to the 
public business, they must have been of considerable value ; for in 1780, 
four years after his arrival in England, he was raised by his patron, Lord 
Germain, to the post of under-secretary of state for the colonies ; an in- 



504 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

stance of promotion which, considering the circumstances in which the 
subject of it stood, is almost unexampled. The usual accompaniment of 
such a situation was, and is, a seat in parliament ; and according to the 
practice of those days, when noblemen had seats in the House of Commons 
at their disposal, Lord Germain, if he had so chosen, might have conferred 
a seat on his American protege" ; but it was probably imagined that the 
admission into parliament of a man so unpopular in America would be 
attended with disadvantages, and that, at all events, Thompson's talents 
were better fitted for the desk than the senate. The income and conse- 
quence, however, which he derived from his office, gave him admission to 
the highest metropolitan circles ; and he had thus opportunities not only of 
becoming known, but also of exercising his inventive mind in many pursuits 
not immediately connected with his official duties. Fertility — a disposition 
to propose improvements in all departments — seems to have been his most 
striking characteristic ; and it was probably this ready genius for practical 
reforms in everything which came under his notice, that recommended him 
so much to public men. A man who, in his general intercourse with society, 
can drop valuable suggestions, allowing others to grasp at them, and enjoy 
the credit of carrying them into effect, is likely to be a favorite. Thomp- 
son appears to have been such a man — a person who, holding no ostensible 
post but that of under-secretary for the colonies, could yet, out of the 
richness of an ever-inventive mind, scatter hints which would be thankfully 
received by men of all professions. 

"While concerning himself generally, however, in a variety of matters, 
Thompson was at the same time following out certain specific lines of sci- 
entific investigation. 'As early as 1777,' says his biographer, 'he made 
some curious and interesting experiments on the strength of solid bodies. 
These were never published, and would probably have been superseded by 
more full investigations made by subsequent experiments. In 1778, he 
employed himself in experiments on the strength of gunpowder, and the 
velocity of military projectiles, and these were followed by a cruise of 
some months in the channel fleet, where he proposed to repeat his investi- 
gations on a larger scale.' On this subject Thompson communicated sev- 
eral papers to the 'Philosophical Transactions' of the Royal Society, of 
which he had become a member. Passing over these scientific lucubra- 
tions, we hasten to reach that period of Rumford's life at which he found 
himself in a situation to give full scope to his genius for improvements. 

As the war between great Britain and the colonies proceeded, it became 
evident that the latter must triumph. The anti- American party in Great 
Britain lost ground ; and on the news of the capitulation of Lord Cornwal- 
lis reaching England, a division took place in the cabinet, and Lord 
George Germain found it necessary to resign office. As his policy, how- 
ever, in American affairs, had been agreeable to the wishes of George 
III, he retired with the honors of a peerage, and was able still to for- 
ward the interests of his friends. Not the least distinguished of these was 
Under-Secretary Thompson, who, whether he had cooperated with his 
principal in all his measures and views, or whether, 'according to his own 
statement afterwards to Cuvier, he was disgusted at Lord Germain's want 
of judgment,' had at least done a sufficient amount of work to deserve a 
parting token of regard. Accordingly, by the influence of the fallen min- 
ister, Thompson was sent out to New York, in the year 1781, with the 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 505 

royal commission of major, which was afterwards changed for that of lieu- 
tenant-colonel, charged with the task of organizing an efficient regiment of 
dragoons out of the broken and disjointed native cavalry regiments which 
had been fighting on the royalist side. What were to be the specific uses 
of this force are now uncertain. The regiment, fortunately, was of no 
avail. 

Peace having been concluded between the United States and Great 
Britain, Colonel Thompson, shortly after his return obtained leave of 
absence in order that he might travel on the continent. 

Passing through France on his way to Vienna he had reached Strasburg 
on the German frontier, when an incident occurred which changed his pros- 
pects and gave a direction to his life different from what he intended, or 
could have anticipated. A review of the garrison of Strasburg being 
held, he presented himself on the field as a spectator, 'mounted on a 
superb English horse, and in the full uniform of his rank as a colonel of 
dragoons. The French officers were eager to make the acquaintance of a 
conspicuous stranger, the more so that his attendance at a review of 
French troops in full English uniform was regarded as an act of courtesy 
which deserved a return. Among those who entered into conversation 
with him was Prince Maximilian, nephew and presumptive heir of the 
Elector of Bavaria, and who had served as the commander of a French 
regiment in the American war. So agreeable was the impression which 
Thompson made on the prince, that on learning his circumstances and 
intentions, the later offered him an introduction to his uncle the Bavarian 
elector, in case he should be inclined to alter his design of proceeding to 
Vienna, and make trial of the Bavarian service. The proposal pleased 
Thompson, and, furnished with the prince's letter of introduction, he set 
out for Munich. Wherever he went he seems to have had the art, 
almost in spite of himself, of conciliating favor ; and on his very first 
audience with the Elector of Bavaria, he was offered an important situa- 
tion at court. Still clinging, however, to his resolution to visit Vienna, he 
did not accept the offer ; but after spending some time at Munich, during 
which the elector's esteem for him increased more and more, he set out 
for the Austrian capital. The elector, however, continued to send him 
pressing invitations to enter his service ; and learning at Vienna that the 
Turkish war was likely to be brought to a speedy conclusion, Colonel 
Thompson at length promised that, provided he could obtain the consent 
of his British majesty, he would take up his residence at Munich. Pro- 
ceeding to London, in order to obtain the consent which was required, he 
was received with great kindness by George III, who conferred on him 
the honor of knighthood, and gave him permission, while resigning the 
command of his regiment, to retain the title of lieutenant-colonel, and the 
half-pay attached to it. 

In the close of the year 1784, Sir Benjamin Thompson took up his res- 
idence in Munich, filling the posts of aid-de-camp and chamberlain to the 
elector, thus connected both with the military and civil service. Charles 
Theodore, the ruling prince of Bavaria, was a man of enlightened mind, 
whose ambition was to elevate the state over which he reigned to a high 
rank among the various members of the German confederacy. The aris- 
tocracy of Bavaria itself not furnishing men of sufficient liberality of view 
to cooperate with him in his designs of improvement, and the prejudices 



506 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of the court preventing him from employing able men from among the peo 
pie, even had there been any such qualified for his purpose, he had judi- 
ciously resolved to employ foreign talent in the difficult work of reforming 
his dominions. The capacity, therefore, in which Sir Benjamin Thompson 
took up his residence in Munich was that of a man who, unconnected by 
ties of blood or interest with the people of Bavaria, and furnished only 
with general ideas applicable to all times and places, was to make it his 
business, under the auspices of the elector, to take a general survey of the 
condition of Bavaria, with a view to rectify as much as possible of what 
was wrong in it. A more noble or responsible situation can scarcely bo 
conceived ; and the dignity and responsibility will appear all the greater, 
when we reflect that the government of Bavaria, being, in its nature des- 
potic, the powers of a man in Thompson's position — that, namely, of virtu- 
al though not ostensible prime minister — were almost unlimited, seeing that 
there were no constitutional forms, and nothing but the absolute will of the 
elector, to check or thwart his proceedings. 

Another circumstance which rendered the situation of Sir Benjamin 
Thompson a peculiarly interesting one, w r as the position of Bavaria at the 
time. ' Most of those,' says Cuvier, 'who are called to power by adven- 
titious circumstances, are led astray by the opinion of the vulgar. They 
know that they Avill infallibly be called men of genius, and be celebrated 
in prose and verse, if they succeed in changing the forms of government, 
or in extending the territory of their sovereign but a few additional leagues. 
Happily for Count Rumford, Bavaria at this period had no such temptations 
for her ministers. Her constitution was fixed by the laws of the empire, 
and her frontiers defined by the more powerful states who were her neigh- 
bors. She was, in short, reduced to that condition which most states con- 
sider so hard a one — namely, to have her whole attention confined to the 
sole object of ameliorating the fortune of her people. The whole attention 
of Sir Benjamin Thompson, therefore, was necessarily to be concentrated on 
the internal condition of Bavaria — a country about the size of Scotland, but 
considerably more populous. 

The first subject which occupied the attention of the American-born 
prime minister of Bavaria was the condition of the army. There were 
three reasons for this early consideration of the state of the army. In the 
first place, the condition of the continent of Europe at the time rendered 
the state of the defensive force a matter of extreme importance to so crit- 
ically situated a state as Bavaria; in the second place, Thompson's own 
tastes inclined him to take an interest in military matters ; and lastly, in a 
despotic state, where a little physical force might be necessary to compel 
the people to adopt good sanitary or other regulations, the army was the 
natural instrument to be employed in all such reforms, and to render this 
instrument efficient was but to begin at the right end. 

Omitting all the miscellaneous improvements of a minor or mechanical 
nature which were effected by Thompson in matters connected with milita- 
ry service — as, for instance, in the construction of cannon, in the uniform 
of the soldiers, their drill, &c. — let us attend to the moral principle which 
ruled all his proceedings with regard to the organization of the army. ' I 
have endeavored, ' he says, ' in all my operations, to unite the interest of the 
soldier with the interest of civil society, and to render the military force 
even in time of peace, subservient to the public good. To facilitate and 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 507 

promote these important objects, to establish a respectable standing army, 
which should do the least possible harm to the population, morals, manufac- 
tures, and agriculture of the country, it was necessary to make soldiers 
citizens, and citizens soldiers. ' To this principle, or at least to the precise 
form in which it is here stated, different persons will make different objec- 
tions, according as their sympathies are civil or military; but Rumford's 
general view, that soldiers should be treated as men, cannot be excepted 
against. The army being essentially the offspring of an age of physical 
force, it is certainly difficult to organize it conformably to the spirit of an 
age which repudiates physical force. To do this — in other words, to make 
the army, as such, a moral agent — is impossible ; but it is quite possible 
to render a large general culture, and much individual freedom, compatible 
with strict discipline ; and at all events, the modern maxim is, that the army 
is a part of society, employed, it is true, in services of a peculiar nature, 
which require a peculiar organization, but not on that account cut off from 
the general mass of the community. Such was the maxim of the Bavarian 
minister. Besides what he did to increase the physical comfort of the 
soldier by superior food, clothing and accomodation, he adopted means for 
the intellectual and moral improvement of all connected with the military 
service. ' Schools were established in all the regiments for instructing the 
soldiers and their children in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Besides 
these schools of instruction, others, called Schools of Industry, were estab- 
lished in the regiments, where the soldiers and their children were taught 
various kinds of work, and from whence they were supplied with raw ma- 
terials to Avork for their own emolument. 

As nothing is so certainly fatal to morals as habitual idleness, every 
possible means was adopted that could be devised to introduce a spirit of 
industry among the troops. Every encouragement was given to the sold- 
iers to employ their leisure time when they were off duty in working for 
their own emolument ; and among other encouragements, the most effica- 
cious of all, that of allowing them full liberty to dispose of the money ac- 
quired by their labor in any way they should think proper, without being 
obliged to give any account of it to anybody.' Besides working at their 
various trades for such as chose to employ them, the soldiers were employed 
as laborers 'in all public works, such as making and repairing highways, 
draining marshes, repairing the banks of rivers, &c; and in all such cases 
the greatest care was taken to provide for their comfortable subsistence, 
and even for their amusement. To preserve good order and harmony 
among those wdio were detached upon these working parties, a certain pro- 
portion of officers and non-commissioned officers were always sent with 
them, and these commonly served as overseers of the works, and as such 
were paid.' 

The particular plan, however, which enabled Thompson, while he was 
improving the personal condition of the soldier, and turning the peace es- 
tablishment to greater account than before for the general good of the coun- 
try, at the same time to diminish greatly the expense of its support, Avas 
that of permanent garrisons. The Avhole army Avas distributed through the 
various cities of the electorate, each city being garrisoned by troops drawn 
from the surrounding district. This plan possessed many advantages. ' A 
peasant Avould more readily consent to his son engaging himself to serve 
as a soldier in a regiment permanently stationed in his neighborhood, than 



508 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

in one at a great distance, or whose destination was uncertain ; and when 
the station of a regiment is permanent, and it receives its recruits from 
the district of country immediately surrounding its head-quarters, the men 
who go home on furlough have but a short journey to make, and are easily 
assembled in case of emergency.' Every encouragement was given to all 
who could be spared from garrison duty to go home on furlough ; an ar- 
rangement which was both agreeable to the men — who, during their absence, 
might be cultivating their little family farms, or otherwise employing them- 
selves at any trade — and economical for the state, because, while the men 
were on furlough, they received no pay, but only their rations. Thus, while 
in every garrison town there remained a sufficient nucleus of men to do 
garrison-duty, and who, while receiving full military pay, were at liberty 
to earn additional money during their leisure time by extra work, the 
greater part of the army were distributed through the community, pursuing 
the ordinary occupations of citizens, but ready to assemble at a few hours' 
notice, and bound to be in the field at least six weeks every year. The 
assumed necessity for such a state of military preparation gives one a strik- 
ing idea of the condition of the continent at this epoch. 

Not content with the mere negative achievement of organizing the army, 
so that ' it should do the least possible harm,' Thompson endeavored to 
make it an instrument of positive good. His plan of permanent garrisons 
and easy furloughs, by establishing a constant flux of men to and from a 
centre, suggested the somewhat novel idea of making the army the medi- 
um for spreading useful improvements of all kinds through the country. 
Supposing, for instance, that pains were taken to teach the soldiers in gar- 
rison any useful art not then known in Bavaria, but which might be natur- 
alized there, it is obvious that when these men were distributed over the 
country on furloughs, they would carry with them not only their own su- 
perior industrial habits, but the art itself. The improvement of Bavarian 
agriculture by this means was one of Thompson's most anxious wishes. 
Very few of the recent improvements in that art, he says, such as the cul- 
tivation of clover and turnips, the regular succession of crops, &c, had 
then found their way into general practice ; and, above all, the potato was 
almost unknown in Bavaria. With a view to introduce a better system of 
agriculture, and especially with a view to naturalize the potato among the 
Bavarians, Thompson devised the system of military gardens — that is, 
'pieces of ground in or adjoining to the garrison towns, which were regu- 
larly laid out, and exclusively appropriated to the use of the non-commis- 
sioned officers and private soldiers belonging to the regiments in garrison.' 
In these gardens every private soldier was assigned a piece of ground, 
about three hundred and sixty-five square feet in extent. This piece of 
ground was to remain the sole property of that soldier as long as he served 
in the regiment : he was to be at liberty to cultivate it in any way, and to 
dispose of the produce in any way he chose ; if, however, he did not choose 
to work in it, but wished rather to spend his pay in idleness, he might do 
so ; but in that case the piece of ground was to be taken from him, and so 
also if he neglected it. Every means was used to attach the soldiers to 
their garden labor : seeds and manure were furnished them at a cheap 
rate ; whatever instruction was necessary, was given them ; and little huts 
or summer-houses were erected in the gardens, to afford them shelter when 
it rained. ' The effect of the plan,' says Rurnford, ' was greater and more 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 509 

important than I could have expected. The soldiers, from being the most 
indolent of mortals, and from having very little knowledge of gardening, 
became industrious and skillful cultivators, and grew so fond of vegetables, 
particularly potatoes, that these useful and wholesome productions began to 
constitute a very essential part of their daily food. These improvements 
began also to spread among the farmers and peasants throughout the whole 
country. There was hardly a soldier that went on furlough that did not 
carry with him a few potatoes for planting, and a little collection of garden 
seeds ; and I have already had the satisfaction to see little gardens here 
and there making their appearance in different parts of the country.' 

After reforming the army, the next subject which occupied the attention 
of the Bavarian statesman was one of universal and perpetual interest — 
the condition of the poor. In order, however, not to be interrupted in our 
narrative of his measures for the relief of the poor of Bavaria, we shall 
note a few of the principal events in his personal history during the period 
of his residence in that country. In 1784, when he commenced his resi- 
dence in Bavaria, he was thirty-one years of age. The titles which were 
then conferred on him were, as we have already informed our readers, 
those of aid-de-camp and chamberlain. Soon afterwards, however, he re- 
ceived the appointments of member of the council of state, and major-gen- 
eral in the army ; the elector at the same time procuring him the decora- 
tions of two orders of Polish knighthood, in lieu of the Bavarian order, 
which the rules of German knighthood prevented him from bestowing. 
The scientific part of the community also showed their esteem for him by 
electing him a member of the academies of Munich and Manheim. All 
this took place not long after Thompson had settled in Munich. Every 
year of his subsequent stay brought him fresh honors. In 178T, when 
on a visit to Prussia, he was chosen a member of the Academy of Scien- 
ces at Berlin ; in Bavaria, to follow the list of dignities given by his Amer- 
ican biographer, ' he attained the military rank of lieutenant-general, was 
commander-in-chief of the general staff, minister of war, and superintend- 
ent of the police of the electorate ; he was for a short time chief of the re- 
gency that exercised sovereignty during the absence of the elector ; and 
in the interval between the death of the Emperor Joseph and the corona- 
tion of his successor Leopold, the elector becoming vicar of the empire, 
availed himself of the prerogatives of that office to make him a Count of 
the Holy Roman Empire.' When this last dignity was conferred on him, 
Thompson chose the title of Count of Rumford, in memory of the Ameri- 
can village where he had once officiated in the humble capacity of school- 
master. Although it was not till the year 1790, that this title was be- 
stowed on him and the measures we are about to detail were for the most 
part matured before that time, we shall consult our convenience by hence- 
forth calling him Count Runiford. 

The condition of the poor, and the mode of treating them, are questions 
which every country on earth must incessantly be occupied with ; but in 
few countries, probably, was the necessity of coming to some decided prac- 
tical conclusion on the subject more glaring, more imperious, than in Bava- 
ria at the time when Count Rumford undertook the social survey of that 
state. Beggary had there become an enormous and apparently ineradi- 
cable evil — a weed overgrowing the whole field. The beggars almost ate 
up the industrious part of the community. ' The number of itinerant beg- 



510 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

gars of both sexes and all ages, as well foreigners as natives, who strolled 
about the country in all directions, levying contributions upon the industri 
ous inhabitants, stealing and robbing, and leading a life of indolence and 
the most shameless debauchery, was quite incredible ; and so numerous 
were the swarms of beggars in all the great towns, and particularly in the 
capital, so great their impudence, and so perserving their importunity, that 
it was almost impossible to cross the streets without being attacked, and 
absolutely forced to satisfy their clamorous demands. They not only in- 
fested all the streets, public walks, and public places, but they even made 
a practice of going into private houses ; and the churches were so full of 
them, that people at their devotions were continually interrupted by them, 
and were frequently obliged to satisfy their demands in order to be per- 
mitted to finish their prayers in peace and quiet. In short, these detesta- 
able vermin swarmed everywhere ; and not only their impudence and clam- 
orous importunity were without any bounds, but they had recourse to the 
most diabolical arts and most horrid crimes in prosecution of their trade. 
The growing number of the beggars, and their success, gave a kind of 
eclat to their profession ; and the habit of begging became so general, that 
it ceased to be considered as infamous, and was by degrees in a manner in- 
terwoven with the internal regulations of society. Herdsmen and shep- 
herds who attended their flocks by the roadside, were known to derive con- 
siderable advantage from the contributions which their situation enabled 
them to levy from passengers ; and I have been assured that the wages 
they received from their employers were often regulated accordingly. The 
children in every country village, and those even of the best farmers, 
made a constant practice of begging from all strangers who passed ; and 
one hardly ever met a person on foot upon the road, particularly a woman, 
who did not hold out her hand and ask for charity.' 

Count Rumford determined to grapple with this enormous evil, and, if 
possible, suppress mendicancy in Bavaria. His sagacity and general 
knowledge of mankind taught him to believe the achievement practicable, 
and he had already paved the way by his reform of the army. Other pre 
liminaries, however, were necessary ; and assisted by the genius of the 
government of Bavaria, where a sudden stroke of benevolent despotism 
was more in keeping than it would be elsewhere, he resolved first thor- 
oughly to mature his scheme, and then to pounce upon the beggars when 
he was prepared to receive them. Although he knew that the people of 
Bavaria would gladly accept any measure which would relieve them from 
the dreadful scourge which they had so long borne, yet as so many 
schemes previously proposed had failed, he resolved to carry his plan into 
successful execution before he asked a farthing from the people in support 
of it. The elector's treasury was accordingly drawn upon for the amount 
of money necessary in advance. 

Munich was to be the scene of his first experiment. And first of all, a 
building was necessary to receive the beggars when they should be appre- 
hended. A suitable edifice was found situated in the Au, one of the su- 
burbs of Munich. 'It had formerly been a manufactory, but for many 
years had been deserted, and falling to ruins. It was now completely re- 
paired, and in part rebuilt. A large kitchen, with a large eating-room 
adjoining it, and a commodious bakehouse, were added to the buildings ; 
and workshops for carpenters, smiths, turners, and such other mechanics, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 511 

were established, and furnished with tools. Large halls were fitted np for 
spinners of hemp, for spinners of flax, for spinners of cotton, for spinners 
of wool, and for spinners of worsted ; and adjoining to each hall a small 
room was fitted up for a clerk or inspector of the hall. Halls were like- 
wise fitted up for weavers of woolens, weavers of serges and shal- 
loons, for linen weavers, for weavers of cotton goods, and for stock 
ing-weavers ; and workshops were provided for clothiers, clothshear- 
ers, dyers, saddlers ; besides rooms for wool-sorters, wool-carders, wool- 
combers, knitters, seamstresses, etc. Magazines were fitted up, as well 
for finished manufactures, as for raw materials, and rooms for counting- 
houses ; storerooms for the kitchen and bakehouse ; and dwelling-rooms for 
the inspectors, and other officers. The whole edifice, which was very ex- 
tensive, was fitted up in the neatest manner possible. In doing this, even 
the external appearance of the building was attended to. It was hand- 
somely painted without as well as within ; and pains were taken to give it 
an air of elegance, as well as of neatness and cleanliness.' 

All these preparations having been made apparently without exciting 
any special degree of public curiosity, New- Year's Day of the year 1790 
was chosen for the grand stroke, that being a day when Munich was sure 
to be unusually full of Beggars. The military was posted through the 
streets, so as to command the whole town, and the neighboring country 
was occupied by patrols of cavalry. In the mean time, having assembled 
at his own residence the magistrates of Munich, and a number of military 
officers and citizens of rank and dignity, Count Rumford expounded to 
them his scheme, and requested them to accompany him into the streets 
where the most difficult part of the work, that of arresting the beggars, 
was to commence. 'We had hardly got into the street,' says Rumford in 
his narrative of the proceedings, 'when we were accosted by a beggar, 
who asked us for alms. I went up to him, and laying my hand gently 
upon his shoulder, told him that from thenceforward begging would not be 
permitted in Munich ; that if he really stood in need of assistance (which 
would be immediately incmired into), the necessary assistance should certain- 
ly be given him ; but that begging was forbidden, and if he was detected 
in it again, he would be severely punished. I then delivered him over to 
an orderly-sergeant, who was following me, with directions to conduct him 
to the Town-Hall, and deliver him into the hands of those he should find 
there to receive him. Then turning to the officers and magistrates who 
accompanied me, I begged they would take notice that I had myself, ivith 
my own hands, arrested the first beggar we had met ; and I recpiested 
them not only to follow my example themselves, by arresting all the beg- 
gars they should meet with, but that they should also endeavor to per- 
suade others, and particularly the officers and soldiers of the garrison, that 
it was by no means derogatory to their character, or in any way disgrace- 
ful to them, to assist in so useful and laudable an undertaking. These 
gentlemen having cheerfully and unanimously promised to do their utmost 
to second me in this business, dispersed into the different parts of the town, 
and, with the assistance of the military, the town was so thoroughly cleared 
of beggars in less than an hour, that not one was to be found in the 
streets.' 

The beggars being all taken to the Town-Hall, their names were written 
down, and they were dismissed to their own homes, with directions to re- 



512 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

pair next day to the 'Military Workhouse,' as the new establishment was 
called, in consequence of its being fitted out with money from the military 
chest, and destined chiefly to supply the army with clothing etc. Here 
they were told they would find comfortable warm rooms, a good warm 
dinner every day, and work for such as were able to labor, with good wa- 
ges, which should be regularly paid. They might, or might not come, just 
as they chose, but at all events they were not to beg any more ; and if 
they appeared in the streets, they should be apprehended. The circum- 
stances of them all, they were told, were immediately to be inquired Into, 
and relief granted to such as required it. 

The plan met with immediate success. On the next day a great num- 
ber of the beggars attended at the Military Workhouse ; the rest hid 
themselves ; and so vigorous and effective were the measures adopted to 
apprehend mendicants, that after trying in vain to renew their old prac- 
tices, these too were obliged at length to yield. The experiment having 
succeeded so far, it was judged advisable to appeal to the public for their 
support ; and a paper was accordingly drawn up by Professor Babo of 
Munich, urging the citizens to do their utmost to rid themselves of the 
scourge of mendicancy, by cooperating in the new scheme. In this paper 
allusion is made to a practice of the beggars, which may be here men- 
tioned, as a proof of the deplorable viciousness of the whole system. The 
beggars of Munich, it appears, drove a lucrative trade in communion and 
confessional certificates, which they obtained from the clergy by attending 
twice or thrice a-day at the holy sacrament, and at confession, and after- 
wards sold to such of the citizens as were averse to church-going, and yet 
desirous of avoiding the inconveniences which neglect of religious observ- 
ances entailed in a place where the Roman Catholic clergy had so much 
power. 

Professor Babo's address having been circulated, with an outline of 
Count Rumford's scheme, the citizens of Munich gladly agreed to con- 
tribute, to enable the project to be fairly carried out ; and indeed, accus- 
tomed as they had been to meet the incessant demands of the beggars by 
as incessant giving, they saw in the new plan not only an immediate 
moral relief, but a prospect of pecuniary saving. Rumford's principle 
was, to depend entirely upon the voluntary contributions of the charitable. 
The city was divided into sixteen districts ; the names of all the inhabi- 
tants of each district who were willing to subscribe were taken down, with 
a note of the sum each volunteered to contribute. This sum might be 
altered at the pleasure of the subscriber — increased, diminished, or even 
altogether retracted. The sums were to be collected regularly on the last 
Sunday of every month, by an officer who was to go round on purpose 
among the subscribers of each district. Arrangements were also made 
for the receipt of miscellaneous donations, both large and small ; and 
every possible means was adopted to beget a public confidence in the 
administration of the fund collected, by making the publication of all 
accounts imperative. 

Two distinct things had now been accomplished by Count Rumford — he 
had established a workhouse, and he had secured a fund for the relief of 
the poor. Although the two objects were mixed up together at the com- 
mencement, and are of necessity included under the general descriptive 
head of the ' Suppression of Mendicancy,' they ought not to be confounded. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 513 

In seizing upon the beggars, Count Rumford had adopted the most practi- 
cable means for arriving at a very desirable end — the discrimination of the 
merely idle from the really necessitous. To classify these two sorts of 
persons was his first object. When this was done, his work then divided 
itself into two parts — the reclaiming of the idle to habits of industry, and 
the relief of the really necessitous. The modes of operation for the one 
and for the other were expressly kept independent ; indeed it was one of 
Rumford's most careful provisions that the workhouse should not wear the 
aspect of an institution supported by charity. We shall describe first the 
progress of the workhouse by which Rumford meant to suppress idleness, 
and then the means which he employed for relieving the distress which 
still remained. 

^ Before the opening of the Military Workhouse, it had been fitted up 
with looms, spinning-machines, &c, as well as furnished with raw materi- 
als, especially hemp, the spinning of which is easily learnt. During the 
first week 2600 mendicants, of both sexes, and various ages, entered the 
establishment. ' For the first three or four days,' says Rumford, ' it was 
not possible entirely to prevent confusion. There was nothing like muti- 
nous resistance among the poor people ; but their situation was so new to 
them, and they were so very awkward in it, that it was difficult to bring 
them into any tolerable order. At length, however, by distributing them 
among the various halls, and assigning to each his particular place, they 
were brought into such order, as to enable the inspectors and instructors 
to begin their operations. Those who understood any kind of work were 
placed in the apartments where the work they understood was carried on ; 
and the others being classed according to their sexes, and as much as pos- 
sible according to their ages, were placed under the immediate care of the 
different instructors.' 

Every care was taken to promote the comfort of the people while at 
work, and to render their work agreeable to them. It being winter, the 
rooms were well warmed by fires kept regularly burning; the whole 
establishment was swept twice every day ; attention was paid to the ven- 
tilation ; as far as elegance was possible in halls devoted to work, it was 
consulted ; and the kindest usage was the order of the institution. The 
people arrived at the establishment at a fixed hour in the morning ; they 
continued at work till the hour of dinner, when they repaired to the dining- 
hall, where they were furnished with a good dinner of white bread and 
fine rich soup ; and after some hours of further work, they were dismissed, 
as from any other manufactory, and had all the rest of their time at their 
own disposal. Besides the dinner-hour, which was allowed as relaxation 
to all in the establishment, two additional hours, one in the mornino - , the 
other in the afternoon, were allowed to the children, during which they 
were assembled in one of the halls, and taught reading, writing, and 
arithmetic, by a master paid for the purpose; and as the regular hours of 
labor were not longer than in any other manufactory, neither they nor the 
adults were overworked. Lastly, every person in the establishment was 
regularly paid the wages fixed for the sort of labor he was employed in. 
The main feature of the scheme was, to impress upon those who attended 
the establishment that they were not necessarily paupers by their attend- 
ance there, but workmen entitled to the wages which they received. 
1 The workhouse,' says Rumford, ' was merely a manufactory, like any 
33* 



514 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

other manufactory, supported by its own private capital, which capital has 
no connexion whatever with any fund destined for the poor.' In order to 
keep this vividly before the workpeople, an inscription, in letters of gold, 
was placed over the main entrance of the establishment — ' No alms will 

BE RECEIVED HERE.' 

It is evident, however, considering the expenses of setting the establish- 
ment agoing, considering all the inducements which were held out at first 
to allure the people to it, especially that of paying them the ordinary rate 
of wages while they were yet wretchedly bad workmen, in order to keep 
up their courage — it is evident, in these circumstances, that the institution 
must at first have been maintained at a loss. Although hemp was selected 
at first as the material for learners to begin with, as being cheap, yet such 
was the awkwardness of the beginners, that even in this material a consid- 
erable loss was sustained. ' By an exact calculation, it was found,' says 
Rumford, ' that the manufactory actually lost more than three thousand 
florins upon the articles of hemp and flax during the first three months. 
But we were not discouraged by these unfavorable beginnings ; and if the 
establishment was supported at some little expense in the beginning, it af- 
terwards richly repaid the loss.' By constant practice, the workmen be- 
came expert, so that not only hemp, but much more expensive materials, 
could be intrusted to them with safety ; and in a short time it was no longer 
a mere benevolent pretense to treat them as men earning their wages by a 
fair amount of labor, for such became the fact. The bustle and activity 
of the establishment increased from year to year. In the sixth year of its 
existence the demand upon it for goods amounted to half a million of florins ; 
and the net profits of the six years were calculated at one hundred thou- 
sand florins. 

It will readily suggest itself to persons acquainted with the doctrines of 
political economy, that an objection might be raised to Count Rumford's 
experiment, from a consideration of what may have been its effects upon 
the labor market. As all the articles manufactured in the Military Work- 
house for the supply of the Bavarian army had formerly been manufactured 
by other persons, it is evident that the immediate effect of the establishment 
of the workhouse was to withdraw so much custom from those other persons, 
whoever they may have been. A moment's consideration, however, of the 
state of Bavaria, will rob the consideration of whatever threatening look it 
may wear in the case which we are now concerned with. These persons, 
now supporting themselves by the labor of their own hands, had formerly 
been mendicants, living at the expense of the industrious portion of the 
community ; and viewing the matter, therefore, in its pecuniary aspect 
alone, the question with the people of Munich was, whether they sustained 
a greater loss by admitting 2600 persons to be competitors with themselves 
in the labor market, or by supporting the same 2600 persons as mendicants. 
Add to this, the moral comfort of living in a town where not a beggar was 
to be seen, and the still more exquisite satisfaction of reflecting that a num- 
ber of their fellow-creatures, formerly loathsome, vicious, and wretched, 
were now living in cleanliness, propriety, and happiness. On the merits 
of the institution in this point of view, hear the words of count Rumford 
himself. After alluding to the expertness which the members of the estab- 
lishment acquired in the various manufactures, he proceeds — ' But what 
was quite surprising, and at the same time interesting in the highest do 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 515 

gree, was the apparent and rapid change which was produced in their man- 
ners. The kind usage they met with, and the comforts they enjoyed, 
seemed to have softened their hearts, and awakened in them sentiments as 
new and surprising to themselves as they were interesting to those about 
them. The melancholy gloom of misery, the air of uneasiness and embar- 
rassment, disappeared by little and little from their countenances, and were 
succeeded by a timid dawn of cheerfulness, rendered most exquisitely in- 
teresting by a certain mixture of silent gratitude which no language can 
describe. In the infancy of this establishment, when these poor creatures 
were first brought together, I used very frequently to visit them, to speak 
kindly to them, and to encourage them ; and I seldom passed through the 
halls where they were at work without being a witness to the most moving 
scenes. Objects formerly the most miserable and wretched, whom I had 
seen for years as beggars in the street ; young women, perhaps the unhappy 
victims of seduction, who, having lost their reputation, and being turned 
adrift in the world without a friend and without a home, were reduced to 
the necessity of begging to sustain a miserable existence, now recognized 
me as their benefactor, and with tears dropping fast from their cheeks, 
continued their work in the most expressive silence. If they were asked 
what the matter was with them, their answer was, ' Nichts' ['Nothing'], 
accompanied by a look of affectionate regard and gratitude so touching, as 
frequently to draw tears from the most insensible of the bystanders. Why 
should I not mention the marks of affectionate respect which I received 
from the poor people for whose happiness I interested myself ? Will it be 
reckoned vanity if I mention the concern which the poor of Munich expressed 
in so affecting a manner when I was dangerously ill ? — that they went 
publicly in a body in procession to the cathedral church, where they had 
divine service performed, and put up public prayers for my recovery ? — 
that, four years afterwards, on hearing that I was again dangerously ill at 
Naples, they of their own accord set apart an hour each evening, after they 
had finished their work in the Military Workhouse, to pray for me ; forme 
— a private person — a stranger — a Protestant !' 

Having thus described the procedure at the Military Workhouse — 
which, although it was established with a philanthropic design, and had at 
first the aspect of a charitable institution, was in fact no such thing, but a 
mere commercial concern, yielding a profit on the capital invested in it 
— we shall now briefly narrate Count Rumford's plan of dealing with the 
pauperism of Munich — with the real poverty and destitution which 
remained after all that could be effected by the Military Workhouse. 

The entire management of the poor of Munich was put into the hands 
of a committee, consisting of four of the principal Bavarian ministers of 
state — namely, the president of the council of war, the president of the 
council of regency, the president of the ecclesiastical council, and the presi- 
dent of the chamber of finances ; and these four were to choose each a 
counselor of his own department to assist him. Neither the presidents 
nor the counselors were to be paid for their labors in this committee ; and 
the secretary, clerks, and inferior officers required, were to be paid, not 
out of the fund for the poor, but immediately from the treasury. The 
mode of reaching the poor was as follows : — The whole town, containing 
about 60,000 inhabitants, was divided into sixteen districts, the houses 
being all regularly numbered. In each district, a respectable citizen was 



516 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

chosen to be inspector of the poor within its limits. This inspector, whose 
services were to be purely voluntary, and unpaid, was to have for his 
assistants a priest, a physician, a surgeon, and an apothecary. The busi- 
ness of the inspector was to receive applications for relief, to inquire into 
the circumstances of the applicants, to furnish immediate assistance if it 
was required, and, where assistance might be delayed, to refer to the 
committee. Relief was granted, as might be required, in clothing, in 
medical aid, or in weekly sums of money ; but in making the allowance, 
care was taken to find out how much the applicant was in a condition to 
earn. If he was able to work, work was provided for him, either at the 
Military Workhouse, or at home, to be delivered at the workhouse. The 
fact of his having been industrious, was certified by a government stamp 
affixed by the overseers of the workhouse every week to a slip of paper, 
on which also was marked the sum he had earned, and whatever was 
necessary for his support over and above this sum was granted. Those 
who could not work, were of course provided for. The funds out of which 
all the provisions were made consisted, as we have already said, of the 
voluntary contributions of the inhabitants. There were a few legacies for 
the poor ; certain fines, also, went into the poor's fund; but the great mass 
of the money required was collected statedly from the citizens in the man- 
ner described in a previous page, not by assessment, but by purely volun- 
tary subscription. Besides donations in food and clothing, the sum collected 
in ready money during five years from the inhabitants of Munich was 
200,000 florins, which was found amply sufficient for all purposes. It 
must be remembered, however, that the peculiar circumstances of the 
people of Munich, in having just been relieved from the scourge of men- 
dicancy, made them more apt to fall into the habit of voluntary subscrip- 
tions than probably might be the case with the inhabitants of other towns 
not so circumstanced. Indeed the citizens of Munich effected a clear 
pecuniary saving by the change — a saving amounting in all to more than 
two-thirds. This saving consisted of two items : — First, an actual diminu- 
tion of the mass of pauperism, numbers of those who formerly subsisted 
by charity being now able to support themselves either in whole or in part ; 
and secondly, a retrenchment of all that waste which accompanies a private 
dispensation of charity, as compared with a system of general management, 
where, in consequence of the wholesale scale of operations, economy can 
be studied. The value of this second consideration will appear when we 
come to speak of Count Rumford's devices for economising food and fuel. 

It will now be seen how the Military Workhouse, and the system of 
management for the poor, worked into each other's hands, although in 
principle totally independent of each other. No part of the Military 
Workhouse was under the control of the committee for the poor, except 
only the kitchen and bakehouse, which, as being supported out of the 
funds for the poor, were placed under their management. 

Having thus described, at considerable length, Count Rumford's meas- 
ures for the suppression of mendicancy in Munich, it only remains to be 
added that our description is to be taken rather as a historical account of 
an interesting and apparently successful experiment, than as a thorough 
appreciation of its merits as a social scheme. To criticise all the details of 
Count Rumford's plan, especially as a plan of universal application, would 
require much space, and would lead to controversy. It may be safely said, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 517 

however, that while some parts of the scheme may be theoretically objec- 
tionable, and others may not be adapted for circumstances different from 
those in which they had their origin, the general features of the scheme 
are as sound as the spirit which prompted it was philanthropic. 

PLANS FOR ECONOMISING FOOD AND FUEL 

As one of Count Rumford's reasons for preferring a general system for 
the administration of charity was the superior economy which it admitted, 
especially in the articles of food and fuel, it is not to be wondered at that 
he turned his attention to a consideration of the subject of food and fuel 
itself. In doing so, he opened up a new field for the exercise of his prac- 
tical genius. What is the cheapest way of feeding large bodies of men ? 
and what is the most economical way of applying heat for the purposes of 
warmth, of cooking, and of manufactures ? These are questions upon 
which Count Rumford occupied himself more zealously and more success- 
fully than any one had done before him, or, probably, than any one has 
done since his time. With the former question he was engaged while yet 
resident in Bavaria — one of his subsidiary schemes for the benefit of the 
poor there, and in other large towns, being the establishment of public 
kitchens and dining-rooms, where the poor, or indeed the laboring classes 
generally, might be supplied with better food at a cheaper rate than in their 
own houses. As the subject of cookery — of the improvements which are 
possible in the mode of preparing food for the use of man, whether with 
respect to economy, or to the gratification of the palate, or to both — is 
one to which scientific men have not yet applied themselves with sufficient 
zeal, we will note down such of Rumford's conclusions on it as do not ap- 
pear to be antiquated. The importance which Count Rumford himself 
attached to the subject will appear from his extraordinary saying, that ' the 
number of inhabitants who may be supported in any country upon its in- 
ternal produce, depends almost as much upon the state of its art of cookery 
as upon that of its agriculture.' 

With regard to the materials of food, it needs only to be mentioned 
that Rumford, besides recommending in Bavaria a larger use of vegetables 
generally, advocated in a special manner the introduction of the potato, 
and of Indian corn — the former by cultivation, the latter by importation. 
In recommending Indian corn, he says, ' The common people in the north- 
ern parts of Italy live almost entirely upon it, and throughout the whole 
continent of America it makes a principal article of food. In Italy it is 
called polenta ; and it is there prepared in a variety of ways, and forms 
the basis of a number of very nourishing dishes. The most common way 
of using it in that country is to grind it into meal, and, with water, to 
make it into a thick kind of pudding, like what in England is called hasty- 
pudding, which is eaten with various kinds of sauce, and sometimes with- 
out sauce.' In America, besides being used for puddings, it forms an 
ingredient of bread. In testimony to its pleasantness and wholesomeness 
as an article of food, he mentions the circumstance of the universal fond- 
ness of the Americans for it ; and that the negroes, in countries where 
both rice and Indian corn are grown, invariably prefer it to rice, alleging 
that ' rice turns to water in their bellies,' but ' Indian corn stays with them, 
and makes them strong to work.' 



518 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

As to the best mode of preparing food for the purposes of economy, 
Rumford's grand recipe was — soup. ' At the time when Rumford entered 
the service of the elector/ says his biographer, Dr. Renwick, ' the pay of 
the private soldier was no more than about three cents a day ; under his 
administration it was raised to about four cents. Out of this he was com- 
pelled to purchase every article of food, except bread, of which a ration of 
little more than two pounds was issued to him. When we compare this 
scanty allowance with the rations of our own army and navy, we should 
fancy that the condition of the Bavarian soldiers must have been miserable 
in the extreme ; but so far from this being the case, they are described as 
' the finest, stoutest, and strongest men in the world, whose countenances 
show the most evident marks of health and perfect contentment.' Such 
was the skill in cookery possessed by the Bavarian soldier, that he was 
enabled to subsist on two-thirds of his scanty pay, and, in addition, to save 
five-sixths of his ration of bread, which he sold.' By inquiries and exper- 
iments, Rumford became convinced that the cause of the mystery lay in 
the fact, that the Bavarian soldier used his food almost universally in the 
form of soup. ' What surprised me not a little,' he says, ' was the discov- 
ery of the very small quantiy of solid food which, when properly prepared, 
will suffice to satisfy hunger, and support life and health ; and the very 
trifling expense at which the stoutest and most laborious man may in any 
country be fed. After an experience of nearly five years in feeding the 
poor at Munich, it was found that the cheapest, most savory, and most 
nourishing food that could be prepared was a soup composed of pearl 
barley, pease, potatoes, cuttings of fine wheaten bread, vinegar, salt, and 
water, in certain proportions. I constantly found that the richness or 
quality of a soup depended more upon a proper choice of the ingredients, 
and a proper management of the fire, than upon the quantity of solid nu- 
tritious matter employed — much more upon the art and skill of the cook, 
than upon the amount of the sums laid out in the market. I found also 
that the nutritiousness of a soup, or its power of satisfying hunger, and 
affording nourishment, seemed always to be in proportion to its apparent 
richness or palatableness.' 

Struck with these remarkable results, Rumford endeavoring to explain 
them, by supposing that the water used in converting solid nutritious 
matter into soup became of itself nutritious, serving not merely as the 
vehicle for food, but really constituting a part of the food itself. This 
supposition of Rumford is now ascertained to be a mistake. ' Physiologists, 
however,' says Dr. Renwick, ' have reached the true explanation. The 
quantity of matter required to supply the waste of the body at all ages, and fur- 
nish the material for the growth of the young, is small compared with the act- 
ual capacity of the digestive organ, while the latter is not satiated, nor the 
appetite satisfied, unless it receive a certain degree of distention. A 
quantity of warm liquid, holding so much nutritious matter in solution as to 
render digestion necessary, will fulfill the latter object as well as an equal 
bulk of solid food ; while the necessity of expelling the excess above the 
actual wants of the system many in the latter case be productive of evil.' 

With such a decided preference for the soup form of food as Count 
Rumford had been led to entertain, it is not to be wondered at that soup 
was an essential feature in all his schemes for the benefit of the poor. 
Soup was the great article of food employed in his experiments in Munich ; 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 519 

and in his contemplated project of public kitchens and dining-rooms for 
large towns, the necessary condition of success was, that soup should be 
the staple diet. He even went into the details of the composition of soup ; 
and his essays contain receipts for making various kinds of soup, with and 
without butcher-meat. The following judicious observations of Rumford's 
American biographer seem to sum up both the merits and the demerits of 
these experiments and speculations : — ' The only question which admits of 
doubt is, how the description of food preferred by Rumford is adapted to 
the circumstances of all countries. Now, to the greater part of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, soup, if not an abomination, will never be received as 
the staple of more than one daily meal ; while tea and coffee, whose use 
Rumford reprobates, with their accompaniment of sugar, have become 
necessaries of life. In Paris, soup, which became for a while the fash- 
ionable mode of administering charity, was well adapted to the habits of 
the people ; but in England and America it was received with grumbling, 
or rejected by all who could in any other mode obtain food. One reason 
no doubt was, that it was considered sufficient to make the food nutritious, 
without attempting to make it pleasing to the palate. This defeat is far 
from inherent ; for the soups of Rumford, whether containing none but 
vegetable matter, or a mixture of animal substance, may be easily rendered 
as delicious as the most costly preparations of the French kitchen.' 

Besides the general schemes which we have mentioned, Count Rumford 
was engaged, during his residence in Bavaria, in many minor plans of 
social improvement ; indeed, as we hare already said, he acted the part 
of surveyor-general of the abuses of the electorate. It was not in the 
nature of things that he should be able to proceed in his various innova- 
tions and reforms without provoking some jealousy and opposition among 
the Bavarian nobles : the support and favor, however, of the elector never 
failed him, and with the people at large he was exceedingly popular. In 
the year 1794, finding his health greatly impaired by his close attention to 
business, he obtained leave of absence from the elector, and employed 
sixteen months in traveling through various parts of the continent, especi- 
ally Italy. During his absence, two very gratifying testimonies of respect 
and gratitude were borne to him by the Bavarians. The first was, the 
erection of a monument to commemorate his public services. The other 
was still more honorable to him : it was the resolution, already referred to, 
of the inmates of the Military Workhouse, when they heard that he was 
dangerously ill at Naples, to set apart an hour every evening to pray for 
his recovery. In 1795 Rumford returned to Bavaria, but left it almost 
immediately, to proceed on a visit to England. Here he was received 
with all distinction, and his opinion and advice were asked by all engaged 
in philanthropic schemes. To save himself the labor thus entailed upon 
him, he resolved to publish an account of his doings and experiments in 
Bavaria, and accordingly prepared for the press the two volumes of essays 
which go by his name. The only subject of general interest in these 
essays, apart from the purely scientific disquisitions, which remains to be 
mentioned by us, is that of fuel. 

In undertaking to reform chimneys and fireplaces, Count Rumford had 
three objects in view — the saving of fuel, the prevention of smoke, and 
the avoidance of the injury to health arising from drafts. The extent 
of his services in this unpretending but most important department will ba 



520 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

better estimated if we consider the state of fireplaces in most European 
countries fifty or sixty years ago. ' The most polished nations of anti- 
quity,' says Dr. Renwick, ' had no other means of providing for the issue 
of the smoke of their fires than by leaving openings in the roof. They 
indeed appear, in some instances, to have heated apartments by flues cir- 
culating beneath the floors, which must have terminated in a vertical fun- 
nel, thus forming an approximation to the chimney ; but there appears to 
be no instance of the arrangement of an open hearth and vertical flue 
until late in the middle ages. Chimneys and fireplaces of the latter date 
are still to be seen in the kitchens and halls of baronial mansions ; but the 
hearths were of great size, the arched openings wide and lofty, insomuch 
that they could be entered by persons standing upright, and admitted 
seats to be placed on each side of the fire. The latter, indeed, were the 
only places where the warmth of the fire could be enjoyed without expo- 
sure to the currents of cold air continually rushing in to join the ascending 
column in the chimney. Even when an increasing scarcity of fuel com- 
pelled less extravagant modes of applying it to be sought, the arched open- 
ing remained of a large size, the fireplace of a depth equal in extent to 
its front, and the walls were carried back perpendicularly to the latter. 
In England, where coal had come into almost universal use as a fuel, the 
grates in which it was burnt were almost exact cubes, and were lined with 
cast-iron on the sides and back. The evils of these fire-places may be 
recollected by all whose age reaches fifty; and they are remembered with 
feelings in which shuddering and scorching are strangely combined, but 
which are almost unknown, and scarcely to be imagined, by the present 
generation. Chimneys which did not smoke were the exception to the 
general rule ; and the exposure of the surface of the body to cold cur- 
rents generated the acute pains of rheumatism, while the frequent alter- 
nations of an increased and checked perspiration caused colds, to be fol- 
lowed, in regular course, by pulmonary complaints. In this state of things 
Rumford undertook to remedy the manifold evils of the open fireplace.' 

Observing that the heat of a mass of blazing fuel in a grate consisted 
of two parts — that which radiated into the room, and served the purposes 
of warmth ; and that which, by heating the column of air in the chimney, 
caused it to ascend, Rumford saw that an enormous saving could be effected 
by diminishing the size of the grate. Instead of a cubical mass of fuel, 
such as was generally used, he proposed to employ a grate of ordinarily 
broad front, but not deep backward, and with the sides not perpendicular 
to the front, but inclining. The effect of this was to limit the fire to the 
single function of warming the room by radiation from its front, while the 
mass of coal which had formerly been consumed without any benefit to the 
apartment was saved. In order, however, to prevent the smoking of the 
chimneys which would have arisen from this diminution of the burning 
mass, another change was necessary, and this was the narrowing the throat 
of the chimney, so as to allow no more air to pass through it than the 
precise quantity required to maintain the combustion. ' The immoderate 
size of the throats of chimneys,' says Rumford, 'is the great fault of their 
construction. It is this fault which ought always first to be attended to in 
every attempt which is made to improve them ; for however perfect the 
construction of a fireplace may be in other respects, if the opening left for 
the passage of the smoke is larger than is necessary for that purpose, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 521 

nothing can prevent the warm air of the room from escaping through it ; 
and whenever this happens, there is not only an unnecessary loss of heat, 
but the warm air which leaves the room to go up the chimney being replaced 
by cold air from without, drafts of cold air cannot fail to be produced 
in the room, to the great annoyance of those who inhabit it.' 

Such is a general description of Count Rumford's alterations in fireplaces. 
The subject, however, was pursued by him to its minutest details, and 
illustrated by numerous and specific plans for curing smoky chimneys under 
all possible circumstances. He likewise invented various forms of stoves 
and grates, intended to exhibit the model perfection of an apparatus for 
heating rooms, or for cooking victuals. So thorough and complete was his 
investigation of the subject, that little remained afterwards to be added to 
his conclusions ; and it may be said, that any case of the continuance of a 
smoky chimney after the publication of his essays, arose from a neglect or 
misapplication of the principles there developed. 

After some stay in Great Britain, he returned to Munich in 1796, 
accompanied by his daughter, who had come over from America at his 
request, her mother having died in 1792. What were Count Rumford's 
relations with America, during the long interval of his absence from it, we 
have no means of ascertaining ; as far as can be inferred, however, he 
seems to have maintained little correspondence with his former friends in 
the United States till after his wife's death ; and one cannot help remark- 
ing the unpleasing circumstance, that while on one side of the Atlantic the 
husband was enjoying an honorable position, and filling a large space in the 
public eye, the wife and daughter continued during the life of the former 
to reside on the other. 

Rumford, on his return to Munich, was occupied in very important af- 
fairs. The advance of the French republican army under Moreau obliged 
the elector to quit the capital, leaving a council of regency, with Rumford 
at its head. Rumford succeeded in the arduous task of freeing Bavaria 
from invasion, and his conduct on this occasion increased his reputation 
with the elector and with the people. Among other tokens of the elector's 
gratitude for his services, he was permitted to settle one-half of the pen- 
sion which he enjoyed on his daughter, to be paid during her lifetime. In 
1798 the elector, partly with a view to gratify him with an honor which he 
knew he desired, and partly to afford him another opportunity of relaxation for 
the improvement of his health, appointed him ambassador at the court of 
Great Britain. On arriving in London, however, Rumford found, that in 
consequence of the English legal fiction, by which a born subject of the 
country is declared incapable of ever alienating his allegiance, he could 
not be received as the Bavarian ambassador. Mortified as he must have 
been by this circumstance, and still more deeply grieved by the loss of his 
friend and patron, the Elector Charles Theodore, who died in 1799, Rum- 
ford contemplated' returning to spend the remainder of his life in the land 
of his birth. In compliance with a formal invitation which he received 
from the United States government, he was making preparations for his 
return, and had written to a friend to secure a cottage in the vicinity of 
Boston, as a 'quiet little retreat,' when he was led to change his design, 
and remain in London, in the society of which he occupied a conspicuous 
place. During several years, a great part of the Count Rumford's time 
was devoted to the interests of the Royal Institution, of which he may be 



522 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

considered the founder. The objects of this institution, now one of the 
recognized scientific establishments of the world, and one which can boast 
of having given employment to such men as Young, Davy, Brande, and 
Faraday, were 'to diffuse the knowledge and facilitate the general intro- 
duction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements, and to teach, 
by courses of philosophical lectures and experiments, the application of 
science to the useful purposes of life.' Such an institution was precisely 
the one which Rumford was qualified to superintend ; and in its early his- 
tory, the influence of his peculiar habits of thought is discernable in the 
choice of subjects for investigation by the members. Subsequently, the 
institution assumed the high scientific character which it yet holds. 

In 1802, Count Rumford left England, and spent some time in travel. 
Revisiting Munich, he found the workhouse which he had planned, and which 
had been instrumental in producing so much good, abolished, and the new 
elector, Maximilian, friendly indeed but indisposed to follow the footsteps 
of his predecessor. Accordingly, after assisting in modeling a Bavarian 
academy of sciences, he took farewell of his adopted country, and went 
to reside in Paris, retaining an income of about X1200 from the Bavarian 
court. At the same time his daughter returned to America, her fathel 
having abandoned his intention of returning along with her. In Paris, 
Count Rumford appears at first to have gained the good-will and esteem 
which had attended him so remarkably during his previous life ; and not 
long after he began his residence there, he contracted a second marriage 
with the widow of the celebrated Lavoisier, put to death during the French 
Revolution. From 1804 to 1814 he resided with his wife at Auteuil, a 
villa at a short distance from Paris, the property of Madame Lavoisier, 
and the scene of many of her former husband's discoveries. Here Rum- 
ford employed himself in scientific pursuits of a miscellaneous nature. 
The union of the American-born citizen of the world with the widow of 
the illustrious Frenchman does not appear to have been a happy one ; and 
there is evidence that, towards the end of his life, Rumford had become 
unpopular in Parisian society. Cuvier attributes this to a certain coarse- 
ness and want of urbanity of manner ; possibly, however, the fault was less 
in the person criticised than in the Parisian standai'd of criticism, for the 
charge seems inconsistent with the tenor of Rumford's life. 

Rumford's death took place at Auteuil on the 21st of August 1814, in 
the sixty-second year of his age. He left some bequests for the promotion 
of science in America; the rest of his property, which does not appear to 
have been great, he left to his relatives. His only daughter inherited the 
title of Countess of Rumford, with the continuation of her father's Bava- 
rian pension. She is, we believe, still alive, and has long resided in Paris. 

Rumford, whose memoirs we have now detailed, was not a faultless char- 
acter, or a person in every respect exemplary ; but making due allowances 
for circumstances in which he was at the outset unfortunately placed, and 
keeping in mind that every man is less or more the creature of the age in 
which he lives, we arrive at the conclusion, that few individuals occupying 
a public position have been so thoroughly deserving of esteem. The prac- 
tical, calm, and comprehensive nature of his mind, his resolute and method- 
ical habits, the benevolence and usefulness of his projects, all excite our 
admiration. Cuvier speaks of Rumford as ' having been the benefactor of 
his species without loving or esteeming them, as well as of holding the 



BIOGKAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 523 

opinion that the mass of mankind ought to be treated as mere machines.' 
A remark this which is applicable to not a few men who have been emi- 
nent for labors of a humane description, and which naturally gives rise to 
this other remark — that a good intellectual method, directed to practical 
ends, is often of more value to mankind than what is called a good heart. 

NICOLAS COPERNICUS. 

In the whole range of human science, no subject is calculated to excite 
such sublime ideas as astronomy ; and to its study, therefore, the greatest 
minds have been directed both in ancient and modern times. Ancient, 
however, as are the investigations into the relations of the heavenly bodies, 
a correct idea of the planetary system was scarcely known before the six- 
teenth century of the Christian era. The theory generally received on 
that subject by the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks, and other ancient na- 
tions, and which continued predominant till a comparatively recent period, 
described the earth as the center of all bodies occupying space, while the 
Moon, Venus, Mercury, the Sun, the planets, and the stars, revolved 
around it on a succession of solid spheres, at different distances, and at dif- 
ferent rates of speed, so as to produce the appearances which are daily 
and nightly presented to our eyes in the heavens. Six centuries before 
the commencement of our era, Anaximander, Pythagoras, and other Gre- 
cian philosophers, had conceived some faint notion of a more correct sys- 
tem ; but when they ventured to suggest that the sun was a fixed body, 
and that the earth was only one of a set of planets moving round it, they 
experienced so much persecution on account of the inconsistency of their 
doctrines with the religious ideas of the people, that they failed to estab- 
lish their theory on a permanent basis. When learning and the arts re- 
vived in Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, some attention was 
paid in the universities to astronomy ; but the system taught was no better 
than that which Aristotle, Ptolemy, and other ancient astronomers had 
sanctioned, and which represented the sun and planets as moving round 
the earth. The time at length arrived for the revival of the correct no- 
tions entertained by Anaximander and Pythagoras. 

Nicolas Copernicus, the modern to whom the honor of reviving that 
doctrine is due, was born, February 19, 1473, at Thorn, on the Vistula 
— a place now included in the dominions of the king of Prussia. The 
father of Copernicus was a native of Westphalia, a part of Germany : he 
had chanced to settle at Thorn, as a surgeon, about ten years before the 
birth of his son. Young Copernicus was educated for the profession of 
medicine at the university of Cracow ; but his favorite studies were mathe- 
matics, perspective, astronomy, and painting. At an early age, inspired 
by an eager wish to distinguish himself in astronomy, he proceeded to 
Italy, and studied that science at the universit}' of Bologna. It is sup- 
posed that a discovery of his teacher Dominic Maria, respecting the 
changes of the axis of the earth, was what first awakened his mind to the 
errors of the planetary system then taught. From Bologna he proceeded 
to Rome, where for some time he taught mathematics with great success — 
pursuing all the while, as far as circumstances would permit, his astronom- 
ical observations. 

When he afterwards returned to his native country, his maternal uncle, 



524 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the bishop of Ermeland, appointed him a canon in the cathedral of Frauen 
burg, and at the same time he was nominated by the inhabitants of his 
native town to be archdeacon in one of their churches. He then resolved 
to devote his life to three objects — the performance of his clerical duties, 
gratuitous medical attendance on the poor, and the pursuit of his favorite 
studies. His residence was established in one of the houses belonging to 
the canons of Frauenburg, on the brow of a height near the cathedral, 
where astronomical observations could be conducted under very favorable 
circumstances ; and in its walls are still to be seen the openings which he 
made, in order to observe the passage of stars across the meridian. It is 
supposed to have been about the year 1507 that he first became convinced 
of the superiority of the planetary theory of Pythagoras. He determined, 
however, to be very cautious in adopting, and still more cautious in an- 
nouncing, an opinion so much at variance with the ordinary ideas of man- 
kind. Mathematical instruments were in that age very rude, and the tel- 
escope had not been invented. The only implements which Copernicus 
had for making observations were two, coarsely framed of firwood, with 
measures marked by lines of ink. Thus provided, he devoted himself for 
several years to the inquiries necessary for proving his theory ; and at 
length, about the year 1530, he had completed a work, in which the whole 
system was expounded — namely, the immobility of the sun in the centre 
of the planetary system ; while its apparent motion, and the alternations of 
day and night, were to be attributed to the annual and diurnal movements 
of the earth. The real distances of the planets, and the declination of 
the pole of the earth, were also explained. 

The doctrines of Copernicus were already known to a considerable num- 
ber of learned and comparatively enlightened persons, who received them 
with due respect; and it is creditable to the Romish church that several 
of its dignitaries were among the number. But the bulk of mankind, in- 
cluding their religious teachers, were then comparatively ignorant, and ac- 
cordingly prejudiced ; and however firm the conviction of the astronomer 
as to the truth of his theory, he yet hesitated to make it public, dreading 
the opposition it would have to encounter — seeing that it opposed the invet- 
erate prejudices of the learned, and the illusory testimony of the senses. 
In reasoning, they acted under the guidance of rules which made it scarcely 
possible for them to ascertain truth, or to acknowledge it when it was pre- 
sented to them in the clearest light. If anything had been said in former 
times by a person whose memory they respected, they would not willingly lis- 
ten to anything which contradicted, or seemed to contradict it. They walked, 
in short, by authority, and not by the dictates of reflection ; and the con- 
sequence was, that every new truth which experience or the inquiries of 
the best minds brought forth, had to contend with the less worthy notions 
which had come down from earlier and darker ages. Amongst the opin- 
ions received by them, was that which represented the earth as the immov- 
able centre of the universe. It was sanctioned by the greatest men of 
ancient times ; it had long been taught ; it was conformable to the common 
appearances of things ; and various passages in the Scriptures were believed 
to assert it, though in reality those passages only do not contradict (and 
this probably for wise purposes) the ordinary ideas of mankind respecting 
the stability of the earth. Copernicus only acted, therefore, with necessary 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 525 

^aution, when he hesitated to publish the work which had cost him the labor 
of so many years. 

Rheticus, one of the friends to whom he had communicated his theory, 
at length, in 1540, ventured to give an outline of it to the world in a 
small pamphlet, which he published without his name. As this excited no 
disapprobation, the same person reprinted it next year with his name. In 
both publications the doctrines were ascribed openly to Nicolas Copernicus. 
About the same time, a learned man, Erasmus Reinhold, in a work which 
he published, spoke of the new doctrines with the greatest respect, and 
styled their author a second Ptolemy ; for it often happens that the greatest 
compliment that can be paid to the discoverer of truth, is to mention him 
in the same breath with some founder of error. Copernicus now allowed 
himself to be pursuaded by his friends to publish his work ; and it wa3 
accordingly put to press at Nuremburg, under the care of some learned 
persons of that city. But he was now an old man, and it was not his lot 
to live to see the book published. As soon as it was printed, a copy of it 
was sent to him by his friend Rheticus, but it only reached him, May 23, 
1 543, a few hours before he expired. He appeared to be scarcely conscious of 
the object to which so many years of his life had been devoted. But his 
mission was accomplished. Committed to the perpetuating operations of 
the infant printing-press, all danger was over of losing the germ of those 
great and fertile truths which in our days render astronomy the most per- 
fect of sciences. 

The theory of Copernicus was thus brought before the world ; but, whether 
from the death of the philosopher, or because little disturbance of popular 
notions was anticipated from so learned a work, or from whatever other 
circumstances, it was visited with no marks of reprobation from any quar- 
ter at the time. In proportion, however, as it became known, so did its 
opponents increase. Those were the days when the fagot and stake made 
short work with those who presumed to strike out a course of thinking for 
themselves ; and though the author of the system and its immediate adopters 
passed unmolested, yet during the century which ensued were its followers 
and supporters persecuted with all the zeal and cruelty that bigotry and 
ignorant prejudice could devise. Truth, however, is imperishable ; and, 
though repressed and retarded for a season, is ever sure to take its right 
place among the established beliefs of mankind. And thus it has been 
with the Copernican theory, whose importance to the progress of accurate 
science we cannot in reality over-estimate. To form anything like an ad- 
equate idea of the value of its author's services to the cause of science, wo 
must place ourselves back in the time and circumstances which saw their 
birth. Then, it must be remembered, the want of telescopes rendered all 
appearances in the sky much more difficult of explanation than they would 
have been a century later. The accumulated errors and superstitions of 
fourteen centuries were not to be easily shaken and removed ; neither were 
the prejudices and dogmas of the learned to be disturbed with impunity. 
What might have been astronomical science, was, even in the writings of 
the fathers, little better than a mass of absurd and subtle disquisitions on 
the substance of the heavens and the heavenly bodies. All these Coper- 
nicus had to surmount ; and the elaboration of his theory presents an ever- 
memorable example of the power of patient and earnest thought in tho 



526 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

investigation of a complicated subject, and acuteness of discrimination be- 
tween the true and the fallacious. 

TYCHO BRAHE. 

Of eminent astronomers, the next in point of time was Tycho Brahe\ 
who, though adopting the Ptolemaic notion of the earth being the fixed and 
immovable centre of the universe, yet did good service to the progress of 
the science by his numerous observations and discoveries. Descended of 
an ancient and noble family, originally of Sweden, but settled in Denmark, 
Tycho was born December 14, 1546, at Knub Strup, in the bailiwick of 
Schonen, the jurisdiction of which was then held by his father. When 
seven years old, he commenced the study of the classics, his education, as 
well as that of his brothers, being intrusted to private tutors. His father 
dying, his uncle sent him, in 1559, to study philosophy and rhetoric at 
Copenhagen, where it was intended to train him for some civil employment. 
The great eclipse of the sun on the 21st August 1560, happening at the 
precise time the astronomers foretold, he began to look upon astronomy as 
something divine ; and purchasing the tables of Stadius, gained some no- 
tion of the theory of the planets. His thoughts were now wholly en- 
grossed with astronomy ; and though sent by his uncle, in 1562, to study 
jurisprudence at Leipsic, mathematics, and not law, were the subject of 
his private labors. It is told of him, that, having procured a small celes- 
tial globe, he was wont to wait till his tutor had gone to bed, in order to 
examine the constellations and learn their names ; and that, when the sky 
was clear, he used to spend whole nights in viewing the stars. He aban- 
doned the amusements and pleasures fitting for his age, and devoted his 
pocket-money to the purchase of mathematical and astronomical books, 
the perusal of which he persisted in, in spite of the remonstrances and re- 
bukes of his preceptor. About this time he also began to apply himself to 
chemistry, less perhaps for the cause of the science, than with a view to 
discover the Philosopher's Stone and the grand Elixir of Life — a digres- 
sion from his astronomical career, prompted no doubt by the natural super- 
sition and enthusiasm of his constitution. 

In 1571 he returned to Denmark ; and was favored by his mother's 
brother, Steno Belle, a lover of learning, with a convenient place at the 
castle of Herritzvad, near Knub Strup, for conducting his observations and 
building a laboratory : but marrying a peasant girl beneath his rank, such 
a violent quarrel ensued between him and his relations, that Frederick II, 
king of Denmark, was obliged to interpose to reconcile them. In 1575, 
he began his travels through Germany, and proceeded as far as Venice, 
meeting with the kindliest attention from various philosophers and crowned 
heads. This attention, conjoined with certain offers made him by the 
Landgrave of Hesse, and the greater facility of procuring better apparatus, 
induced him to think of removing his family to Basil ; but Frederick of 
Denmark, being informed of his design, and unwilling to lose such an or- 
nament to his country, promised (to enable him to pursue his studies) to 
bestow upon him for life the island of Hveen in the Sound, to erect an ob- 
servatory and laboratory there, and to defray all the expenses necessary 
for carrying on his designs. Tycho Brand readily embraced this proposal ; 
and, accordingly, the first stone of the observatory was laid in August 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 527 

1576. The king also bestowed on him a pension of two thousand crowns, 
a fee in Norway, and a canonry, which brought him one thousand more. 
In this retreat he was visited by various princes ; among others, by James 
VI of Scotland, when proceeding to Denmark to marry the princess Anne. 
This monarch, of literary memory, made the astronomer several presents, 
and with his own hand wrote some verses in his praise. In Uranienborg, 
for such he had styled his new erection, he framed that system of the uni- 
verse which is yet known by his name ; namely, that the earth remains 
fixed and immovable as the grand centre, and that the sun and all the heav- 
enly bodies revolve around it — a doctrine the reverse of that of Coperni- 
cus, which all succeeding astronomers have adopted. But though mistaken 
in this conception, we are indebted to him for a more correct catalogue of 
the fixed stars ; for several important discoveries respecting the motions of 
the moon and comets, and the refraction of the rays of light ; and for valu- 
able improvements in astronomical instruments. Tycho was likewise a 
skillful chemist, and found in poetry his recreation from severer studies. 
His Latin poems are said to exhibit considerable merit ; but his chemical 
manipulations partook too much of the alchemy of his day to be of use to 
future inquirers. 

Happy might our philosopher have been in the castle of Uranienborg, 
had not his impetuous character, and his fondness for satire, made him 
many enemies, who prejudiced Christian IV, the successor of Frederick 
II, against him. On the death of his patron, he was deprived of his pen- 
sion, fee, and canonry ; and finding himself incapable of bearing the ex- 
penses of his observatory, he went to Copenhagen, whither he brought 
some of his instruments, and continued his observations in the city, till Val- 
kendorf, chamberlain to Christian, commanded him, by the king's orders, 
to discontinue them. He then removed his family to Rostock, and after- 
wards to Holstein, to solicit Henry Ranzon to introduce him to the Emper- 
or Rodolphus, who was a great friend to astronomy and astrology. Suc- 
ceeding in his wishes, he was received by the emperor with the greatest 
civility and respect ; provided with a magnificent house, till he could pro- 
cure one more fit for astronomical observations ; allotted a pension of three 
hundred crowns ; and promised, upon the first opportunity, a fee for him- 
self and his descendants. Unluckily he did not long enjoy this happy sit- 
uation ; for, being suddenly taken ill with a fatal disease, he was cut off 
on the 24th of October 1601, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. He was 
interred with great pomp and ceremony in the principal church of Prague, 
where a noble monument was erected to his memory; thus like many other 
men of eminence, receiving in a strange land the honors that had been 
denied him in his own. 

Tycho was, notwithstanding his faults and weaknesses, a remarkable man 
for the age in which he lived ; his errors and misjudgments being to a great 
extent those of his era. His skill in astronomy is universally admitted ; 
and though failing to establish his system over that of Copernicus, yet no 
one can deny him the merit of advancing by his labors the progress of the 
science. That he was addicted to astrology, presages, and the occult 
sciences, is true ; but these were features of the age more than of individ- 
uals : that he was impetuous, sarcastic, and unamiable, is to be regretted ; 
but it must also be admitted that the grossest injustice was done him and 
the cause of science by the successor of his patron. Most of his works, 



528 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

which were numerous, and written in Latin, are still extant. The Emperor 
Rodolphus purchased his expensive astronomical and other instruments; 
but they were mostly destroyed after the battle of the Weisseberg, near 
Prague, in 1620. A large sextant alone remains in Prague. The famous 
brass celestial globe, which was six feet in diameter, and cost about a 
thousand pounds, returned to Copenhagen after various adventures, but 
perished in the great fire of 1728. The castle of Uranienborg, where he 
nightly watched and pondered, has long been in ruins, leaving scarcely a 
trace of its structure and character. All, however, has not perished, nor 
been fruitless. ' It was the friendship of Tycho,' says an eminent author- 
ity, 'which formed Kepler, and directed him in the career of astronomy 
Without this friendship, and without the numerous observations of Tycho, 
of which Kepler found himself the depositary after the death of his master, 
he would never have been able to discover those great laws of the system 
of the world which have been called ' Kepler's Laws,' and which, combined 
with the theory of central forces, discovered by Huygens, conducted 
Newton to the grandest discovery which has ever been made in the scien- 
ces — that of universal gravitation.' 

GALILEO. 

The Copernican theory, which Tycho had labored in vain to supersede, 
was next received and supported by an Italian philosopher, whose name 
and history are inseparably interwoven with the progress of astronomy. 
That illustrious individual, Galileo Galilei, usually known by his Christian 
name, was born at Pisa in 1564. His father, a Tuscan nobleman of small 
fortune, caused him to be educated for the profession of medicine at the 
university of his native city. While studying there, he became deeply 
sensible of the absurdities of the philosophy of Aristotle, as it had then 
come to be taught, and he became its declared enemy. That spirit of 
observation for which he was so distinguished was early developed. When 
only nineteen years old, the swinging of a lamp suspended from the ceiling 
of the cathedral in Pisa, led him to investigate the laws of the oscillation of 
the pendulum, which he was the first to employ as a measure of time. He 
left it incomplete, however, and it was brought to perfection by his son, 
Vincenzo, and particularly by Huygens, the latter of whom must be re- 
garded as the true inventor of the pendulum. About this period Galileo 
devoted himself exclusively to mathematics and natural science, and in 
1586 was led to the invention of the hydrostatic balance. In 1589, his 
distinction in the exact sciences gained for him the chair of mathematics 
in his native university, where, immediately on his installation, he began to 
assert the laws of nature against a perverted philosophy. In the presence 
of numerous spectators, he performed a series of experiments in the tower 
of the cathedral, to show that weight has no influence on the velocity of 
falling bodies. By this means he excited the opposition of the adherents 
of Aristotle to such a degree, that, after two years, he was forced to resign 
his professorship. Driven from Pisa, he retired into private life ; but his 
genius being appreciated in another part of Italy, he was, in 1592, appoint- 
ed professor of mathematics in Pudua. He lectured here with unparalleled 
success. Scholars from the most distant regions of Europe crowded round 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 52S 

him. He delivered his lectures in the Italian language instead of Latin, 
which was considered a daring innovation. 

During eighteen years which he spent at Padua, he made many discov- 
eries in natural philosophy, which he introduced into his lectures, without 
regard to their inconsistency with the doctrines previously taught. Among 
these may be mentioned his discovery of the rate of descent in falling 
bodies ; certain improvements on the thermometer ; some interesting 
observations on the magnet ; and a number of experiments relative to the 
floating and sinking of solid bodies in water. In 1609, hearing that one 
Jansen, a Dutchman, had made an instrument by which distant objects 
were made to appear near, Galileo, whose mind was prepared for the dis- 
covery, instantly conceived on what principle it was constructed, and, 
without losing a day, he fashioned a similar instrument with many improv- 
ments : such was the origin of the telescope, the most interesting of all 
instruments connected with science. 

Turning his optical tube towards the heavens, Galileo perceived the 
moon to be a body of uneven surface, the elevations of which he compu- 
ted by their shadows ; and the sun to be occasionally spotted ; and from 
the regular advance from east to west of these spots, he inferred the rota- 
tion of the sun, and the inclination of its axis to the plane of the ecliptic. 
From a particular nebula, which his rude instrument enabled him to 
resolve into individual stars, he even conjectured, what Lord Rosse has 
but recently proved, that the whole Milky Way was but a vast assemblage 
of stars and systems. He discovered that the planet Venus waxed and 
waned like the moon, that Saturn had something like wings by its sides 
(afterwards found to be a ring), and that Jupiter was surrounded by four 
satellites. It is now altogether impossible to imagine the wonder and 
delight with which these discoveries must have filled the mind of a philoso- 
pher like Galileo, who had perhaps long surmised that all was not as it 
seemed in the heavens, but despaired of ever being able to penetrate the 
mystery. In the year 1611, while entering upon his investigations, he 
was induced, by the invitation of his prince, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, 
to return to Pisa, and resume the chair of mathematics there, with a large 
salary. It was consequently at that city that he first gave his discoveries 
to the world. That persecution which had only been suspended by acci- 
dent in the case of Copernicus, now fell with full weight on the head of 
the Italian philosopher. Having openly declared, in a work which he 
published, that his discoveries proved the truth of the Copernican theory, 
he was denounced by the clergy as a heretic, and obliged, in 1615, to 
proceed to Rome, and appear before the court of Inquisition, who obliged 
him to promise that he would never more broach such dangerous doctrines. 
It has been stated, but is not quite certain, that he was on this occasion 
imprisoned by the Inquisition for five months, and that he would have 
suffered still more severely if the Grand Duke had not interceded for him. 

For several years he observed the silence enjoined upon him, but con- 
tinued to pursue the study of the true theory of the heavens. Panting to 
make known to the world a complete account of the system of Coperni- 
cus, yet dreading the prejudices of his enemies, he fell upon the expedient 
of writing a work, in which, without giving his own opinion, he introduces 
three persons in a dialogue, of whom the first defends the Copernican sys- 
tem, the second the Ptolemsean (or that of Aristotle), and the third 
34* 



530 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

weighs the reasons of both in such a way, that the subject seems problem 
atical, though it is impossible to mistake the preponderance of argu- 
ments in favor of Copernicus. With this great work, which is still held 
in reverence, Galileo went to Rome in 1630, in the sixty-sixth year of his 
age, and, by an extraordinary stretch of favor, received permission to 
print it. Scarcely had it appeared at Rome and Florence, when it was 
attacked by the disciples of Aristotle, and most violently of all by the 
teacher of philosophy at Pisa. A congregation of cardinals, monks, and 
mathematicians, was appointed to examine his work, which they unhesita- 
tingly condemned as highly dangerous, and summoned him before the tri- 
bunal of the Inquisition. This blow fell heavily on the head of Galileo, 
now an old man, and left defenseless by the death of his friend and 
patron, Cosmo II. He was compelled to go to Rome in the winter of 
1633, and was immediately immured in a cell in one of the prisons of the 
Inquisition. There he remained for several months, when, being brought 
before an assembly of his judges, he was condemned to renounce, kneeling 
before them, with his hand upon the gospels, what were called the ' sinful 
and detestable errors and heresies ' which he had maintained. The firm- 
ness of Galileo gave way at this critical moment of his life: he pro- 
nounced the recantation. But at the moment he rose, indignant at having 
sworn in violation of his conviction, he exclaimed, stamping his foot, 
l JE pur si muovef — ('It still moves ! ') Upon this dreadful relapse into 
heresy, he was sentenced to imprisonment in the Inquisition for life, and 
every week for three years was to repeat the seven penitential psalms ; 
his ' Dialogues ' were also prohibited, and his system utterly condemned. 
Although Galileo was in this manner sentenced to confinement, it appeared 
to those who judged him that he would not be able, from his age, to endure 
such a severe punishment, and they mercifully banished him to a particular 
spot near Florence. 

Here Galileo lived for several years, employing his time in the study 
of mechanics and other branches of natural philosophy. The results are 
found in two important works on the laws of motion, the foundation of the 
present system of physics and astronomy. At the same time he tried to 
make use of Jupiter's satellites for the calculation of longitudes; and 
though he brought nothing to perfection in this branch, he was the first 
who reflected systematically on such a method of fixing geographical longi- 
tudes. He was at this time afflicted with a disease in his eyes, one of 
which was wholly blind, and the other almost useless, when, in 1637, he 
discovered the libration of the moon. Blindness, deafness, want of sleep, 
and pain in his limbs, united to embitter his declining years ; still his mind 
was active. ' In my darkness,' he writes in the year 1638, ' I muse now 
upon this object of nature, and now upon that, and find it impossible to 
soothe my restless head, however much I wish it. This perpetual action 
of mind deprives me almost wholly of sleep.' In this condition, and 
affected by a slowly-consuming fever, he expired in January, 1642, in the 
seventy-eighth year of his age. His relics were deposited in the church 
of Santa Croce, at Florence, where posterity did justice to his memory by 
erecting a splendid monument in 1737. N 

Galileo is represented by his biographers as of diminutive stature, but 
strong and healthy, of agreeable countenance, and lively conversation and 
manner. He preferred living in the country, where his relaxations con- 



BIOGKAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 531 

sisted in the cultivation of his garden, and in the company and conversation 
of his friends. He loved music, drawing, and poetry ; and is said to have 
been so fond of Ariosto, that he knew the whole of the 'Orlando' by heart. 
He had few books; 'the best book,' he said, 'is nature.' A complete 
edition of his works, in thirteen volumes, appeared at Milan in 1803, the 
style of which is natural and fluent, so elegant and pure, that it has been 
held up by competent judges as a model of classical Italian. ' Altogether,' 
says Professor Play fair, 'Galileo is one of those to whom human knowledge 
is under the greatest obligation. His discoveries in the theory of motion, 
in the laws of the descent of heavy bodies, and in the motion of projectiles, 
laid the foundation of all the great improvements which have since been 
made by the application of mathematics to natural philosophy. If to these 
we add the invention of the telescope, the discoveries made by that instru- 
ment, the confirmation of the Copernican system which these discoveries 
afforded, and lastly, the wit and argument with which he combated and 
exposed the prejudice and presumption of the schools, we must admit that 
the history of human knowledge contains few greater names than that of 
Galileo.' 

KEPLER. 

Cotemporary with Tycho Brahe* and Galileo, and to some extent the as- 
sociate and successor of the former, was John Kepler, one of the most em- 
inent astronomers who have appeared in any age, and to whom the science 
is indebted for much of its present perfection. He was born December 
27, 1571, at Wiel in Wurtemberg, and was descended of a noble but re- 
duced family. His father, originally an officer of distinction in the army 
of Wurtemberg, was, at the time of young Kepler's birth, in the humble 
capacity of a small inn-keeper; and thus, as is too often the case with 
genius, our philosopher had to struggle into fame through poverty and the 
vicissitudes of his father's fortune. Poor, unbefriended, of a weakly con- 
stitution, and pne of the most diminutive of children, Kepler received the 
rudiments of knowledge at the Monastic school of Maulbrunn, where he 
gave early indications of talent, and of that irrepressible spirit which, amid 
the severest obsrtuctions, was never diverted from the main object of its 
pursuit. After his father's death, which took place in his eighteenth year, 
he left Maulbrunn, and succeeded in entering the college of Tubingen. 
Here he completed the course of study then prescribed — first philosophy 
and mathematics, and then theology ; taking the degree of Bachelor in the 
year 1588, and that of Master of Philosophy in the year 1591. Of apt 
inquiring powers as a divine, and of more than average eloquence as a 
preacher, Kepler could now have readily succeeded in the church; but 
mathematics and the exact sciences were his favorite themes ; and it may 
be fairly questioned if ever he turned a single thought to the clerical pro- 
fession, beyond what the curriculum of the university compelled. In 1593-4, 
his reputation as a geometrician had so increased, that he was invited to 
fill the mathematical chair in the university of Gratz, in Styria. Here he 
pursued his astronomical studies with the most commendable zeal, devoting 
himself especially to the investigation of the physical causes of the motion 
of the celestial bodies. 

Shortly after his installment, he married a lady descended from a noble 



532 AMERICAN (SNC1CL0PEDIA. 

family, and was beginning to enjoy that domestic happiness and studious 
quiet so congenial to his wishes, when persecution on account of his reli- 
gion compelled him to leave Gratz, to which, however, he was afterwards 
recalled by the states of Styria. Meanwhile Tycho Brahe", who had come 
to Germany, and was comfortably settled under the munificent patronage 
of Rodolphus, fixed upon Kepler as a suitable assistant, and soon induced 
him, by urgent letters and flattering promises, to accept of the situation. 
Compelled in a great measure by the unsettled state of affairs in Austria, 
Kepler speedily repaired to Prague, and applied himself, in conjunction 
with Tycho, to the completion of the Rodolphine Tables, which were first 
published at Ulm in 1626. At Tycho's recommendation, he was estab- 
lished at that place ; but as his office and science did not afford him a sub- 
sistence, he studied medicine, in order to gain a livelihood by its practice. 
The emperor had assigned him a salary, but in the period of trouble which 
preceded the Thirty Years' War, it was not paid. Even when he was ap- 
pointed imperial mathematician by Matthias, Rodolphus' successor, his 
hopes of recovering his arrears were disappointed. Fresh controversies 
with the clergy, and the disturbed state of the country, made his situation 
very uncomfortable : he therefore left Lintz, repaired to Ratisbon, declined 
an invitation to England, was confirmed by the succeeding emperor, Fer- 
dinand, in the office of imperial methematician, and afterwards went to Ulm 
to superintend the printing of the Rodolphine Tables. In 1627 he return- 
ed to Prague, and received from the emperor six thousand guilders. He 
finally became a professor at Rostock, on the recommendation of Albert, 
duke of Wallenstein, but did not receive the promised compensation. In 
1630 he went, by permission of the emperor, to Ratisbon, to claim payment 
of the arrears of his pension ; but he was there seized with a violent fever, 
supposed to have been brought upon him by too hard riding ; and to this 
he fell a victim in the month of November, in the fifty-ninth year of his 
age. In 1808, a monument, consisting of a Doric temple enshrining his 
bust, was erected to his memory in Ratisbon by Charles Theodore Von 
Dalberg. 

Kepler is represented by his biographers as a man of small stature, 
thin, of a weak constitution, and defective sight; but of somew r hat gay 
and sportive manners. He was attached to his science with the most 
fervent enthusiasm ; he sought after truth with eagerness, but forgot, in the 
search, the maxims of worldly prudence. To him were allotted but a 
scanty share of what are commonly esteemed the pleasures of life ; but 
he endured all calamities with firmness, being consoled by the higher 
enjoyments which science never fails to impart to her true and cordial 
votaries. 'As an astronomer,' says Lalande, 'he is as famous in astrono- 
my for the sagacious application which he made of Tycho's numerous 
observations (for he was not himself an observer), as the Danish philoso- 
pher for the collection of such vast materials.' To him, says another 
authority, the w orld is indebted for the discovery of the true figure of the 
planetary orbits, and the proportions of the motions of the solar system. 
Like the disciples of Pythagoras and Plato, Kepler was seized with a 
peculiar passion for finding analogies and harmonies in nature ; and though 
this led him to the adoption of strange and ridiculous conceits, we shall 
readily be disposed to overlook these, when we reflect they were the means 
of leading him to the most important discoveries. He was the first who 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 533 

discovered that astronomers had been mistaken in ascribing circular orbits 
and uniform motions to the planets, since each of them moves in an ellipse, 
having one of its foci in the sun ; and after a variety of fruitless efforts, he, 
on the 15th of May 1618, made his splendid discovery, that the squares of 
the periodic times of the planets are always in the same portion as the cubes 
of their mean distances from the sun. The sagacity of this wonderful 
man, and his incessant application to the study of the planetary motions, 
pointed out to him some of the genuine principles from which these motions 
originate. He considered gravity as a power that is mutual between 
bodies ; that the earth and moon tend toward each other, and would meet 
in a point so many times nearer to the earth than to the moon as the earth 
is greater than the moon, if their motions did not prevent it. His opinion 
of the tides was, that they arise from the gravitation of the waters towards 
the moon ; but his notions of the laws of motion not being accurate, he 
could not turn his conceptions to the best advantage. The prediction he 
uttered at the end of his epitome of astronomy, has been long since veri- 
fied by the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton ; namely, that the determina- 
nation of the true laws of gravity was reserved for the succeeding age, 
when the Author of Nature would be pleased to reveal these mysteries. 

NEWTON. 

The year in which Galileo died, was that in which Isaac Newton was 
born. This eminent individual, who was destined to establish the truth of 
the discoveries of his illustrious predecessors, Copernicus and Galileo, was 
born on the 25th of December 1642, at Coltersworth, in Lincolnshire, 
where his father cultivated his own moderate paternal property. After 
receiving the rudiments of education, under the superintendence of his 
mother, he was sent, at the age of twelve, to the grammar school at 
Grantham, where the bias of his early genius was shown by a skill in 
mechanical contrivances, which excited no small admiration. Whilst other 
boys were at play, his leisure hours were employed in forming working 
models of mills and machinery ; he constructed a water-clock from an old 
box, which had an index moved by a piece of wood sinking as the drops fell 
from the bottom, and a regular dial-plate to indicate the hours. 

On his removal from school, it was intended that he should follow the 
profession of a farmer, but his utter unfitness for the laborious toils of such 
a life was soon manifested. He was frequently found reading under a 
tree when he should have been inspecting cattle, or superintending laborers; 
and when he was sent to dispose of farming produce at Grantham market 
he was occupied in solving mathematical problems in a garret or hay-loft, 
whilst the business was transacted by an old servant who had accompanied 
him to town. These strong indications of the bias of his disposition were not 
neglected by his anxious mother ; she sent him again for a few months to 
school, and on the 5th of June 1660, he was admitted a student of Trinity 
College, Cambridge. 

The combination of industry and talents, with an amiable disposition 
and unassuming manners, naturally attracted the notice of his tutors, and 
the friendship of his admiring companions; amongst these was Isaac 
Barrow, afterwards justly celebrated as a preacher and a mathematician. 
Saunderson's Logic, Kepler's Optics, and the Arithmetic of Infinites by 



534 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Wallis, were the books first studied by Newton at Cambridge. He read 
the geometry of Descartes diligently, and looked into the subject of judi- 
cial astrology, which then engaged some attention. He read little of 
Euclid, and is said to have regretted, in a subsequent part of his life, 
that he had not studied the old mathematician more deeply. 

The attention of Newton, while he was pursuing his studies at Cam- 
bridge, was attracted to a branch of natural philosophy hitherto little 
understood — namely, light. It was the opinion of the celebrated philoso- 
pher Descartes that light is caused by a certain motion or undulation of a 
very thin elastic medium, which he supposed pervaded space. Newton 
overturned this theory. Taking a piece of glass with angular sides, called 
a prism, he caused the sun to shine upon it through a small hole in the 
shutter of a darkened apartment. By this experiment he found that the 
light, in passing through the glass, was so refracted or broken, as to exhibit 
on the wall an image of seven different tints or colors ; and after varying 
his experiments in a most ingenious way, he established the very interesting 
facts, that light is composed of rays resoluble into particles, that every ray 
of white light consists of three primary and differently colored rays (red, 
yellow, and blue), each of which three is more or less refrangible than the 
other. This remarkable discovery laid the foundation of the science of 
optics. 

In 1665, the students of the university of Cambridge were suddenly 
dispersed by the breaking out of a pestilential disorder in the place. New- 
ton retired for safety to his paternal estate : and though he lost for a time 
the advantages of public libraries and literary conversation, he rendered 
the years of his retreat a memorable era in his own existence, and in the 
history of science, by another of his great discoveries — that of the theory 
of gravitation, or the tendency of bodies towards the center of our globe. 
One day, while sitting in his garden, he happened to see an apple fall from 
a tree, and immediately began to consider the general laws which must 
regulate all falling bodies. Resuming the subject afterwards, he found 
that the same cause which made the apple fall to the ground, retained the 
moon and planets in their orbits, and regulated, with a simplicity and pow- 
er truly wonderful, the motions of all the heavenly bodies. In this man- 
ner was discovered the principle of gravitation, by a knowledge of which 
the science of astronomy is rendered comparatively perfect. 

On his return to Cambridge in 1667, he was elected Fellow of Trinity 
College ; and two years afterwards, he was appointed professor of mathe- 
matics in the place of his friend Dr. Barrow, who resigned. His great 
discoveries in the science of optics formed for some time the principal sub- 
ject of his lectures, and his new theory of light and colors was explained, 
with a clearness arising from perfect knowledge, to the satisfaction of a 
crowded and admiring audience. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal 
Society in 1671, and is reputed to have been compelled to apply for a dis- 
pensation from the usual payment of one shilling weekly, which is contrib- 
uted by each member towards the expenses. He had at this period of life 
no income except what he derived from his college and professorship, the 
produce of his estate being absorbed in supporting his mother and her fam- 
ily. His personal wishes were so moderate, that he never could regret 
the want of money, except as much as it limited his purchases of books 
and scientific instruments, and restricted his power of relieving the dis- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 535 

tresses of others. About the year 1683, he composed his great work, 
The Principia, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. In 
1688, the memorable year of the Revolution, he was chosen to represent 
the university in parliament, and the honor thus conferred on him was re- 
peated in 1701. His great merit at last attracted the notice of those who 
had it in their power to bestow substantial rewards, and he was appointed 
warden of the Mint, an office for which his patient and accurate investiga- 
tions singularly fitted him, and which he held with general approbation till 
his death. Honors and emoluments at last flowed upon him. Leibnitz, 
having felt envious of the discoveries of Newton, tried to revenge himself 
by transmitting a problem, which he thought would show his superiority, 
by baffling the skill of the English mathematician. It was received by 
Newton in the evening, after his usual day's labor at the Mint, and he 
solved it before he retired to rest. After this there was no further attempt 
made to traduce his fame. In 1705 he received the honor of knighthood 
from Queen Anne. 

Newton's benevolence of disposition led him to perform all the minor 
duties of social life Avith great exactness ; he paid and received frequent 
visits ; he assumed no superiority in his conversation ; he was candid, cheer- 
ful, and affable : his society was therefore much sought, and he submitted 
to intrusions on his valuable time without a murmur ; but by early rising, 
and by a methodical distribution of his hours he found leisure to study and 
compose, and every moment which he could command, he passed with a 
pen in his band and a book before him. He was generous and charitable — 
one of his maxims being, that those who gave nothing before death, never, 
in fact, gave at all. His wonderful faculties were very little impaired, 
even in extreme old age; and his cheerful disposition, combined with tem- 
perance and a constitution naturally sound, preserved him from the usual 
infirmities of life. He was of middle size, with a figure inclining to 
plumpness ; his eyes were animated, piercing, and intelligent ; the general 
expression of his countenance was full of life and kindness ; his sight was 
preserved to the last ; and his hair in the decline of his days was white as 
snow. The severe trial of bodily suffering was reserved for the last stage 
of his existence, and he supported it with characteristic resignation. On 
the 20th of March 1727, he expired at the advanced age of eighty-four 
years. 

The character of Newton cannot be delineated and discussed like that 
of ordinary men ; it is so beautiful, that the biographer dwells upon it with 
delight, and the inquiry, by what means he attained an undisputed supe- 
riority over his fellow-creatures, must be both interesting and useful. 
Newton was endowed with talents of the highest order ; but those who are 
less eminently gifted, may study his life with advantage, and derive in- 
struction from every part of his career. With a power of intellect almost 
divine, he demonstrated the motions of the planets, the orbits of the com- 
ets, and the cause of the tides of the ocean ; he investigated with complete 
success, the properties of light and colors, which no man before had even 
suspected ; he was the diligent, sagacious, and faithful interpreter of na- 
ture, while his researches all tended to illustrate the power, wisdom, and 
goodness of the Creator. Notwithstanding, also, his reach of understand- 
ing and knowledge, his modesty was such, that he thought nothing of his 
own acquirements ; and he left behind him the celebrated saying, ' that he 



536 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

appeared to himself as only a child picking up pebbles from the shore, 
while the great ocean of truth lay unexplored before him.' 

HUYGENS. 

While Newton, in England, was thus enlarging the boundaries of astron- 
omy, and conferring upon it a degree of accuracy and system hitherto un- 
known, a number of continental philosophers were contributing materials, 
which, though of an humble character, were not the less necessary to the 
future progress of the science. First among these was Christian Huygens, 
Lord of Zeelhem, born at the Hague on the 14th of April 1629, and de- 
scended of a rich and respected family. His father, secretary and counselor 
to the Princess of Orange, and distinguished as a scholar and poet, was not 
slow in observing the genius of his son, and, full of paternal solicitude for 
his improvement, became his first instructor. He early taught him music, 
arithmetic, and geography — says a writer in the Encyclopaedia, from which 
we select the materials of this notice — and initiated him, when about 
thirteen, in the knowledge of mechanics, for which the boy had evinced a 
surprising aptitude. At fifteen, he received the assistance of a master in 
mathematics, under whose tuition he made great progress ; and at sixteen, 
was sent to Leyden, to study law under the eminent jurisconsult Vinnius. 
He did not, however, permit jurisprudence to divert him from his mathe- 
matical studies, which he now prosecuted with success as well as afterwards 
at Breda, at the university of which he resided from 1646 to 1648. In 
these two cities he had respectively as masters two very able geometers, 
Francis Schooten and John Pell ; and his first essays were so successful, 
that they attracted the notice of Descartes, to whom the author, in his 
admiration of that great philosopher, had communicated them. Descartes 
predicted his future greatness, but did not live to appreciate his discov- 
eries. 

On quitting the university, Huygens, as was then the custom, made the 
tour of Europe ; and after his travels, settled in his native country, where 
he commenced that series of inventions which have rendered his name so 
justly celebrated. Between the years 1650-60, his pursuits were chiefly 
mathematical, resulting in several publications of acknowledged merit. 
In 1655 he traveled into France, and took the degree of Doctor of Laws 
at Angers ; and in 1658 made known his invention of the pendulum clock. 
In the following year he published his discoveries relative to the planet 
Saturn ; discoveries which inseparably associate his name with the science 
of astronomy. Galileo had endeavored to explain some of the appearances 
exhibited by that planet. He had at first observed two attendant stars, 
but some time afterwards was surprised to find that they had disappeared. 
Huygens, desirous to account for these changes, labored with his brother 
Constantine to improve the construction of telescopes ; and having at length 
made an instrument of this kind, possessing greater power than any which 
had yet been contrived, he proceeded to observe the phases of Saturn, and 
to record all the different aspects of that planet. The results were of 
equal interest and importance to the science of astronomy. He discovered 
a satellite of that planet which had hitherto escaped the notice of astron- 
omers ; and after a long course of observation, he showed that the planet 
is surrounded by a solid and permanent ring, which never changes its sit- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 537 

uation. In 1660 he took a second journey into France ; and the year 
following he visited England, where he communicated the art of polishing 
glasses for telescopes, and was admitted a member of the Royal Society. 
The air-pump, then recently invented, he materially improved ; and about 
the same time he also discovered the laws of the collision of elastic bodies, 
as did afterwards Wallis and Wren, who disputed with him the honor of 
the discovery. After a stay of some months in England, Hiiygens returned 
to France, where, in 1633, his merit became so conspicuous, that Colbert 
resolved to bestow on him such a pension as might induce him to establish 
himself at Paris. This resolution was not carried into effect until 1665, 
when letters in the king's name were written to the Hague, where the 
philosopher then resided, inviting him to repair to Paris, and offering him 
a considerable pension, with other advantages. Hiiygens accepted the 
proposal ; and from 1666 to 1681, settled at Paris, where he was admitted 
a member of the Royal Academy. 

During this period he was chiefly engaged in mathematical pursuits : he 
wrote and published several works, which were favorably received ; and he 
invented and improved some useful instruments and machines. By contin- 
ued application, his health began to be impaired, and he at length found it 
necessary to return to his native country — a step somewhat accelerated 
by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which rendered him liable to 
molestations, although assured of the fullest privilege to follow his own 
religious opinions. He accordingly left the French metropolis in 1681 ; 
passed the remainder of his days in his own country, and in the pursuit of 
his favorite subjects ; and died at the Hague on the 8th of June 1683, in 
the sixty-seventh year of his age. ' This illustrious man,' continues our 
authority, ' gave his whole time to science ; he loved a quiet studious life, 
and found sufficient enjoyment in pursuing curious and useful researches. 
He was modest, amiable, cheerful, and in all respects as estimable in private 
life as he was eminent in science. It is not a little singular that the dis- 
covery of the real nature, or at least of the true figure, of the luminous 
ring which encompasses the planet Saturn, should have been made by the 
same individual who invented the pendulum clock and the micrometer.' 
His inventions, however, were more of a mathematical and mechanical than 
of an astronomical character ; and we safely predict, that had Hiiygens 
lived in the present day, he would have risen to superlative fame as a mech- 
anician and engineer. 

HALLEY. 

Dr. Edmund Halley, a name well known in the annals of astronomy, 
was the only son of a soap-boiler in London, and was born in 1656. He 
received the rudiments of his education at St. Paul's School in his native 
city ; and in his seventeenth year, became a commoner in Queen's College, 
Oxford. At first he applied himself to the study of the languages and 
sciences, but at length gave himself wholly up to that of astronomy ; and 
before he had attained his nineteenth year, published a method of finding 
the aphelia and eccentricity of planets, which supplied a defect in the 
Keplerian theory of planetary notions. By some observations on a spot on 
the sun's disk in the summer of 1676, he established the certainty of the 
motion of that body round its own axis ; and in the same year fixed the 



538 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

longitude of the Cape of Good Hope, by his observations of the occultation 
of Mars by the Moon. Immediately after, he Avent to St Helena, where 
he staid till 1678, completing a catalogue of the fixed stars of the southern 
hemisphere, which was published in the following year, and gained for its 
author the appellation of the 'Southern Tycho.' In 1679 he was called 
upon to settle a dispute between the English philosopher Hooke and the 
celebrated Hevelius, respecting the use of optical instruments in astronomy, 
and for this purpose went to Dantzic, where with honorable impartiality, 
he decided against his own countryman. In 1680 he made the tour of 
Europe, making the acquaintance of Cassini at Paris, and completing his 
observations from the Royal Observatory of France on the comet which 
now bears his name. After spending the greater part of 1681 in Italy, 
he returned to England, and settled at Islington, where he fitted up an 
observatory for his astronomical researches. 

In 1683 he published his Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical 
Compass, in ^hich he endeavored to account for the phenomenon, by the 
supposition of the whole globe being one great magnet, having four circulating 
magnetical poles or points of attraction. His theory, though unsatisfactory, 
is ingenious. The doctrines of Kepler relative to the motions of the plan- 
ets next engaged his attention ; and finding himself disappointed in his en- 
deavors to obtain information on the subject from Hooke and Sir Christo- 
pher Wren, he went to Cambridge, where Newton, then mathematical pro- 
fessor, satisfied his inquiries. In 1691 he was candidate for the Savilian 
professorship of astronomy at Oxford — a chair which he would have ob- 
tained, had he not refused to profess his thorough belief in all the doc- 
trines of the Christian religion, as taught by the church of England. For 
the purpose of making further observations relative to the variation of the 
compass, he set sail on a voyage in 1699 (having obtained the command of 
a vessel from King William, who was anxious to promote the cause of geo- 
graphical and astronomical science) ; and after traversing both hemispheres, 
and making important observations at numerous stations, he returned to 
England in September 1700. As the result of his researches, he publish- 
ed a general chart, showing at one view the variation of the compass in 
all those seas where the English navigators were acquainted ; and thus 
laid the foundation of that department of science which has since received the 
attention of the greatest philosophers. His next employment, under the 
patronage of the king, was to observe the tides in the English Channel, 
with the latitudes and longitudes of the principle headlands ; observations 
which were shortly after published in a large map of the Channel. In 
1703, he was engaged by the emperor of Germany to survey the coast of 
Delmatia ; and returning in November of that year to England, he was 
elected Savilian professor of geometry on the death of Dr. Wallis, and was 
also honored with the diploma of LL.D. ; a title somewhat more in con- 
sonance with his pursuits than that of 'Captain,' by which he had been 
styled from the time of his appointment to the command of the surveying 
vessel furnished him by King William. Dr. Halley now gave his mind 
more entirely to mathematics, translating into Latin from the Arabic and 
Greek several treatises, which he afterwards published with supplement- 
ary matter, such as those of Appolonius and Serenus. 

In 1719 he received the appointment of astronomer-royal at Greenwich, 
where he afterwards chiefly resided, devoting his time to completing the 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 589 

theory of the motion of the moon, which notwithstanding his age, he pur- 
sued with enthusiastic ardor. In 1721 he began his observations, and for 
the space of eighteen years, scarcely ever missed taking a meridian view 
of the moon when the weather was favorable. lie died at Greenwich in 
1742, at the advanced age of eighty-six, having spent one of the most ac- 
tive and useful lives on record. His honors and titles were numerous, but 
no more than his multifarious occupations and achievements entitled him 
to. In all he exhibited the same promptness of resolve and incessant assi- 
duity, willing to assist or be assisted ; and never deigning it beneath him 
to confess when ignorant, nor to receive information from any quarter, 
however humble. Whether as Captain Halley, as secretary to the Royal 
Society, consulting engineer to the emperor of Germany, or astronomer-roy- 
al, he was the same ardent, prompt, and indefatigable laborer. His pub- 
lications and papers were numerous ; he gave important assistance to Dr. 
D. Gregory in the preparation of the conic sections of Appolonius ; and to 
Halley are we also indebted for the publication of several of the works of 
Sir Isaac Newton, who had a particular friendship for him, and to whom 
he frequently communicated his discoveries. 

FERGUSON. 

We pass by several authors and observers who contributed during the 
time of Hiiygens and Halley, to the advancement of astronomy, to notice 
the life of an individual whose career, while beneficial to the science under 
review, furnishes an ever-memorable instance of the acquirement of knowl- 
edge under the most pressing difficulties and obstructions. The most of 
those to whom we have adverted were men in independent circumstances, 
or at least so situated as to obtain at once a liberal education and the 
patronage and support of the great and wealthy. James Ferguson, the 
ingenious experimental philosopher, mechanist, and astronomer, to whom 
we allude, had no such advantages. He was born in 1710, a few miles 
from Keith, a village in Banffshire, in the north of Scotland. His parents 
were of the poorest order, but honest and religious, and, by toilsome labor 
in the cultivation of a few rented acres, contrived to rear to manhood a 
large family of children. Of the manner in which James acquired the 
rudiments of education, and how he struggled to rise from obscurity to 
distinction, we have a most interesting account in a memoir by himself, 
which we cannot do better than quote in an abridged form. 

After mentioning how he learned to read with a very scanty aid from an 
old woman and his father, and that little more than three months' tuition 
at the grammar school of Keith was all the education he ever received, he 
thus proceeds : — ' My taste for mechanics was soon developed ; but as my 
father could not afford to maintain me while I was in pursuit only of these 
matters, and as I was rather too young and weak for hard labor, he put 
me out to a neighbor to keep sheep, which I continued to do for some years ; 
and in that time I began to study the stars in the night. In the daytime 
I amused myself by making models of mills, spinning-wheels, and such 
other things as I happened to see. I then went to serve a considerable 
farmer in the neighborhood, whose name was James Glashan. I found him 
very kind and indulgent ; but he soon observed, that in the evenings, when 
my work was over, I went into a field with a blanket about me, lay down 



640 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

on my back, and stretched a thread with small beads upon it, at arms- 
length, between my eye and the stars, sliding the beads upon it till they 
hid such ind such stars from my eye, in order to take their apparent dis- 
tances fiom one another ; and then, laying the thread down on a paper, I 
marked the stars thereon by the beads, according to their respective posi- 
tions, having a candle by me. My master at first laughed at me ; but 
when I explained my meaning to him, he encouraged me to go on ; and, 
that I might make fair copies in the daytime of what I had done in the 
night he olten worked for me himself. I shall always have respect for the 
memory of that man. 

' I soon after was introduced by a schoolmaster whom I knew to a Mr. 
Cantley, an ingenious man, who acted as butler to Thomas Grant, Esq., of 
Achoynaney, and from whom I received some instruction, particularly in 
decimal arithmetic, algebra, and the first elements of geometry. He also 
made me a present of ' Gordon's Geographical Grammar,' which at that 
time was to me a great treasure. There is no figure of a globe in it, although 
it contains a tolerable description of the globes, and their use. From this 
description I made a globe in three weeks at my father's, having turned 
the ball thereof out of a piece of wood, which ball I covered with paper, 
and delineated a map of the world upon it, made the meridian ring and 
horizon of wood, covered them with paper, and graduated them : and I 
was happy to find that by my globe, which was the first I ever saw, I could 
solve the problems. But this was not likely to afford me bread ; and I 
could not think of staying with my father, who, I knew full well, could not 
maintain me in that way, as it could be of no service to him ; and he had, 
without my assistance, hands sufficient for all his work.' 

Thinking it would be a very easy matter to attend a mill, and that ho 
would have plenty of leisure for study, poor Ferguson next engaged him- 
self to a miller ; but the fellow turned out to be a harsh, ignorant drunkard, 
who required every moment of the boy's time, starving and ill-using him 
besides, so that at the end of a year he had to betake himself to the roof 
of his father. He next hired himself to a farmer ; but here, again, he 
was worked beyond the strength of his naturally delicate constitution : 
illness ensued, and he had again to seek the paternal refuge. 'In order 
to amuse myself in this low state, I made a wooden clock, the frame of 
which was also of wood ; and it kept time pretty well. The bell on which 
the hammer struck the hours was the neck of a broken bottle. Having 
then no idea how any timekeeper could go but by a weight and a line, I 
wondered how a watch could go in all positions, and was sorry that I had 
never thought of asking Mr. Cantley, who could very easily have informed 
me. But happening one day to see a gentleman ride by my father's house, 
which was close by a public road, I asked him what o'clock it then was ; 
he looked at his watch, and told me. As he did that with so much good- 
nature, I begged of him to show me the inside of his watch ; and though 
he was an entire stranger, he immediately opened the watch, and put it into 
my hands. I saw the spring-box with part of the chain round it, and 
asked him what it was that made the box turn round ; he told me that it 
was turned round by a steel spring within it. Having then never seen any 
other spring than that of my father's gun-lock, I asked how a spring with- 
in a box could turn the box so often round as to wind all the chain upon it. 
He answered that the spring was long and thin, that one end of it was 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 541 

fastened to the axis of the box, and the other end to the inside of the box ; 
that the axis was fixed, and the box was loose upon it. I told him I did 
not yet thoroughly understand the matter. ' Well my lad,' says he, ' take 
a long thin piece of whalebone, hold one end of it fast between your finger 
and thumb, and wind it round your finger, it will then endeavor to unwind 
itself; and if you fix the other end of it to the inside of a small hoop, and 
leave it to itself, it will turn the hoop round and round, and wind up a 
thread tied to the outside of the hoop.' I thanked the gentleman, and 
told him I understood the thing very well. I then tried to make a watch 
with wooden wheels, and made the spring of whalebone ; but found that 
I could not make the watch go when the balance was put on, because the 
teeth of the wheels were rather too weak to bear the force of a spring 
sufficient to move the balance, although the wheels would run fast enough 
when the balance was taken off. I enclosed the whole in a wooden case 
very little bigger than a breakfast teacup ; but a clumsy neighbor one day 
looking at my watch, happened to let it fall, and turning hastily about to 
pick it up, set his foot upon it, and crushed it all to pieces ; which so pro- 
voked my father, that he was almost ready to beat the man, and discouraged 
me so much, that I never attempted to make such another machine again, 
especially as I was thoroughly convinced I could never make one that 
would be of any real use.' 

He now turned his attention to the repairing and cleaning of clocks, 
and in this way managed for some time to make a livelihood. While trav 
eling the country for this purpose, he happened to attract the notice of 
Sir James Dunbar of Durn, who bestowed upon him the warmest patron 
age, and requested him to make his mansion his home. While there, ge 
ometry, mechanics, and astronomy, alternately engaged him. 'Two large 
globular stones stood on the top of his gate ; on one of them I painted with 
oil colors a map of the terrestrial globe, and on the other a map of the celes- 
tial, from a planisphere of the stars which I copied on paper from a celes- 
tial globe belonging to a neighboring gentleman. The poles of the painted 
globe stood toward the poles of the heavens ; on each the twenty-four 
hours were placed around the equinoctial, so as to show the time of the day 
when the sun shone out, by the boundary where the half of the globe at 
any time enlightened by the sun was parted from the other half in the 
shade ; the enlightened parts of the terrestrial globe answering to the like 
enlightened parts of the earth at all times ; so that, whenever the sun 
shone on the globe, one might see to what places the sun was then rising, 
to what places it was setting, and all the places where it was then day or 
night throughout the earth.' 

While enjoying the hospitality of Durn, he was introduced to Lady Dip- 
pie, Sir James' sister, who also extended to him the warmest patronage. 
This lady, seeing his taste for design, employed him in drawing patterns 
for needlework on gowns, aprons, etc., recommending his work to her ac- 
quaintances, and in a short while created, as it were, a flourishing domes- 
tic trade for the young philosopher. On removing to Edinburgh, she 
advised Furguson to accompany her household, in which he would have the 
benefit of another year's hospitality, assured that, in the more extensive 
field of the metropolis, he would have a much better opportunity of rising 
into notice. Thither he accordingly went ; was introduced into new fam- 
ilies of distinction ; drew and designed for fancy needlework ; and latterly 



542 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

turned his attention to miniature painting, in which he so far excelled, that 
for six-and-twenty after, it was the business to which he trusted for a 
maintenance. But while engaged in painting, and enjoying the estimation 
of those who had been his patrons, 'I somehow or other took a violent in- 
clination to study anatomy, surgery, and physic, all from reading of books 
and conversing with gentlemen on these subjects, which for that time put 
all thoughts of astronomy out of my mind ; and I had no inclination to become 
acquainted with any one there who taught either mathematics or astrono- 
my, for nothing would serve me but to be a doctor. 

'At the end of the second year I left Edinburgh, and went to see my 
father, thinking myself tolerably well qualified to be a physician in that part 
of the country, and I carried a good deal of medicines, plasters, etc., thith- 
er ; but to my mortification, I soon found that all my medical theories and 
study were of little use in practice. And then finding that very few paid 
me for the medicines they had, and that I was far from being so successful 
as I could wish, I quite left off that business, and began to think of taking 
to the more sure one of drawing pictures again. For this purpose I went 
to Iverness, where I had eight months' business. When I was there, I 
began to think of astronomy again, and was heartily sorry for having quite 
neglected it at Edinburgh, where I might have improved my knowledge by 
conversing with those who were very able to assist me.' 

Having spent some time in astronomical pursuits at Inverness, Furguson 
returned to Edinburgh, where he made himself known to Mr. Maclaurin, 
professor of mathematics, by whom he was kindly patronized, and instruc- 
ted in points wherein he was deficient. Being greatly delighted with the 
orrery of the professor, he set about constructing one after a somewhat 
different principle, and succeeded so well in the undertaking that his patron 
not only commended it to the young men attending his class, but desired 
the constructor to read them a lecture on it. This so far encouraged the 
young philosopher, that he instantly set about the construction of another 
more complex, and of higher finish. This was purchased by Sir Dudley 
Rider when Ferguson first went to London ; and he mentions in his memoir, 
that altogether eight orreries were constructed chiefly by his own hand, 
and that in no two of them was the wheelwork alike. We now follow him 
to London, whither he went in May 1743. 

' I had a letter of recommendation from Mr. Baron Eldin at Edinburgh 
to the Right Hon. Stephen Poyntz, Esq., at St. James', who had been 
preceptor to his Royal Highness the late Duke of Cumberland, and was 
well known to be possessed of all the good qualities that can adorn a human 
mind. To me his goodness was really beyond my power of expression ; 
and I had not been a month in London, till he informed me that he had 
written to an eminent professor of mathematics to take me into his house, 
and give me board and lodging, with all proper instructions to qualify me 
for teaching a mathematical school he (Mr. Poyntz) had in view for me, 
and would get me settled in it. This I should have liked very well, espec- 
ially as I began to be tired of drawing pictures; in which, I confess, I 
never strove to excel, because my mind was still pursuing things more 
agreeable. He soon after told me he had just received an answer from 
the mathematical master, desiring I might be sent immediately to him. 
On hearing this, I told Mr. Poyntz that I did not know how to maintain my 
wife during the time I must be under the master's tuition. ' What ! ' says 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 543 

he, 'are you a married man ? ' I told him I had been so ever since May, 
in the year 1739. He said he was sorry for it, because it quite defeated 
his scheme, as the master of the school he had in view for me must be a 
bachelor. 

' He then asked me what business I intended to follow. I answered 
that I knew of none besides that of drawing pictures. On this he de- 
sired me to draw the pictures of his wife and children, that he might show 
them, in order to recommend me to others ; and told me that when I was 
out of business, I should come to him, and he would find me as much as 
he could — and I soon found as much as I could execute ; but he died in a 
few years after, to my inexpressible grief. 

' Soon afterwards it appeared to me, that although the moon goes round 
the earth, and that the sun is far on the outside of the moon's orbit, yet 
the moon's motion must be in a line — that is, always concave towards the 
sun ; and upon making a delineation representing her absolute path in the 
heavens, I found it to be really so. I then made a simple machine for de- 
lineating both her path and the earth's on a long paper laid on the floor. 
I carried the machine and delineation to the late Martin Felkes, Esq., 
president of the Royal Society, on a Thursday afternoon. He expressed 
great satisfaction at seeing it, as it was a new discovery ; and took me that 
evening with him to the Royal Society, where I showed the delineation, 
and the method of doing it. 

'In the year 1747, I published a dissertation on the phenomena of the 
harvest moon, with a description of a new orrery, in which there are only 
four wheels. But having never had grammatical education, nor time to study 
the rules of just composition, I acknowledge that I was afraid to put it to 
press ; and for the same cause, I ought to have the same fears still. But 
having the pleasure to find that this my first work was not ill received, I 
was emboldened to go on in publishing my ' Astronomy, ' ' Mechanical Lec- 
tures,' ' Tables and Tracts relative to several Arts and Sciences,' a small 
treatise on ' Electricity,' and ' Select Mechanical Exercises.' 

'In the year 1748, I ventured to read lectures on the eclipse of the sun 
that fell on the 14th of July in that year. Afterwards I began to read 
astronomical lectures on an orrery which I made, and of which the figures 
of all the wheelwork are contained in the 6th and 7th plates of ' Mechani- 
cal Exercises.' I next began to make an apparatus for lectures on mechan- 
ics, and gradually increased the apparatus for other parts of experimental 
philosophy, buying from others what I could not make for myself. I then 
entirely left off drawing pictures, and employed myself in the much pleas- 
anter business of reading lectures on mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, 
pneumatics, electricity, and astronomy ; in all which my encouragement 
has been greater than I could have expected. ' 

To this narrative we shall add the few particulars which are necessary to 
complete the view of Ferguson's life and character. It was through the 
zeal of George III in behalf of science, that Ferguson was honored with 
the royal bounty of .£50 a-year. His majesty had attended some of the 
lectures of the ingenious astronomer, and often, after his accession, sent 
for him to converse upon scientific topics. He had the extraordinary honor 
of being elected a member of the Royal Society, without paying either the 
initiatory or the annual fees, which were dispensed with in his case, from 
a supposition of his being too poor to pay them without inconvenience. 



644 AMEBIC AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

To the astonishment of all who knew him, it was discovered, after his death, 
that he was possessed of considerable wealth — about X6000. ' Ferguson,' 
says Charles Hutton in his Mathematical Dictionary, ' must be allowed to 
have been a very uncommon genius, especially in mechanical contrivances 
and inventions, for he constructed many machines himself in a very neat 
manner. He had also a good taste in astronomy, as well as in natural and 
experimental philosophy, and was possessed of a happy manner of explain- 
ing himself in a clear, easy, and familiar way. 

His general mathematical knowledge, however, was little or nothing. Of 
algebra he understood little more than the notation ; and he has often told 
me that he could never demonstrate one proposition in Euclid's Elements ; 
his constant method being to satisfy himself as to the truth of any problem 
with a measurement by scale and compasses. ' He was a man of very 
clear judgment in everything that he professed, and of unwearied applica- 
tion to study : benevolent, meek, and innocent in his manners as a child : 
humble, courteous, and communicative : instead of pedantry, philosophy 
seemed to produce in him only diffidence and urbanity. After a long and 
useful life, worn out with study, age, and infirmities, he died November 
16, 1776. 

SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL. 

The science of astronomy, which, from the time of Copernicus, had been 
gradually improving, through the laborious exertions of Tycho Brah&, Ga- 
lileo, Kepler, Hiiygens, Newton, Halley, Delisle, Lalande, and other emi- 
nent observers of the starry firmament, was considerably advanced by the 
discoveries of Herschel, whose biography now comes under our notice. 

William Herschel was born at Hanover on the 15th of November 1738. 
He was the second of four sons, all of whom were brought up to their 
father's profession, which was that of a musician. Having at an early 
age shown a peculiar taste for intellectual pursuits, his father provided him 
with a tutor, who instructed him in the rudiments of logic, ethics, and me- 
taphysics, in which abstract studies he made considerable progress. Owing, 
however, to the circumscribed means of his parents, and certain untoward 
circumstances, these intellectual pursuits were soon interrupted, and at 
the age of fourteen he was placed in the band of the Hanoverian regiment 
of guards, a detachment of which he accompanied to England about the 
year 1757 or 1759. His father came with him to England, but after the 
lapse of a few months, he returned home, leaving his son, in conformity 
with his own wish, to try his fortune in Great Britain — the adopted home 
of many an ingenious foreigner. How or when he left the regimental 
band in which he had been engaged, we are not informed. After strug- 
gling with innumerable difficulties, and no doubt embarrassed by his com- 
parative ignorance of the English tongue, he had the good fortune to at- 
tract the notice of the Earl of Darlington, who engaged him to superintend 
and instruct a military band at the time forming for the Durham militia. 
After fulfilling this engagement, he passed several years in Yorkshire, in 
the capacity of teacher of music. He gave lessons to pupils in the princi- 
pal towns, and officiated as leader in oratorios or concerts of sacred music 
— a kind of employment in which the Germans are eminently skilled, from 
their love of musical performances. Herschel, however, while thus eu- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 545 

gaged in earning an honorable livelihood, did not allow his professional 
pursuits to engross all his thoughts. He sedulously devoted his leisure 
hours in improving his knowledge of the English and Italian languages, 
and in instructing himself in Latin, as well as a little Greek. At this pe- 
riod he probably looked to these attainments principally with a view to the 
advantage he might derive from them in the prosecution of his professional 
studies ; and it was no doubt with this view also that he afterwards applied 
himself to the perusal of Dr. Robert Smith's ' Treatise on Harmonics ' — 
one of the most profound works on the science of music which then existed 
in the English language. But the acquaintance he formed with this work 
was destined ere long to change altogether the character of his pursuits. 
He soon found that it was necessary to make himself a mathematician be- 
fore he could make much progress in following Dr. Smith's demonstrations. 
He now, therefore, turned with his characteristic alacrity and resolution to 
the new study to which his attention was thus directed; and it was not 
long before he became so attached to it, that almost all the other pursuits 
of his leisure hours were laid aside for its sake. 

Through the interest and good offices of a Mr. Bates, to whom the merits 
of Herschel had become known, he was, about the close of 1765, appoint- 
ed to the situation of church-organist at Halifax. Next year, havin«- n-ono 
with his elder brother to fulfill a short engagement at Bath, he gave so 
much satisfaction by his performances, that he was appointed organist in 
the Octagon chapel of that city, upon which he went to reside there. The 
place which he now held was one of some value ; and from the opportuni- 
ties which he enjoyed, besides, of adding to its emoluments by engage- 
ments at the rooms, the theatre, and private concerts, as well as by taking 
pupils, he had the certain prospect of deriving a good income from his pro- 
fession, if he had made that his only or his chief object. This accession 
of employment did not by any means abate his propensity to study for 
mental improvement. Frequently, after the fatigue of twelve or fourteen 
hours occupied in musical performances, he sought relaxation, as he con- 
sidered it, in extending his knowledge of the pure and mixed mathematics. 
In this manner he obtained a competent knowledge of geometry, and found 
himself in a condition to proceed to the study of the different branches of 
physical science which depend upon the mathematics. Among the first of 
these latter that attracted his attention, were the kindred departments of 
astronomy and optics. Some discoveries about this time made in astrono- 
my awakened his curiosity, and to this science he now directed his investi- 
gations at his intervals of leisure. Being anxious to observe some of those 
wonders in the planetary system of which he had read, he borrowed from 
a neighbor a two-feet Gregorian telescope, which delighted him so much, 
that he forthwith commissioned one of larger dimensions from London. 
The price of such an instrument, he was vexed to find, exceeded both his 
calculations and his means ; but though chagrined, he was not discour- 
aged ; he immediately resolved to attempt with his own hand the construc- 
tion of a telescope equally powerful with that which he was unable to pur- 
chase ; and in this, after repeated disappointments, which served oidy to 
stimulate his exertions, he finally succeeded. 

Herschel was now on the path in which his genius was calculated to 
shine. In the year 1774, he had the inexpressible pleasure of beholding 
the planet Saturn through a five-feet Newtonian reflector, made by his 
35* 



546 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

own Lands. This was the beginning of a long and brilliant course of 
triumphs in the same walk of art, and also in that of astronomical discov- 
ery. Herschel now became so much more ardently attached to his phil- 
osophical pursuits, that, regardless of the sacrifices of emolument he was 
making, he began gradually to limit his professional engagements and the 
number of his pupils. Meanwhile, he continued to employ his leisure in 
the fabrication of still more powerful instruments than the one he first 
constructed ; and in no long time he produced telescopes of from seven 
to twenty feet focal distance. In fashioning the mirrors for these instru- 
ments, his perseverance was indefatigable. For his seven-feet reflector, 
it is asserted that he actually finished and made trial of no fewer than two 
hundred mirrors before he found one that satisfied him. When he sat 
down to prepare a mirror, his practice was to work at it for twelve or four- 
teen hours, without quitting his occupation for a moment. He would not 
even take his hand from what he was about, to help himself to food ; 
and the little that he ate on such occasions was put into Ins mouth by his 
sister. He gave the mirror its proper shape more by a natural tact than 
by rule ; and when his hand was once in, as the phrase is, he was afraid 
that the perfection of the finish might be impaired by the least intermis- 
sion of his labors. 

It was on the 13th of March, 1781, that Herschel made the discovery 
to which he owes, perhaps, most of his popular reputation. He had been 
engaged for nearly a year and a-half in making a regular survey of the 
heavens, when, on the evening of the day that has been mentioned, having 
turned his telescope — an excellent seven-feet reflector, of his own con- 
structing — to a particular part of the sky, he observed among the other 
stars, one which seemed to shine with a more steady radiance than those 
around it ; and, on account of that, and some other peculiarities in its 
appearance, which excited his suspicion, he determined to observe it more 
narrowly. On reverting to it after some hours, he was a good deal sur- 
prised to find that it had perceptibly changed its place — a fact, which, the 
next day, became still more indisputable. At first he was somewhat in 
doubt whether or not it was the same star, w T hich he had seen on these 
different occasions ; but after continuing these observations for a few days 
longer, all uncertainty upon that head vanished. He now communicated 
what he had observed to the royal astronomer, Dr. Maskelyne, who conclu- 
ded that the luminary could be nothing else than a new comet. Continued 
observation of it, however, for a few months, dissipated this error ; and it 
became evident that it was, in reality, a hitherto undiscovered planet. 

This new world, so unexpectedly found to form a part of the system to 
which our own belongs, received from Herschel the name of Georgium 
Sidus, or Georgian Star, in honor of the king of England ; but by conti- 
nental astronomers, it has been more generally called either Herschel, 
after its discoverer, or Uranus. He afterwards discovered, successively, 
no fewer than six satellites or moons, belonging to his new planet. 

The anouncement of the discovery of the Georgium Sidus, at once 
made Herschel's name universally known. In the course of a few months 
tne king bestowed upon him a pension of .£300 a-year, to enable him 
entirely to relinquish his engagements at Bath ; and upon this, he came to 
reside at Slough, near Windsor. He now devoted himself entirely to 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 547 

science, and the constructing of telescopes, and observations of the heav- 
ens, continued to form the occupations of the remainder of his life. 

Astronomy is indebted to him for many more most interesting discoveries 
besides the celebrated one of which we have just given an account, as well 
as for a variety of speculations of the most ingenious, original, and 
profound character. But of these we cannot here attempt any detail. 

He also introduced some important improvements into the construction 
of the reflecting telescope, besides continuing to fabricate that instru- 
ment of dimensions greatly exceeding any that he had formerly attempted, 
with powers surpassing, in nearly a corresponding degree, what had ever 
been before obtained. The largest telescope which he had ever made was 
his famous one of forty feet long, which he erected at Slough, for the king. 

It was begun about the end of the year 1785, and on the 28th of 
August 1789 the enormous tube was poised on the complicated but inge- 
niously-contrived mechanism by which its movements were to be regulated, 
and ready for use. On the same day a new satellite of Saturn was 
detected by it, being the sixth that had been observed attendant on that 
planet. A seventh was afterward discovered, by means of the same 
instrument. This telescope has since been taken down, and replaced by 
another of only half the length, constructed by the distinguished son of 
the subjeot of our present sketch. 

So extraordinary was the ardor of this great astronomer in the study of 
his favorite science, that for many years, it has been asserted, he never 
was in bed at any hour during which the stars were visible, and he made 
almost all his observations, whatever the season of the year, not under 
cover, but in his garden, in the open air — and generally without an atten- 
dant. By these investigations Herschel became acquainted with the 
character of the more distant stars, upon which he wrote a variety of 
papers. In 1802, he presented to the Royal Society a catalogue of five 
thousand new nebulas, nebulous stars, planetary nebulae, and clusters of 
stars ; thus opening up a boundless field of research, and making the world 
aware of the sublime truth of there being an infinitude of heavenly bodies 
far beyond the reach of ordinary vision, and performing in their appointed 
places the offices of suns to unseen systems of planets. 

These discoveries established Herschel's claims to rank amongst the 
most eminent astronomers of the age, and amply merited the distinctions 
conferred upon him by learned bodies and the reigning prince. In 1816, 
George IV, then prince regent, invested him with the Hanoverian and 
Guelphic order of knighthood. He was now, from being originally a poor 
lad in a regimental band, rewarded for his long course of honorable exer 
tion in the cause of science. Herschel (now Sir William) did not relin 
quish his astronomical observations until within a few years of his death, 
which took place on the 23d of August, 1822, when .ie had attained the 
age of eighty-three. He died full of years and honoi-?, bequeathing a 
large fortune, and leaving a family which has inherited his genius. 

SIMON BOLIVAR. 

The Spanish colonies of South America remained for three centuries in 
quiet submission to the mother country, if we except the desperate attempt 
of the Peruvian Indians, under Tupac Amaru, to throw off the yoke of 



548 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

their oppressors. Never were despotism, avarice and slavish obsequious- 
ness to power, more thoroughly displayed than in Spanish America, under 
the government °f tne viceroys and captains-general, who, with all the 
principal officers of the viceroyal court, were sent to America from Madrid, 
and who, without being under any efficient responsibility, administered 
their authority with every species of tyranny and venality. Justice was 
bought and sold, and the most important legal decisions were made in favor 
of the highest bidder. The mercantile policy of the parent country was 
equally despotic and rapacious. The establishment of manufactures was 
not permitted, while cargoes of Spanish commodities, the refuse of the 
shops, were forced, in barter for silver and gold, upon a half-civilized peo- 
ple, who neither wanted nor could possibly use them. Foreign commerce 
was interdicted on pain of death ; all social improvement was suppressed ; 
and to prevent the inhabitants from knowing the extent of their degrada- 
tion, all intercourse whatever was strictly forbidden with any country or 
people, besides Spain and Spaniards, and allowed even with them under 
many restrictions. Superstition and ignorance were upheld as the surest 
support of the colonial system ; so that, previous to 1810, the whole continent, 
from Lima to Monte Video, contained but one wretched printing-press, and 
that in the hands of the monks, who consigned to the dungeons of the In- 
quisition every man who possessed a prohibited book. 

The example of the revolt of the British North American colonies had a 
slow effect in propagating revolutionary ideas in the south ; and the usurpa- 
tion of the crown of Spain by Napoleon precipitated those movements 
which resulted, after a bloody struggle, in wresting from the dominion of 
Spain the whole of her continental possessions in America. In this momen- 
tous contest, Simon Bolivar bore the most conspicuous part, and his life 
comprises the substance of the history of the country in which his military 
exploits were performed during its most eventful period. 

This celebrated man was born in the city of Caraccas, in July, 1783. 
He belonged to a family of distinction, and was one of the few natives of 
the Spanish colonies who were permitted to visit Europe. After finishing 
his studies at Madrid, he went to France, and during his stay at Paris 
rendered himself an acceptable guest in its social circles, by the amenity 
of his manners, and his other personal recommendations. In the midst, 
however, of all the seductions of that gay capital, his sanguine temper and 
ardent imagination anticipated the task which the future fortunes of his 
country might impose upon him, and even in his twenty-third year he is 
said to have contemplated the establishment of her independence. While 
at Paris his favorite occupation was the study of those branches of science 
which contribute to the formation of the character of a warrior and states- 
man. Humboldt and Bonpland were his intimate friends, and accompanied 
him in his excursi ns in France ; nor did he think his travels finished till 
he had visited T.ngland, Italy, and a part of Germany. On his return to 
Madrid, he was married, and shortly afterwards returned to America, where 
he arrived in 1810, at the very moment when his countrymen were about 
to unfurl the standard of independence. On his passage homeward, he 
visited the United States, where he gathered some political knowledge 
which subsequent events rendered highly useful to him. 

The revolution began in Venezuela on Good Friday, April 19, 1810, 
when, by a popular movement, the captain-general of Caraccas was arrest- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 549 

ed and deposed, and a congress convened to organize a new government. 
The talents and acquirements of Bolivar pointed him out as the best quali 
fied person to be placed at the helm ; but he disapproved of the system 
adopted by the congress, and refused a diplomatic mission to England. He 
even declined any connection with the government, though he continued a 
staunch friend to the cause of independence. But at length he consented 
to proceed to England, where he solicited the British cabinet in vain to 
espouse the cause of the revolution. Finding them resolved to maintain a 
strict neutrality, he returned to Caraccas after a short stay. In the mean 
time, the declaration of independence was boldly maintained by military 
force. Miranda was appointed commander-in-chief. Bolivar took the post 
of colonel in the army, and governor of Puerto Cabello, the strongest place 
in Venezuela. 

Success attended the arms of the patriots till 1812, when a remai-kable 
event caused them the most serious reverses. In March of that year a 
violent earthquake devastated the whole province, and among other places 
totally destroyed the city of Caraccas, with all its magazines and munitions 
of war. This dreadful calamity, in which twenty thousand persons per- 
ished, happened, by a most remarkable coincidence, on the anniversary of 
the very day in which the revolution had broken out, two years before. 
The priesthood, who, as a body, were devoted to the royal interest, eager- 
ly seized upon this circumstance. In their hands, the earthquake became 
the token of the Divine wrath against the revolutionary party. The super- 
stitious multitude were easily deluded and terrified with such representa- 
tions and denunciations. Priests, monks, and friars, were stationed in the 
streets, vociferating in the midst of credulous throngs of people trembling 
with fear, while the royalist commanders improved the occasion by over- 
running one district after another. Bolivar was compelled to evacuate 
Puerto Cabello. Miranda's conduct having become suspicious, he was ar- 
rested by the patriot leaders and delivered up to the Spanish commander, 
who sent him to Spain, where he died in a dungeon. Bolivar is supposed 
to have had a share in this transaction, in consequence of which he has 
been severely censured. There were some circumstances, however, which 
appeared to justify a suspicion that Miranda was engaged in a hostile plot 
with the British cabinet. 

Bolivar was now entrusted with the command of an army of six thou- 
sand men, which he led across the mountains to the further extremity of 
New Granada. In the hostilities of this period, deeds of the most revolt- 
ing ferocity were perpetrated by the royalist troops, and the whole country 
was reduced to a frightful state of misery. On the most trivial pretexts, 
old men, women and children, were arrested and massacred as rebels. 
Friars and military butchers reigned triumphant. One of the Spanish offi- 
cers, named Suasola, cut off the ears of a great number of patriots, and 
had them stuck in the caps of his soldiers for cockades. Bolivar, who had 
hitherto conducted the war with great forbearance, was inflamed with in- 
dignation at these cruelties ; he swore to avenge his countrymen, and de- 
clared that every royalist who fell into his hands should be consigned to 
the vengeance of his soldiery. But this spirit of inexorable justice and 
retaliation ill accorded with Bolivar's character, and it was exercised only 
on one occasion, when eight hundred Spaniards were shot. Afterwards it 



550 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

was formally announced by Bolivar, that ' no Spaniard shall be put to 
death except in battle. The war of death shall cease.' 

The royalists, who, by the practice of the most bloody and ferocious 
atrocities, had gained possession of nearly the whole country, now began 
to give way before the arms of Bolivar. Passing from one victory to an- 
other, he drove the enemy from every post, and on the 4th of August, 1814, 
made his triumphant entry into the renovated city of Caraccas. The en- 
thusiasm and joy of the people exceeded all bounds, and this was certainly 
the most brilliant day in his whole career. Greeted by the acclamations 
of thousands of the inhabitants, artillery, bells and music, the Liberator 
was drawn into the city in a triumphal car by twelve beautiful young ladies, 
of the first families of the capital, dressed in white, and adorned with the 
patriot colors, while others crowned him with laurel, and strewed his way 
with flowers. All the prisons were thrown open, and hundreds who had 
been suffering for political opinions came forth, pale and emaciated, to 
thank him for their liberation. The royalists throughout the province ca- 
pitulated, and the triumph of the patriots was complete. 

Bolivar was now constituted dictator, and entrusted with unlimited power. 
This measure was prompted by the sentiments of enthusiasm and gratitude 
during the first moments of exultation in the people ; but, as is the case in 
all infant republics, they soon began to give manifestations of a jealousy 
for that liberty which had cost them such sacrifices. The power of the 
dictator, who delegated his authority to his inferior officers, by whom it 
was frequently abused, redoubled their apprehensions. Suspicions arose, 
that the primary object of Bolivar was his own aggrandisement. In con- 
sequence of this, on the 2d of January 1814, he made a formal tender of 
his resignation. This lulled the suspicions of the people, and the royalists 
having begun to rally and arm their negro slaves, he was solicited to retain 
the dictatorship. The war was now renewed, and many battles were fought. 
On the 14th of June, 1814, Bolivar was defeated at La Puerta, with the 
loss of fifteen hundred men ; and again, on the 17th of August, near his 
own estate of San Mateo, where the negro leader Boves, with a squadron 
of cavalry named the ' infernal division,' with black crape on their lances, 
rushing with hideous shouts from an ambush, scattered his remaining forces, 
and would have made him a prisoner but for the fleetness of his horse. 
His cousin, Ribas, was taken and shot, and his head set upon the wall of 
Caraccas. Bolivar's beautiful family mansion was burned to the ground, 
and he was compelled, in September, to leave the royalists again in com- 
plete possession of all Venezuela, while thousands of the patriot army de- 
serted to their ranks. 

In spite of these reverses, we find him, in December of the same year, 
at the head of two thousand men, marching upon the city of Bogota, which 
he stormed and captured. But other circumstances having caused him to 
despair of any permanent success against the Spaniards at that time, he 
left the country in May 1815, and retired to Jamaica. The war in Europe 
being brought to a close, the Spanish government were enabled to send an 
army of twelve thousand men, under General Morillo, to Venezuela and 
New Granada. This commander overran both provinces, and executed 
two thousand of the inhabitants. While Bolivar resided at Kingston, in 
Jamaica, he employed himself in writing a defense of his conduct in the 
civil war of New Granada, and issued several spirited exhortations to tho 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 551 

patriots, for which his assassination was attempted by the royalist party. 
A Spaniard, stimulated by a bribe of fifty thousand dollars and a promise 
of perfect absolution by the church, ventured upon this undertaking. He 
obtained admission into Bolivar's apartment, and stabbed to the heart his 
secretary, who, by chance, was lying in the general's hammock. 

From Jamaica, Bolivar proceeded to Hayti, where he raised a force of 
blacks and patriot emigrants, with which he landed in Cumana, in July, 
1816. But, at Ocumare, he was surrounded by the royalists, defeated 
with great slaughter, and again expelled from the country. A few months 
afterwards, he landed once more upon the continent, and, after a battle of 
three days, completely routed the army of Morillo. This success reinsta- 
ted him in the office of captain-general, and supreme head, and he followed 
up this advantage by other victories over the royalists. On the 15th of 
February, 1819, the congress of the Venezuelan republic was installed at 
Angostura, when Bolivar submitted the plan of a republican constitution, 
and formally laid down his authority. A strong representation of the exi- 
gencies of the times was again pressed upon him and became his induce- 
ment to resume it. In the following summer he undertook an expedition 
across the Cordilleras. Fatigue and privations of every kind were endured 
with exemplary fortitude in the advance of the army through this wild, 
precipitous and barren region, where they lost their artillery and most of 
their equipments. On the heights of Tunja, they found a Spanish army 
of three thousand five hundred men, whom they instantly attacked and de- 
feated. This, and a subsequent victory at Boyaca, compelled the Spanish 
commander-in-chief, Barreyro, to surrender the remnant of his army. Sa- 
mano, the Spanish viceroy, fled from Bogota, leaving in the treasury a 
million of dollars behind him ; and the deliverance of New Granada was 
complete. 

The immediate consequence of this success was the union of the two 
provinces of Venezuela and New Granada, under the title of the Republic 
of Columbia, and Bolivar was appointed president, in 1819. It would 
much exceed our limits to relate all the military events which followed till 
the final expulsion of the Spanish armies from the country. Peru had now 
revolted, and solicited the aid of the Columbians. Bolivar marched an 
army into that country in 1822, drove the royalists from Lima, and was 
appointed dictator by the Peruvian congress. On the 6th of August, 1824, 
he gained the important victory of Junin, and the Peruvian congress shortly 
after tendered him a present of a million of dollars, which he refused. The 
royalists being again defeated at Ayacucho, by General Sucre, on the 9th 
of December, 1824, the war of Spanish American independence was finally 
closed, after one hundred thousand lives had been sacrificed. Bolivar re- 
signed the dictatorship of Peru in the following February, and in his tour 
through the country, witnessed one uninterrupted scene of triumph and 
extravagant exultation, — of dinners, balls, bull-fights, illuminations, trium- 
phal arches and processions. A sumptuous banquet was given on the sum- 
mit of the famous mountain of Potosi, and the Liberator, in the enthusiasm 
excited by the excessive adulation which he received, exclaimed on that 
occasion, * The value of all the riches that are buried in the Andes beneath 
my feet is nothing compared to the glory of having borne the standard of 
independence from the sultry banks of the Oronoco, to fix it on the frozen 



552 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

peak of this mountain, whose wealth has excited the envy and astonishment 
of the world.' 

A new republic, formed out of the conquered provinces, was now con- 
stituted, and named, from the Liberator, Bolivia. From this republic he 
received a <nft of a million of dollars, on condition that the money should 
be appropriated to the liberation of negro slaves in that territory. At the 
request of the congress, he framed a scheme of government, known as the 
' Bolivian code.' This Avas adopted boih in Bolivia and by the congress of 
Lima, where Bolivar was made president. On the 22d of June, 1826, a 
scheme projected by him for a grand congress of the Spanish American 
republics, was carried into effect, and this meeting, consisting of deputies 
from Columbia, Mexico, Guatimala, Peru and Bolivia, was convened at 
Panama. The main object of this congress was to establish an annual 
convention of state representatives, to discuss diplomatic affairs, decide 
international disputes, promote liberal principles, and insure a union of 
strength in repelling any foreign attack. This was a noble idea, but too 
vast an undertaking for the means of performance which actually existed 
within the control of the Liberator, and it led to no great practical re- 
sults. 

On the return of Bolivar to Columbia, he found two thirds of the repub- 
lic in a state of insurrection. Great dissatisfaction existed in Venezuela 
with the central government, and the inhabitants, headed by Paez, a mu- 
latto general, rose and declared themselves in favor of a federal system. 
Bolivar, having reached Bogota, the capital, assumed extraordinary powers, 
being authorized to take that step by the constitution, in its provisions for 
cases of rebellion. He then proceeded to Venezuela ; but, instead of pun- 
ishing the insurgents, he announced a general amnesty, and confirmed Paez 
in the general command which he had assumed. This led to strong sus- 
picions that the insurrection had been instigated by Bolivar, in order to 
afford a pretext for assuming the dictatorship, and that he and Paez had 
acted with a collusive understanding. The truth, on this subject, has never 
yet been clearly revealed. The presence of Bolivar quieted the commo- 
tion, as, in spite of the suspicions which rested upon him, his popularity 
was still very great. He addressed a letter to the senate of Columbia, 
disclaiming all ambitious designs, and offering his resignation. This 
proposal caused violent debates in the congress, and many members voted 
•to accept it; but a majority were in favor of continuing him in office. 

At a congress held at Ocana, in March, 1828, Bolivar assumed more of 
an anti-republican tone, and recommended strengthening the executive 
power. Many of his adherents, in which the soldiery were included, sec- 
onded his views, and declared that the people were not prepared to appre- 
ciate the excellence of institutions purely republican ; a fact of which there 
can be little doubt. They carried this doctrine, however, to an unwar- 
rantable extreme, by insisting that the president should be intrusted with 
absolute discretionary power. This proposition was indignantly rejected 
by a majority of the congress, and the partisans of Bolivar vacated their 
seats ; in consequence of which, that body was left without a quorum, and 
dissolved. The city of Bogota then took the matter into its own hands, 
and conferred upon Bolivar the title of Supreme Chief of Columbia, with 
absolute power to regulate all the affairs of government. His immediate 
concurrence in this illegal and revolutionary measure has been deemed a 



BIOGKAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 553 

sufficient proof that it was brought about by his instigation. On the 20th 
of June, 1829, he entered that city in magnificent state, and assumed his 
authority. These proceedings could not but lead to violent measures. An 
attempt was soon made to assassinate the dictator. Several persons broke 
into his chamber at midnight, and shot two officers of the staff, who were 
with him ; Bolivar himself only escaped by leaping out of the window and 
lying concealed under a bridge. Santandet, the vice-president, and sev- 
eral officers of the army, were tried and convicted of being implicated in 
this conspiracy. The former was sentenced to death, but Bolivar was sat- 
isfied with banishing him from Columbia. 

The whole country became rent with factions, commotions and rebellion. 
The popularity of the Liberator was gone, and his authority was disclaimed 
in almost every quarter. The events which ensued do not require to be 
specified here, as they are nothing more than a repetition of what had been 
acted over many times before. At length,Bolivar, finding his influence at 
an end, and his health and spirits broken, determined to withdraw from 
public life, take leave of the country, and retire to Europe. At a general 
convention at Bogota, in January, 1830, he resigned his authority for the 
last time, and rejected many entreaties to resume it. He withdrew to the 
neighborhood of Carthagena, where he spent nearly two years in retire- 
ment, when, finding his end approaching, he issued his farewell address to 
the people of Columbia, in the following words : — 

' Columbians, — I have unceasingly and disinterestedly exerted my ener- 
gies for your welfare. I have abandoned my fortune and my personal 
tranquillity in your cause. I am the victim of my persecutors, who have 
now conducted me to my grave : but I pardon them. Columbians, I leave 
you. My last prayers are offered up for the tranquillity of my country ; 
and if my death will contribute to this desirable end, by extinguishing your 
factions, I shall descend with feelings of contentment into the tomb that is 
soon to receive me.' A week afterwards, he breathed his last, at San 
Pedro, near Carthagena, on the 17th of December, 1831, at the age of 
forty-eight. 

His death appears to have afflicted his countrymen with the deepest sor- 
row and remorse. In an instant they forgot the jealousies and suspicions 
which had filled their breasts, with regard to their great chief, and, by a 
sudden revulsion of feeling, they indulged in the most bitter self-reproach 
at the reflection, that the man who had devoted his fortune and his life to 
the liberation and welfare of his country, had sunk under their ungenerous 
reproaches, and died of a broken heart, the victim of national ingratitude. 
Almost every town in Columbia paid honors to his memory by orations, 
funeral processions, and other demonstrations of grief and respect. 

The fortunes of this eminent man were most singular. During one pe- 
riod his was regarded as one of the greatest characters of modern times. 
At the present moment he is almost forgotten ; and another generation 
may witness the revival of his fame. In the early part of his career he 
was believed to be a disinterested patriot ; at the close he had totally lost 
the confidence of his countrymen, and he died tainted with the suspicion of 
intriguing with the French government to subjugate the country by Euro- 
pean arms and establish a monarchy. There are some acts of his life 
which have an equivocal character ; but, judging of his whole conduct from 
such evidence as is within our reach, we are compelled to pronounce his ac- 



554 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

quittal of the charge of entertaining designs hostile to the liberties of his 
country. Bolivar is not to be judged by the standard which we apply to 
the character and merits of Washington. The cool-tempered, orderly, in- 
telligent, and well educated North Americans, who aohieved their indepen- 
dence with a moderation, sobriety and self-restraint, which drew forth the 
applause and admiration of the world, were a very different race from the 
heterogeneous population of Columbia, ignorant, insubordinate, supersti 
tious, fanatical, ferocious, little advanced in civilization, and subject to all 
the sudden impulses of a rash and fiery southern temper. It was impossi- 
ble to govern such men, amid the turbulence of jealous factions, by the weak 
instrument of a wi'itten constitution. 

The proofs of Bolivar's disinterestedness are very strong. He sacrificed 
a large fortune in the cause of his country ; and had many opportunities 
of acquiring enormous wealth, all of which he neglected. As a military 
commander, he is entitled to high praise. Though often defeated, his 
perseverance and fortitude, in rising superior to every obstacle, are every- 
where conspicuous. The difficulties of marshalling, disciplining, and lead- 
ing an army to battle during the revolution of Columbia, are hardly to be 
conceived. Bolivar's troops often consisted chiefly of desperate adventur- 
ers, eager only for pay and plunder ; ragged Creoles, Indians, naked ne- 
groes, and cavalry of half-savage Llaneros mounted on wild horses. Whole 
regiments often deserted from one side to the other, and back again, ac- 
cording to the chance of success. 

The fatigues, cares and anxieties to which he was constantly exposed 
during a most eventful career of nearly twenty years, were strongly marked 
in his countenance, and at forty-five he had the appearance of a man of 
sixty. He was capable of enduring the most severe labor ; was a remark- 
ably bold horseman, and was fond of dancing in his spurs. He was abste- 
mious in personal matters, but hospitable and highly munificent in giving 
entertainments. His manners were easy and dignified, and he was gifted 
with an extraordinary faculty of prompt repartee in conversation. In one 
instance, he was known to give seventeen unpremeditated answers in suc- 
cession, each of which, if prepared by deliberate study, would have been 
admired for its happy adaptation to the subject and the occasion. In pro- 
posing a toast, in returning thanks, or in speaking impromptu on any casu- 
al subject, he never was surpassed. 

FRANCIA, THE DICTATOR. 

This singular individual, named Jose* Gaspar Rodriguez Francia, was 
born near Assumption, in Paraguay, in the year 1757. His father was 
either a Frenchman or a Portuguese, and his mother a Paraguay Creole. 

He was one of several children. At the university of Cordova, in 
Tucuman, he received such an education as a classical seminary in the 
interior of South America could furnish. Being a person of a shrewd, 
saturnine disposition, and retired, studious habits, he contrived, by close 
application, to acquire a degree of knowledge seldom placed within the 
reach of a student whose pursuits were watched by the jealous ecclesiastics 
of that region. In addition to the branches of education common in the 
university, he contrived to acquire some knowledge of algebra, geometry 
and Greek. Having prosecuted his studies through the ordinary term, ho 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 555 

returned to Paraguay, and entered into practice as a lawyer. His pro- 
fessional reputation, in that country where justice was regularly bought 
and sold, was not only unsullied by venality, but conspicuous for rectitude. 
The following anecdote of his uprightness has been related by a writer 
no way disposed to be unduly partial to the subject of it. 

Francia had an acquaintance in Assumpcion, of the name of Domingo 
Rodriguez. This man had cast a longing eye upon a certain Naboth's 
vineyard ; and this Naboth, named Estanislao Machain, was Francia's 
open enemy. Rodriguez, never doubting that the young advocate, like 
other lawyers, would undertake an unrighteous cause for a suitable reward, 
went to him, offered a liberal retaining fee, and directed him to institute a 
suit in law, for the recovery of the estate in question. Francia saw at 
once that the pretensions were founded in injustice and fraud ; and he not 
only refused to act as his counsel, but plainly told Rodriguez, that, much 
as he disliked his antagonist, Machain, yet if he persisted in his iniquitous 
suit, he would himself undertake the cause of the injured party. Covetous- 
ness, however, is not so easily driven from its purpose. Rodriguez persisted, 
and, as he was a man of great fortune, the suit appeared to be going against 
Machain and his estate. At this critical stage of the affair, the slave who 
attended the door of the luckless Machain, was astonished, one evening, to 
see Francia present himself before it, wrapped up in his cloak. Knowing 
that the doctor and his master, like Montague and Capulet, were smoke in 
each other's eyes,' he refused him admittance, and ran to inform his mas- 
ter, of this strange and unexpected visit. Machain, no less struck by the 
circumstance than his slave, for some time hesitated, but at length deter- 
mined to admit his old enemy. In walked the silent visitor to Machain's 
chamber, and spread the papers connected with the law-case upon the table. 

' Machain,' said Francia, ' you know I am your enemy. But I know 
that my friend Rodriguez meditates, and will certainly, unless I interfere, 
carry on against you an act of gross and lawless aggression. I have come 
to offer my service in your defense.' The astonished man could scarcely 
credit his senses ; but he poured forth his expressions of gratitude in terms 
of thankful acquiescence. 

Pleas, it would appear, are made in that country by writing. The first 
paper sent into court confounded the adverse counsel, and staggered the 
judge, who was in their interest. ' My friend,' said that functionary to the 
leading advocate for the plaintiff, ' I cannot proceed in this matter, unless 
you bribe Dr. Francia to be silent.' ' I will try,' was the answer ; and the 
advocate went to him with a hundred doubloons. Pie offered them as a 
bribe to Francia, to let the matter slip ; and more surely to gain his con- 
sent, he advised him that this was done at the suggestion of the judge 
himself. 

' Leave my house, with your vile proposals and contemptible gold !' was 
the indignant answer ; amd the menial tool of the unjust judge waited for 
no further dismissal. Francia, putting on his capote, hurried at once to 
the residence of that magistrate. ' Sir,' said he, after mentioning the 
attempt to bribe him, ' you are a disgrace to law, and a blot upon justice. 
You are, moreover, completely in my power ; and unless tomorrow you 
pronounce a decision in favor of my client, I will make your seat upon 
the bench too hot for you ; and the insignia of your judicial office shall 
become the emblems of your shame.' The morrow did not fail to bring a 



556 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

decision in favor of Francia's client. The Judge lost his character, and 
the young doctor's fame resounded far and wide. 

His uncommon reputation for integrity, a more than common acutenesa 
and learning in his profession, profound knowledge of the foibles and pecu- 
liarities of his countrymen, together with his fame for a mysterious 
familiarity with the occult sciences, soon caused Dr. Francia to be regarded 
as a most remarkable personage. In the deplorable state of ignorance 
then existing in South America, it was a wonderful faculty that enabled a 
man to multiply and substract the letters of the alphabet; to read a lan- 
guage written in strange characters ; to measure an angle, and ascertain 
the height of a mountain with a theodolite. Francia, celebrated for univer- 
sal knowledge, stood upon high vantage-ground, and in a great public 
exigence could not fail to be looked upon as one of the individuals destined 
to take the lead in public affairs. 

When the province of La Plata revolted from Spain, the people of 
Paraguay refused to acknowledge the authority of the former government; 
in consequence of which an army was sent from Buenos Ayres, in 1810, 
under Gen. Belgrano, to reduce Paraguay. He was defeated and driven 
back. The next year a revolutionary government was established, and 
Francia, who had previously been in public office as a member of the muni- 
cipal council and mayor of the capital, Assumpcion, was appointed secretary 
of the congress. Everything was in confusion ; the army, as is usual on 
such occasions, seemed inclined to take the lead, and for some time, faction 
and terror alone prevailed ; but Francia, at this critical moment, obtained 
an ascendancy which he never afterwards lost. His superior talents, 
address and information were continually in requisition and made him indis- 
pensable on all occasions. Nothing of any importance could be transacted 
without him. The members of the congress were entirely inexperienced in 
political matters, and grossly illiterate. Such a body attempted to found 
a republic, and we are told that their constitution was compiled from passages 
in Rollin's Ancient History ! 

The business proceeded with small success under such auspices. In- 
trigues, cabals and factions disgusted Francia to such a degree that he resigned 
his office, and retired to his country seat. The reader may wish for a 
picture of so remarkable a man as this Dionysius, of the western world, 
and we will copy the following description of him at the period of his re- 
tirement. It is drawn by an English merchant, who resided in Paraguay 
at that time : 

' On one of those lovely evenings in Paraguay, after the south-west wind 
had both cleared and cooled the air, I was drawn, in my pursuit of game, 
into a peaceful valley, remarkable for its combination of all the striking 
features of the scenery of the country. Suddenly I came upon a neat and 
unpretending cottage. Up rose a partridge ; I fired, and the bird came 
to the ground. A voice from behind called out, ' Buen tiro? — ' a good 
shot.' I turned round, and beheld a gentleman of about fifty years of age, 
dressed in a suit of black, with a large scarlet capote, or cloak, thrown over 
his shoulders. He had a mate-cup in one hand, a cigar in the other ; and 
a little urchin of a negro, with his arms crossed, was in attendance by the 
gentleman's side. The stranger's countenance was dark, and his black 
eyes were very penetrating ; while his jet hair, combed back from a bold 
forehead, and hanging in natural ringlets over his shoulders, gave him a 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 557 

dignified and striking air. He wore on his shoes large golden buckles, 
and at the knees of his breeches the same. 

' In exercise of the primitive and simple hospitality common in the coun- 
try, I was invited to sit down under the corridor, and to take a cigar and 
mate, or cup of Paraguay tea. A celestial globe, a large telescope, and a 
theodolite, were under the little portico ; and I immediately inferred that 
the personage before me was no other than Doctor Francia. He intro- 
duced me to his library, in a confined room, with a very small window, 
and that so shaded by the roof of the corridor, as to admit the least por- 
tion of light necessary for study. The library was arranged on three rows 
of shelves, extending across the room, and might have consisted of three 
hundred volumes. There were many ponderous books on law ; a few on 
the inductive sciences ; some in French, and some in Latin, upon subjects 
of general literature, with Euclid's Elements, and some schoolboy treatises 
on algebra. On a large table were several heaps of law papers and pro- 
cesses. Several folios, bound in vellum, were outspread upon it. A light- 
ed candle, though placed there solely to light cigars, lent its feeble aid to 
illumine the room ; while a mate-cup and inkstand, both of silver, stood on 
another part of the table. There was neither carpet nor mat on the brick 
floor ; and the chairs were of such ancient fashion, size, and weight, that 
it required a considerable effort to move them from one spot to another.' 

Francia's withdrawal left the government without an efficient adviser. 
Embarrassments multiplied, and a second congress was convened; 'such a 
congress,' we are told, ' as never met before in the world ; a congress 
which knew not its right hand fromjts left; which drank infinite rum in 
the taverns, and had one wish, — that of getting on horseback home to its 
field-husbandry and partridge-shooting ! ' Such men, and we need not 
wonder, could not govern Paraguay. Francia wa3 called from his retire- 
ment, and a new constitution was formed, with two chief magistrates, cal- 
led consuls. Francia and a colleague were appointed to these offices for 
one year ; each in supreme command for four months at a time ; but as 
the former took the precedence, he had two thirds of the year for his own 
term of authority. Two carved chairs were prepared for the use of the 
consuls, one inscribed with the name of Ccesar, and the other with that of 
Pompey. It is needless to say which of the consuls took possession of the 
former. By consummate address and management, and by the influence 
which he had obtained over the troops, Francia got rid of his colleague at 
the close of the year, in 1814, and was proclaimed dictator for three 
years. At the end of that time, he found no difficulty in assuming the 
dictatorship for life. From the moment that he felt his footing firm, and 
his authority quietly submitted to, his whole character seemed to undergo 
a remarkable change. Without faltering or hesitation, without a pause of 
human weakness, he proceeded to frame the boldest and most extraordi- 
nary system of despotism that was ever the work of a single individual. 
He assumed the whole power, legislative and executive : the people had 
but one privilege and one duty, — that of obedience. All was done rap- 
idly, boldly, unreservedly, a-nd powerfully ; he well knew the character of 
the people at whose head he had placed himself, and who, strange to say, 
once thought themselves possessed of energy and virtue enough for a re- 
public. 

The army, of course, was his chief instrument of power. It consisted 



558 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of five thousand regular troops, and twenty thousand militia. He took 
care to secure their most devoted attachment, and it does not appear that 
during his whole career of despotism the smallest symptom of disaffection 
was ever manifested in their ranks. Francia, at the time of his accession 
to the supreme authority, was past the age when any dormant vice, save 
that of avarice, is likely to spring up in the character. He was not daz- 
zled with the pomp and circumstance of exalted rank, nor even by that 
nobler weakness, the desire of fame ; for he took no pains to make an 
ostentatious display of his power, or spread his reputation among foreign 
nations, or hand his name down to posterity. On the contrary, he care- 
fully shrouded himself, and, as far as possible, his dominions, in haughty 
seclusion. His ruling, or rather his absorbing passion, was a love of power, 
and of power for itself alone. It was with him a pure, abstracted princi- 
ple, free from desire of the splendor which usually surrounds it, of the 
wealth which usually supports it, and of the fame which usually succeeds it. 

The most remarkable feature in his administration was the perfect isola- 
tion in which he placed the country. Intercourse with foreign nations was 
absolutely interdicted. Commerce was at an end. The ships lay high and 
dry, their pitchless seams yawning, on the banks of the rivers, and no man 
could trade but by the Dictator's license. No man could leave Paraguay 
on any pretext whatever, and it became as hermetically sealed against the 
escape of its inhabitants as the ' Happy Valley ' of Abyssinia. In this 
restrictive policy he was assisted by the peculiar geographical features of 
the country. Paraguay, in the midst of an immense and thinly-peopled 
continent, stood alone and impenetrable ; its large rivers, wide forests and 
morasses, render traveling difficult and hazardous. Any one attempting to 
cross the frontiers must encounter the danger of losing himself in the wil- 
derness, of being destroyed by those immense and terrible conflagrations 
to which the thick woods are subject, of excessive fatigue and exposure, 
of starvation, and attacks from venomous reptiles, wild beasts and savages. 
The only possibility of escape is during the time that the river Paraguay 
overflows the surrounding plains ; it is then barely practicable. A Frenchman, 
with five negroes, made the attempt in 1823. One of them died of fatigue, 
another by the bite of a snake. At one time they were surrounded by the 
burning woods ; and at another were involved in an immense glade in the 
midst of a forest, where they wandered about for fifteen days in search of 
an outlet, and were finally obliged to return by the opening through which 
they escaped. Being at last so reduced by fatigue and famine that they 
were unable to resist a single man, they were recaptured by a sergeant of 
militia. 

But Francia's tyranny was not without signal benefits to the country. 
The land had peace, while all the rest of Spanish America was plunged 
into frightful anarchy, raging and ravening like a huge dog-kennel gone 
mad. Paraguay was domineered over by a tyrant, but Peru and Mexico, 
Chili and Guatimala, suffered the oppression of forty tyrants. Francia's 
soldiers were kept well drilled and in strict subordination, always ready to 
march where the wild Indians or other enemies made their appearance. 
Guard-houses were established at short distances along the rivers, and 
around the dangerous frontiers; and wherever an Indian cavalry hordo 
showed itself, an alarm-cannon announced the danger; the military has- 
tened to the spot, and the savage marauders vanished into the heart of the 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 559 

deserts. A great improvement, too, was visible in other quarters. The 
finances were accurately and frugally administered. There were no sine- 
cures in the government ; every official person was compelled to do his 
work. Strict justice between man and man was enforced in the courts of 
law. The affair of Naboth's vineyard could not have occurred under the 
Dictator's rule. He himself would accept no gift, not even the smallest 
trifle. He introduced schools of various sorts, promoted education by all 
the means in his power, and repressed superstition as far as it could be 
done among such a people. He promoted agriculture in a singular manner, 
not merely making two blades of grass grow where one grew before, but 
two crops of corn in a season. In the year 1820, a cloud of locusts de- 
vastated the whole country, and the prospect of universal famine threat- 
ened the land. The summer was at an end, and there was no foreign 
commerce by which supplies might be obtained from abroad. Francia hit 
upon an expedient, such as had never entered into the contemplation of any 
man in Paraguay before. He issued a peremptory command, ordering, 
under a severe penalty, that the farmers throughout the country should sow 
their lands anew. The result was, that a second crop was produced, and 
the people amazed with the important discovery that two harvests were, 
every year, possible in Paraguay. Agriculture made immense progress ; 
the cultivation of many articles, before unknown in the country, was now 
successfully introduced, and, among others, rice and cotton. Manufactures 
kept pace with agriculture, and the clothing of the people, which had pre- 
viously, for the most part, been imported ready made, at a great expense, 
was now entirely produced at home. 

The city of Assumpcion was an assemblage of narrow, crooked, irregu- 
lar streets, interspersed with trees, gardens, and clumps of tropica! vege- 
tation. It had no pavements, and, standing on a slope of ground, the 
sandy thoroughfare was torn by the rain into gullies, impassable, except by 
taking long leaps. Numerous springs issued from the soil in every part of 
the city, and formed streams, or stagnated into pools, where every species 
of filth became deposited. Francia determined on having it remodeled, 
paved, and straightened. The inhabitants were ordered to pull down their 
houses, and build them anew. The cost to private purses was great, and 
caused infinite grumbling ; but Assumpcion is now an improved, paved city, 
and possesses convenient thoroughfares. 

The stern temper and arbitrary political system of Francia led him to 
acts which could not fail of being denounced as the wanton excesses of a 
sanguinary disposition. He put to death upwards of forty persons, as we 
are assured by a traveler, who utters the bitterest denunciations against 
him. He had frightful prisons, and banished disorderly persons to a deso- 
late spot in the wilderness. How far his executions were wanton and un- 
justifiable, we have not sufficient means of judging. In the early part of 
his career, a plot was formed for the purpose of taking his life ; it was 
discovered, and executions followed ; after which we hear nothing more of 
these sanguinary deeds. His enemy, the bandit chieftain Artigas, had 
done a great deal of injury to Paraguay, and had incensed him further by 
fomenting revolts among his Indians. Yet, when one of this chieftain's 
lieutenants rebelled against him, and forced him to retreat with the wreck 
of his army, Artigas threw himself on the mercy of the Dictator, and was 
treated with clemency. He suffered him to reside in Paraguay, assigned 



560 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

him a house and lands, with a pension, and ordered the governor of the 
district to furnish him besides with whatever accomodations he desired, 
and to treat him with respect. 

The Dictator's treatment of foreigners who found their way into his 
dominions, was most rigorous and unjust, and has contributed more than 
any other cause to blacken his character among strangers. Paraguay was 
a sort of mouse-trap, easy enough to get into, but very difficult to get out 
of. M. Bonpland, the fellow-traveler of Humboldt, and two Swiss natural- 
ists, wandering into Francia's domains, were detained there many years. 
Sometimes, by special permission, an individual was allowed to leave the 
country, but these instances were rare. The foreigners detained were in- 
formed that they might pursue what avocations they pleased, provided they 
did not interfere with the government. 

The father of Francia was a man of very eccentric habits ; his brothers 
and one of his sisters were lunatics, and the Dictator himself was subject 
to fits of hypochondria, which seem occasionally to have affected his intel- 
lect. When under such influences, he would shut himself up for several 
days. On one of these occasions, being offended at the idle crowds gazing 
about the governmenWhouse, he gave the following order to a sentinel : — 
'If any person presumes to stop and stare at my house, fire at him ; if you 
miss him, this is for a second shot, (handing him another musket loaded 
with ball;) if you miss again, I shall take care not to miss youP This 
order being quickly made known throughout the city, the inhabitants care- 
fully avoided passing near the house, or, if their business led them that 
way, they hurried on with their eyes fixed on the ground. After some 
weeks, an Indian, who knew nothing of the Spanish language, stopped to 
gaze at the house, and was ordered to move on, but continued to loiter. 
The sentinel fired, and missed him. Francia, hearing the report, was 
alarmed, and summoned the sentinel. 'What news, friend ?' On being 
told the cause, he declared that he did not recollect having given such an 
order, and immediately revoked it. 

The domestic establishment of the Dictator of Paraguay consisted of 
four slaves, three of them mulatfcoes, and the fourth a negro, whom he 
treated with great mildness. He led a very regular life, and commonly 
rose with the sun. As soon as he was dressed, the negro brought him a 
chafing-dish, a kettle, and a pitcher of water. The Dictator made his own 
tea ; and after drinking it, he took a walk under the colonnade fronting 
upon the court, smoking a cigar, which he always took care previously to 
unroll, in order to ascertain that it contained no poison ; although his cigars 
were always made by his sister. At six o'clock came the barber, an un- 
washed and ragged mulatto, given to drink, but the Dictator's only confi- 
dential menial. If his excellency happened to be in good humor, he chat- 
ted over the soap-dish, and the shaver was often intrusted with important 
commissions in preparing the public for the Dictator's projects ; so that he 
might be said to be the official gazette of Paraguay. He then stepped out, 
in his dressing-gown of printed calico, to the outer colonnade, an open 
space which ranged all around the building ; here he walked about, receiv- 
ing at the same time such persons as he admitted to an audience. About 
seven, he withdrew to his room, where he remained till nine. The offi- 
cers then came to make their reports, and received orders. At eleven, 
his chief secretary brought the papers which required inspection by him, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 561 

and wrote from his dictation till noon. He then sat down to a table, and 
ate a frugal dinner. After this, he took a siesta, drank a cup of mate, 
and smoked a cigar. Till four or five in the afternoon, he again attended 
to business ; the escort then arrived to attend him, and he rode out to in- 
spect the public works. While on this duty, he was armed with a sabre 
and a pair of double-barreled pocket-pistols. He returned home about 
nightfall, and sat down to study till nine, when he took his supper, consist- 
ing of a roast pigeon and a glass of wine. In fine weather, he took an 
evening walk in the outer colonnade. At ten, he gave the watchword, and, 
returning into the house, he fastened all the doors with his own hands. 

Though possessing unlimited sway over the finances of the state, he 
made no attempt to enrich himself, and his small salary was always in ar- 
rears to him. His two nephews, who were officers in the army, were dis- 
missed, lest they should presume upon their relationship. He banished 
his sister from his house, because she had employed a grenadier, one of 
the soldiers of the state, on some errand of her own. He was a devoted 
admirer of Napoleon, whose downfall he always deplored. The Swiss 
traveler, Rengger, who, after a long detention, was permitted to depart, left 
behind him a print of the French emperor. Francia sent an express after 
him, inquiring the price of it. Rengger sent him for answer, that the 
print was at his excellency's service, — he did not sell such trifles. The 
Dictator immediately despatched the print after him ; — he would receive 
no gifts. There seems to have originally existed in him somewhat of the 
simple and severe virtue, which is more characteristic of a stern republican 
than of a sanguinary tyrant. He has left one witticism upon record, 
which we will subjoin, as it is much in character. Rengger, who was a 
surgeon, was about to dissect a body. 'Doctor,' said the Dictator, 'exam- 
ine the neck, and see whether the Paraguayans have not an extra bone 
there, which hinders them from holding up their heads, and speaking out.' 

In the accounts which were written of this extraordinary man during 
his lifetime, he has been represented as an arbitrary and cruel oppressor, uni- 
versally detested, and whose death, inasmuch as he had made no provision 
for the continuance of the government, would plunge the state into an- 
archy and ruin. Both these representations have been completely falsi- 
fied by the event. Francia died peaceably, on the twentieth day of Sep- 
tember, 1840, aged eighty- three ; the people crowding round his house 
with much emotion, and even, as we are assured, with tears of anxi- 
ety and sympathy. The funeral discourse pronounced on the occasion 
surprised the world ; it was filled with praises of the deceased Dictator, 
whom it represented as the real father of his country. 

Enough is known of Dr. Francia to assure us that he was a most re- 
markable individual ; but it would be both difficult and unsafe to draw his 
character with confidence and minuteness, from the meagre and questiona- 
ble materials which we possess respecting him. That he was a man of 
iron integrity in a country where corruption and venality were almost mat- 
ters of course with public men ; that he spent thirty years of his life in toil- 
some devotion to his country ; that he was above the vulgar love of money, 
and disdained to take advantage of his unlimited power for enriching him- 
self, — are all incontrovertible facts ; that his government was also, on the 
whole, advantageous to his country, is not to be denied. But what were 
the motives which guided his conduct ? Was it patriotism, or a simple 
36* 



AMERICAS ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

: so Strang I a jn I em of policy — that of inter- 
dicting all intercourse with other nati :::•= ! Was it from a conviction that 
this was best ad Bftkm of the people, or that i: was indis- 

pensable : the | . ■:«■: :■: ation of his c. Why enshroud him- 

self in such mysterious 5 as little commerce of a£". 

and sympathy with his fellow-men us of trade with foreign nat:;::; I 
Diese are questions which we cannot easily answer. If we may rely upon 
. imps - :f his career that have been presented to us. we 
should venture .: the main elements of his character consisted 

: - . :. ad devoted patriotism ; blended, howeve. .rural 

sternness of temper, a love of power, and a con vie:; . ;. despotic gov- 

ernment was best suited : I "... ; :>ndition of the people. His singular hab- 
. the result of native eccentricity : his exclusive policy 
was.: ith the double motive of perpetuating his auth: ::::;.-. 

and insuring tranquillity to the country. Of the vigor of his mind and 
. ■ :: his character, there can be no doubt. That he should have cre- 
ind sustained, for thirty years, the sternest ' - ::'. sm thai the world 
ever witnessed, in the heart of a continent where everything besides was 
tending to the dissolution of tyrannical power and the establishment of popu- 
lar institutions, is a phenomenon that may well excite the curiosity and 
ishment of the world. We may. indeed. - that his _.vernment 

modeled after that of the Jet sAscte of which were still vis- 

ible in his time : but that he should have been a" .me to himself, 

and exercise for so long a period, the unlimited power wielded by these 
= rriests. nust 5: : our Burp 

A.LBXAIDKB WILSON. 

a extraordinary man, who, from being originally an operative weaver, 
became by his own unaided exertions one of the most celebrated ornithol- 
3 of his day. was born in Paisley on the 6th of July 1766. His father 
-tiller, poor in fortune, though said to have been endowed with an 
- _.:;::; mini. He was so unf::: - to lose his mother 

:.: the : irlv age of ten, and was left without the tender and judicious care 
which a mother alone can give. On attaining his thirteenth year, he was 
bound apprentice for three years to his brother-in-law, to learn the business 
of a weaver, and on the expiry of this term, continued to work as a jour- 
neyman for fDur years more. 

The employment of a weaver was by no means congenial to the disposi- 
nd propensities of the future ornithei gist : ' nt :. ; has father, though 
a highly respectable man in character, was in very indifferent circumstan 
ees, yonng Wilson had no choice I. as compelled to adopt that 

which wa- si and m: attained. It is much to his credit, 

however, that though he must have felt — indeed it is certain that he did 
md that ftf 1 very : ::' 1 ftge — that he - I for higher things, 

he yet diligently labored at the humble but honorable calling to which des- 
tiny had appointed him, and never allowed such feelings to interrupt his 
industry. At thai p>eriod of his life he indulged in a predilection for poet- 
ical composition, and wi which appeared in the 'GI. 

but in these juvenile attempts he was not very successful, 
nor was he ever, at any after period, fortunate in this department of liter- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 563 

ature, though his poetical productions are certainly not without very consid- 
erable merit. 

Having continued at the loom, as already said, for four years as a jour- 
neyman weaver, at the end of this period he abandoned the b 
accompany his brother-in-law, who had commenced traveling merchant or 
pedlar, in a tour through the eastern distri: : . f Sc : tland — an employment 
which, though it could scarcely claim any sort of precedence in point of 
rank over that which he had left, he yet gladly embraced, as it at once 
released him from the confinement and dull m : hi3 former 

pation, and permitted him to indulge in one of his strongest propensities, 
which was to ramble over hill and dale, and to enjoy unfettered and unre- 
strained, the beauties of his native land. ^Vith such a dig] -'::.:.. i: is not 
to be wondered at that, as a pedlar, he made much greater prog in the 
study of nature, and perhaps of man, and in the extending of his ideas, 
than in the improvement of his fortunes. The acquisition of money was 
no object with him, and of course, as it was not sought, it was not found. 

At this time Burns was in the zenith of his fame, and Wilson, tempted 
by his success, resolved to publish his poems — the accumulated pieces of 
preceding years — and in 17 v ,'. contracted with a printer in Paisley for 
t his purpose, but was obliged to abandon the idea for the time, for want of 
means to carry it into effect. He, however, published them some time 
afterwards, with the title of 'Poems, Humorous, Satirical, and Seri 
at his own risk, after having in vain endeavored to procure subscribers. 
and carried them about with him in his hawking expeditions, but met with 
little or no success in the sale of them. Finding that he could make noth- 
ing of either poetry or traffic, he returned once more to his loom, at which 
he was again quitely seated, when he learned that a debating society in 
Edinburg had proposed for discussion the question, whether Ferguson or 
Allan Ramsay had done most honor to Scottish poetry. Seized with an 
ambition to distinguish himself on this occasion, he borrowed from a friend 
the poems of Ferguson, which he had never read before, and in a few days 
produced a poem, which he entitled the ' Laurel Disputed,' and in which 
he awarded the palm to Ferguson. "With this poem in his pocket, he pro- 
ceeded to Edinburg, and recited it before the audience assembled to hear 
the discussion. Before he left Edinburg. he also recited in public two 
other poems, and acquired by all a considerable degree of respect and favor. 
He likewise contributed occasionally, about this time (1791), to a period- 
ical work called ; The Bee.' But though Wilson's poetical e ;ured 
him some reputation, they did nothing for him in the way of advancing his 
worldly interests. The volume of poem3 which he published in lT^'. 1 . at 
which "period he was only twenty-two years of age, went thr small 
editions in octavo, but without yielding the author any pecuniary advan- 
tage. His literary reputation was. nevertheless, considerably incr 
by the publication of his "Watty and Meg, 9 a poem in the Scottish dialect, 
and of such decided merit, that it was universally ascribed to Burns on its 
first appearance, which was in 1791. It is a droll and satirical descrip- 
tion of a drunken husband and scolding wife, and shows that the author pos- 
sessed a fund of broad humor. 

Having soon after this embroiled himself in some serious disputes which 
took place in his native town between the operative weavers and their 
employers, by writing some severe personal satires on certain individuals 



564 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of the latter class, he found his residence in Paisley no longer compatible 
with his comfort or happiness, and therefore determined on proceeding to 
America. But before taking his departure, he called on those persons 
whom he had satirised, expressed his sorrow for what he had done, and 
solicited their forgiveness. This circumstance is a pleasing proof of the 
generosity of his nature — that which follows a very striking one of the 
determination of his character. Although he had resolved on going to 
America, he did not possess a single shilling wherewith to pay his passage. 
To supply this desideratum, he instantly abandoned every other pursuit, 
and for four months labored with incessant industry at his loom, confining 
the expense of his living during this time to one shilling in the week. The 
result of this perseverance and rigid economy was, that at the end of the 
period named, he found himself in possession of the requisite sum, but 
nothing more. With this he set out for Portpatrick on foot, crossed to 
Belfast, and there engaged a passage to America ; and he arrived at New 
York on the 14th of July 1794, with only a few shillings in his pocket, 
and even these were borrowed from a fellow-passenger. 

Up till this period, and indeed for several years after, Wilson exhibited 
no indications of a genius or even predilection for that particular depart- 
ment of natural history in which he afterwards acquired so brilliant a name ; 
but it is said that, immediately after landing in America, and while pro- 
ceeding from the place of his disembarkation to Newcastle, his attention 
was strongly excited by the specimens of the feathered inhabitants of the 
New World which he met with, and that he was particularly delighted 
with the splendor of the plumage of a red-headed woodpecker, w T hich he 
shot by the way. Whether or not his genius received on this occasion 
that bent which afterwards led to such splendid results, it is certain that 
he always retained a lively recollection of the feelings of surprise and de- 
light with which he for the first time contemplated the beauties of the 
American woodpecker. 

For many years after his arrival in America, Wilson's condition under- 
went but little improvement. He found there nearly the same difficulties 
to contend with, and prospects nearly equally cheerless, with those he had 
left behind him in his native land. The first employment he obtained was 
with a copperplate printer in Philadelphia ; but this he soon relinquished, 
and betook him to his original trade, weaving. This he again resigned for 
the pack ; but his success as a pedler was not sufficient to induce him to 
continue by it, and he abandoned it also, and commenced teacher ; making 
his first experiment in this laborious and somewhat precarious profession 
near the town of Frankford in Pennsylvania. While in this situation, he 
in a great measure repaired the defects of his early education, by close 
and unremitting study in various departments of science and knowledge ; 
and, as has often been the case, by instructing others, he taught himself. 
He afterwards removed to Milestown, where he remained for several years, 
adding a little to the limited income arising from his school, by surveying 
land for farmers. 

At the end of this period he applied for and obtained the appointment 
of schoolmaster of the Union School in the township of Kingsessing, within 
a few miles of Philadelphia ; and it is from this period that his history in 
the pursuit of the bird creation commences, although he yet entertained 
that branch of natural history only in common with others, and by no means 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 565 

confined his studies to the feathered tribes. His attention was equally en- 
grossed by a host of other animals ; and his apartment, as described by 
himself, had the appearance of Noah's ark, being crowded with opossums, 
squirrels, snakes, lizards, and other animals. Finding his ignorance of 
drawing a serious drawback in his new pursuit, he applied to the acquisition 
of this art with such diligence and determination of purpose, that he in a 
very short time succeeded in obtaining a command of the pencil, that en- 
abled him to sketch from nature with great fidelity and spirit. It was not, 
however, till the year 1803 that Wilson conceived the magnificent design 
of his American Ornithology, and even then his ideas on the subject fell 
very far short of the great work he afterwards achieved. At this period 
he contemplated little more than ' making a collection of the finest Ameri- 
can birds,' as he himself writes to a friend in Paisley. Having mentioned 
his intention to some of his American friends, they endeavored to dissuade 
him from prosecuting it, and, with a sincere regard for his interest, pointed 
out to him the formidable difficulties which he would have to encounter, 
and which appeared to them insurmountable. But they spoke in vain. 
Wilson's ardor and enthusiasm was more than a match for their prudence ; 
and trusting to his own resources, he quietly but resolutely proceeded with 
his design ; although — and it is a curious fact — when he began his stupen- 
dous work on American Ornithology, he did not know even the names of 
more than three or four of the American birds. But from this moment he 
devoted himself with a zeal and energy to the accomplishment of his enter- 
prise, which removed all obstacles as fast as they presented themselves, 
and swept away all difficulties, as straws are swept away by the stream. 

In October 1804, with his gun on his shoulder he made the first of that 
series of perilous journeys through the wilds of America, which he found 
it necessary to perform to obtain an accurate and intimate knowledge of 
the birds of the forest ; and amidst privations and hardships which few men 
but himself would hare voluntarily encountered, he completed a journey of 
twelve hundred miles on foot, through deep snows, boundless forests, deep 
and dangerous rivers, and over wild and desolate mountains. But the ex- 
perience of this perilous and painful excursion, instead of damping his 
ardor, had the effect only of increasing it. In the spring of the following 
year, he had completed drawings of twenty-eight rare birds, and about 
this time also made an attempt to acquire the art of engraving on copper, 
thinking, in the devotedness of his enthusiasm, that he might, by diligence 
and perseverance, soon attain such a proficiency in this art as would enable 
him to execute the plates for his contemplated work ; and he actually com- 
pleted two : but when he had got this length, he became dissatisfied with 
the result of his labors, and abandoned the pursuit. At this period the 
general aspect of his affairs, and those, in particular, which related to his 
undertaking, were exceedingly gloomy. He was without means and with- 
out money, and was persevering in a course which his friends thought an 
imprudent one, and was therefore without even words of encouragement to 
cheer him on his way. But neither these disheartening considerations, 
nor any other, could deter him from prosecuting his great design. So far 
from being discouraged by the difficulties which surrounded him, he declared 
that he would proceed with his plan even if it should cost him his life ; 
and, in that noble spirit which belongs to true genius alone, exclaimed, ' I 
shall at least leave a small beacon to point out where I perished.' 



556 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

At the close of the year 1805, he made an unsuccessful attempt to be 
appointed to take part in an exploratory expedition which the American 
government was then about to send to the valley of the Mississippi. He 
addressed his application on this occasion to President Jefferson, stating 
to that functionary what he had done in the prosecution of his intended 
work on American ornithology, and representing the advantages which the 
being permitted to accompany the party would afford him in furthering his 
views. To this communication — from what cause is now unknown — he 
obtained no reply, and of course did not join the expedition. Soon after 
this, more cheering prospects presented themselves to the enterprising orni- 
thologist. A Mr. Samuel F. Bradford, a publisher in Philadelphia, who 
was about to print an edition of Rees's Cyclopedia, engaged Wilson, on 
what the latter himself called liberal terms, to superintend the publication 
of that work. But this connection presented another inducement to Wil- 
son, and one which had infinitely greater attraction for him than any which 
related to his own personal advantage. This was the prospect it afforded 
him of procuring a publisher for his work ; and so far he was not disap- 
pointed. On his explaining the nature and object of his undertaking, Mr. 
Bradford readily consented to become his publisher ; and in September 
1808, the first volume of 'American Ornithology' appeared, one of the 
most splendid books by far which had then emanated from the American 
press ; but unfortunately the price was, though necessarily, much too high 
for a country comparatively in its infancy, and which had not then had 
time to turn its attention to the arts or sciences, or to acquire a sufficient 
taste for them to encourage such an expensive appeal on their behalf. The 
price of the work, when completed, was to be one hundred and twenty dol- 
lars. It is not therefore at all surprising to find that, even a considerable 
time after its publication, its ingenious, but in this respect certainly inju- 
dicious author, could only boast of forty-one names on his list of subscri- 
bers. This number, however, he afterwards increased to two hundred and 
fifty, by traveling through the country, and visiting the different towns in 
quest of patrons ; but these, he himself says, were obtained ' at a price 
worth more than five times the amount ; ' and they no doubt were so, if 
wounded feelings, fatigue of body and mind, and all the humiliations to 
which such a mission must of necessity have frequently subjected him, be 
taken into the account. From this tour he returned to New York in 
March 1809. 

Two hundred copies only of the first volume of the Ornithology had 
been printed, but it was now thought advisable to throw off three hundred 
more ; which was accordingly done : and in the meantime Wilson assidu- 
ously employed himself in preparing the second volume for the press, al- 
though he neither had yet benefited to the extent of a single dollar by 
the publication of his work, nor was likely to do so. The second volume 
appeared in January 1810 ; and immediately after its appearance, the 
author set out on another tour in quest of support and patronage. This 
time he penetrated into the western part of the States, or valley of the 
Ohio and Mississippi. At Pittsburg, he succeeded beyond his expectations 
in getting subscribers ; and after ascertaining that the roads were such as 
to render a land journey impossible, he bought a small boat, which he 
named the Ornithologist, intending to proceed in it down the Ohio to Cin- 
cinnati, a distance of more than five hundred miles. Some advised him 



* BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 567 

not to undertake the journey alone ; but he had made up his mind, and 
only waited, exploring the woods in the interval, till the ice had left the 
the stream. At length the time arrived for his departure on this inland 
voyage. His provision consisted of some biscuit and cheese, and a bottle 
of cordial, given him by a gentleman in Pittsburg: one end of the boat 
was occupied by his trunk, greatcoat, and gun ; and he had a small tin ves- 
sel, with which to bale his boat, and to drink the water of the Ohio. Thus 
equipped, he launched into the stream. The weather was calm, and the 
river like a mirror, except where fragments of ice were floating down. 
His heart expanded with delight at the novelty and wildness of the scene, 
The song of the red-bird in the deep forests on the shore, the smoke of 
the various sugar-camps rising gently along the mountains, and the little 
log-huts which here and there opened from the woods, gave an appearance 
of life to a landscape which would otherwise have been lonely and still. 
He could not consent to the slow motion of the river, which flowed two 
mile3 and a half an hour ; he therefore stripped himself for the oar, and 
added three miles and a half to his speed. Our traveler's lodgings by 
night were less tolerable than his voyage, as he went down the desolate 
stream. The first night was passed in a log-cabin, fifty-two miles below 
Pittsburg, where he slept on a heap of straw. 

Having reached Cincinnati, he there got a few subscribers for his work, 
and then proceeded to Louisville, where he sold his boat. He next walked 
a distance of seventy-two miles to Lexington, whence he traveled to Nash- 
ville, exploring on his journey some of the remarkable caverns of Ken- 
tucky. He had thoughts of extending his tour to St. Louis ; but after 
considering that it would detain him a month, and add four hundred miles 
to his journey, without perhaps adding a single subscriber to his list, he 
gave up the plan, and prepared for a passage through the wilderness towards 
New Orleans. He was strongly urged not to undertake it, and a thousand 
alarming representations of hardship and danger were set before him ; but, 
as usual, he gave fears to the winds, and quietly made preparations for 
the way. He set out on the 4th of May, on horseback, with a pistol in 
each pocket, and a fowling-piece belted across his shoulder. During this 
adventurous journey he suffered severely from tlje heat of the sun, and all 
the changes of the weather. His exposure by night and day brought on 
an illness, which he with difficulty surmounted. He had occasion to travel 
among the Indians, who, it seems, treated him with great kindness; and 
though dreadfully worn out with fatigue, he enjoyed the journey very much. 
He reached New Orleans on the 6th of June, and shortly after embarked 
in a vessel for New York, and from thence he proceeded to Philadelphia, 
where he arrived on the 2d of August 1810. 

Wilson now applied himself with unwearied industry to the preparation 
of the third volume of his Ornithology. At this time, he says that the 
number of birds which he had found, and which had not been noticed by 
any other naturalist, amounted to forty. Between this period and 1812 he 
made several other journeys throughout the country, partly with the view 
of promoting the sale of his publication, and partly to procure materials 
for his study, an object which he never lost sight of — seldom traveling, 
whatever might be the immediate or ostensible cause of his changing place, 
without his fowling-piece. 

In the year above named, he received a gratifying proof of the estima- 



668 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

tion in which his merits were beginning to be held. This was his being 
chosen a member of the Society of Artists of the United States : and in 
the spring of the following year, he was admitted to the American Philoso- 
phical Society in Philadelphia. But this extraordinary man was not 
destined to see either the completion of his meritorious labors, or to enjoy 
the triumph of achieving all that he designed. The excessive labor and 
fatigue of both body and mind to which he had for many years subjected 
himself, gradually undermined his constitution, and prepared it to yield to 
the first act of indiscretion to which it should be exposed; and this, unfor- 
tunately, now very soon occurred. 

While sitting one day with a friend, he caught a glimpse from the win- 
dow of a rare bird, for which he had long been vainly looking out. The 
instant he saw it he seized his gun, rushed out of the house in pursuit of it, 
and after an arduous chase, during which he swam across a river, succeeded 
in killing it ; but he succeeded at the expense of his life. He caught a 
violent cold ; this was followed by dysentery, which carried him off after an 
illness of ten days. He died on the morning of the 23d August 1813, in 
the forty-seventh year of his age, and was buried in the cemetery of the 
Swedish church in Southwark, Philadelphia. A plain marble monument, 
with an inscription intimating his age, the place and date of his birth, and 
of his death, marks the place of his sepulture. 

Wilson had completed the seventh volume of his Ornithology before he 
died, and was engaged, when seized with his last illness, in collecting 
materials for the eighth. At this he labored with an assiduity and unin- 
termitting industry which called forth the remonstrances of his friends. 
His reply, while it seems to indicate a presentiment of his premature 
fate, is at the same time characteristic of his extraordinary enthusiasm 
and diligence. ' Life is short,' he would say on these occasions, ' and 
nothing can be done without exertion.' Nor is a wish which he repeatedly 
expressed to a friend some time before his death, less characteristic of his 
amiable nature and deep admiration of the works of his Creator. This 
wish was that he might be buried where the birds might sing over his grave. 

His person is described as having been tall and handsome, rather slender 
than robust ; his countenance expressive and thoughtful, and his eye intelli- 
gent. Unfortunately for himself, the speculation in which he engaged with 
so much ardor yielded him no remuneration ; for he had committed the 
serious error of issuing his work on too expensive a scale. From the publi- 
cation he derived no profits whatever ; and the heavy expenses he had to 
incur in his journeys, as well as his ordinary outlays, were only paid by the 
wages he received in the capacity of colorer of his own plates. Of the 
many active men whose biographies are before the public, there is not, 
perhaps, one whose life presents such a heroic resolution in the pursuit of 
science as Wilson. Although this most indefatigable genius did not live to 
enjoy the reward of his diligence, he certainly anticipated what has come 
to pass — that this work would always be regarded as a subject of pride by 
his adopted country, as it certainly is by the country which gave him birth, 
and would secure a high degree of honor for him whose name it bears. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 569 



JAMES WATT. 



James Watt, the son of a merchant, was born at Greenock, in Scotland, 
on the 19th of January, 1736. He received the first part of his educa- 
tion at a school in his native place, and completed it at home, by his own 
diligence. The science of mechanics, for which he afterwards became so 
famous, formed, at an early age, his favorite study ; and, in conformity 
with his desire, he was, at the age of eighteen, apprenticed to a mathe- 
matical instrument-maker, in London. The bad state of his health, how- 
ever, which had before retarded his progress at school, compelled him to 
return, after a year's stay in the metropolis, to Scotland. This was all 
the instruction he ever received in the business for which he was intended, 
yet he must have attained considerable skill, as, in 1757, he, at the recom- 
mendation of some relations, commenced the practice of it, at Glasgow, 
and was immediately appointed mathematical instrument-maker to the col- 
lege. He continued to hold this situation till 1763, when he married, left 
his apartments in the university, for a house in the town of Glasgow, and 
commenced the profession of a general engineer. He soon acquired a 
high reputation ; and in making surveys and estimates for canals, harbors, 
bridges, and other public works, was as extensively employed in his own 
country, as Brindley had been in England. 

His attention to the employment of steam, as a mechanical agent, had 
been, in the first instance, excited by witnessing some experiments of his 
friend Mr. John (afterwards Dr.) Robison, and he had also made some 
experiments himself, with a view of ascertaining its expansive force. It 
was not, however, till 1763-4 that he began to devote himself seriously to 
the investigation of the properties of steam, and to ascertain those results 
upon which his fame was to be founded. An examination of Newcomen's 
engine, a model of which had been sent him to repair, revived all his 
former impressions respecting the radical imperfections of the atmospheric 
machine, to the improvements of which he now ardently devoted himself. 
One of his first discoveries was, that the rapidity with which water evapo- 
rates, depends simply upon the quantity of heat which is imbibed, and this 
again on the extent of the surface of the vessel containing the water, 
exposed to the fire. He ascertained also the quantity of coals necessary 
for the evaporation of any given quantity of water, the heat at which it 
boils under various pressures, and many other particulars never before 
accurately determined. 

He now proceeded to attempt a remedy of the two grand defects of 
Newcomen's engine — the necessity of cooling the cylinder before every 
Btroke of the piston, by the water injected into it ; and the non-employ- 
ment of the machine, for a moving power, of the expansive force of the 
steam. On account of the first defect, a much more powerful application 
of heat than would otherwise have been requisite was demanded for the 
purpose of again heating the cylinder, when it was to be refilled with 
steam. To keep this vessel, therefore, permanently hot, was the grand 
desideratum ; and Watt at length hit upon an expedient equally simple and 
successful. His plan was to establish a communication, by an open pipe, 
between the cylinder and another vessel, the consequence of which would 
be, that when the steam was admitted into the former, it would flow into 



572 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the latter, so as to fill that also. Supposing, then, that the steam should 
here only be condensed, by being brought into contact with cold water, or 
any other convenient means, a vacuum would be produced, into which, as 
a vent, more steam would immediately rush from the cylinder ; this steam 
would also be condensed ; and so the process would go on, till all the steam 
had left the cylinder, and a perfect vacuum had been effected in that ves- 
sel, without so much as a drop of cold water having touched or entered it. 
The separate vessel alone, or the condenser, would be cooled by the water 
used to condense the steam; which, instead of being an evil, would tend 
to quicken and promote the condensation. Experiments fully confirmed 
Watt in these views ; and the consequence was, not only a saving of three- 
fou.ths of the fuel formerly required to feed the engine, but a considera- 
ble increase of its power. 

In overcoming this difficulty, Watt was conducted to another improve- 
ment, which effected the complete removal of what we have described as 
the second radical imperfection of Newcomen's engine, namely, its non- 
employment, for a moving power, of the expansive force of the steam. 
The effectual way, it occurred to him, of preventing any air from escaping 
into the parts of the cylinder below the piston, would be to dispense with 
the use of that element above the piston, and to substitute there likewise 
the same contrivance as below, of alternate steam and a vacuum. This 
was to be accomplished by merely opening communications from the upper 
part of the cylinder to the boiler, on the one hand, and the condenser on 
the other; and forming it, at the same time, into an air-tight chamber, by 
means of a cover, with only a hole in it to admit the rod or shank of the 
piston, which might, besides, without impeding its freedom of action, be 
padded with hemp, the more completely to exclude the air. It was so 
contrived, accordingly, by a proper arrangement of the cocks, and the 
machinery connected with them, that while there was a vacuum in one end 
of the cylinder, there should be an admission of steam into the other ; and 
the steam so admitted now served, not only by its susceptibility of sudden 
condensation, to create the vacuum, but also, by its expansive force, to 
impel the piston. 

These were the principal fundamental improvements in an engine, which 
has since been brought to such perfection of action and power, as to form 
one of the most triumphant eras in the history of human ingenuity. In- 
stead of entering into all the subsequent contrivances which Watt invented, 
we cannot give a better idea of his splendid success, than by quoting the 
language of a recent writer. ' In the present state of the engine, it 
appears a thing almost endowed with intelligence. It regulates, with per- 
fect accuracy and uniformity, the number of its strokes in a given time, 
counting or recording them, moreover, to tell how much work it has done, 
as a clock records the beats of its pendulum ; it regulates the quantity of 
steam admitted to work ; the briskness of the fire, the supply of water to 
the boiler ; the supply of coals to the fire ; it opens and shuts its valves 
with absolute precision as to time and manner ; it oils its joints ; it takes 
out any air which may accidentally enter into parts which should be vacu- 
ous ; and, when anything goes wrong, which it cannot of itself rectify, it 
warns its attendants by ringing a bell; yet, with all these talents and 
qualities, and even when exerting the power of six hundred horses, it is 
obedient to the hand of a child ; its aliment is coal, wood, charcoal, or 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 573 

other combustible ; it consumes none while idle ; it never tires, and wants 
no sleep; it is not subject to malady when originally well made, and only 
refuses to work when worn out with age ; it is equally active in all climates, 
and will do work of any kind ; it is a water-pumper, a miner, a sailor, a 
cotton-spinner, a weaver, a blacksmith, a miller, etc., etc.; and a small 
engine, in the character of a steam pony, may be seen dragging after it, 
on a railroad, a hundred tons of merchandise, or a regiment of soldiers, 
with greater speed than that of our fleetest coaches. It is the king of 
nachines ; and a permanent realization of the genii of eastern fable, whose 
supernatural powers were occasionally at the command of man.' 

Watt had, however, another difficulty to surmount ; that of bringing his 
invention into practice. Having no pecuniary resources of his own, he 
applied to Dr. Roebuck, who had just established the Carron iron works, 
to advance the requisite funds ; which he consented to do, on having two- 
thirds of the profits made over to him. A patent was accordingly obtained 
in 1769, and an engine soon after erected ; but the failure of Dr. Roe- 
buck thwarted the project, for a time, and the subject of our memoir 
returned to his business of a civil engineer. At length, in 1774, a pro- 
posal was made to him, to remove to Birmingham, and enter into partner- 
ship with the celebrated hardware manufacturer, Mr. Boulton. Dr. 
Roebuck's share of the patent was shortly afterwards transferred to Mr. 
Boulton, and the firm of Boulton and Watt commenced the business of 
making steam-engines, in the year 1775. From this date, Mr. Watt 
obtained from parliament an extension of his patent for twenty-five years, 
in the course of which he added several new improvements to the mechan- 
ism of his engine. In particular, he exerted himself, for many years, in 
contriving the best methods of making the action of the piston communi- 
cate a rotatory motion in various circumstances ; and, between the years 
1781 and 1785, he took out four different patents, for inventions relating 
to this object. 

The invention of Watt was fully appreciated in the scientific world. In 
1785, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society ; in 1806, LL.D., by 
the University of Glasgow ; and, in 1808, a member of the French Insti- 
tute. He died on the 25th of August, 1819, in the eighty-fourth year of 
his age, leaving behind him a name that will descend to posterity, in con- 
nexion with an invention that has already gone far to revolutionize the 
whole domain of human industry. ' The trunk of an elephant,' it has 
been truly said of this machine, ' that can pick up a pin, or rend an oak, 
is as nothing to it. It can engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate 
metal like wax before it ; draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as 
gossamer; and lift a ship of war, like a bauble, in the air. It can em- 
broider muslin, and forge anchors ; cut steel into ribands, and impel loaded 
vessels against the fury of the winds and the waves.' 

JOHN HOWARD. 

John Howard, whose name as a philanthropist must be familiar to a 
number of our readers, was born at Clapton, in the parish of Hackney, in 
the immediate vicinity of London, in or about the year 1727. His father 
was an upholsterer and carpet-warehouseman, who had acquired a consid- 
erable fortune in trade, and had retired from business to live at Hackney. 



574 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Being a dissenter, and a man of strong religious principles, he sent his son 
at an early age to be educated by a schoolmaster named Worsley, who 
kept an establishment at some distance from London, where the sons of 
many opulent dissenters, friends of Mr. Howard, were already boarded. 
The selection appears to have been injudicious ; for in after-life Mr. How- 
ard assured an intimate friend, with greater indignation than he used to 
express on most subjects, ' that, after a continuance of seven years at this 
school, he left it not fully taught any one thing.' From Mr. Worsley's 
school he was removed, probably about the age of fourteen, to one of a 
superior description in London, the master of which, Mr. Eames, was a 
man of some reputation for learning. His acquisitibns at both seminaries 
seem to have been of the meagre kind then deemed sufficient for a person 
who was to be engaged in commercial pursuits ; and it is the assertion of 
Mr. Howard's biographer, Dr. Aikin, founded on personal knowledge, 
that he ' was never able to speak or write his native language with gram- 
matical correctness, and that his acquaintance with other languages — the 
French perhaps excepted — was slight and superficial.' In this, however, 
he did not differ perhaps from the generality of persons similarly circum- 
stanced in their youth, and destined, like him, for business. 

At the age of fifteen or sixteen Mr. Howard was bound apprentice by 
his father to Messrs. Newnham and Shipley, extensive wholesale grocers 
in Watling Street, who received a premium of .£700 with him. His 
father dying, however, shortly afterwards, and the state of his health or 
his natural tastes indisposing him for the mode of life for which he had 
been destined, he made arrangements with his masters for the purchase of 
the remaining term of his apprenticeship, and quitted business. By the 
will of his father, who is described as a strict methodical man, of somewhat 
penurious disposition, he was not to come into possession of the property 
till he had attained his twenty-fourth year. On attaining that age, he 
was to be entitled to the sum of .£7000 in money, together with all his 
father's landed and moveable property: his only sister receiving, as her 
share, £8000 in money, with certain additions of jewels, etc., which had 
belonged to her mother. Although nominally under the charge of guar- 
dians, Mr. Howard was allowed a considerable share in the management 
of his own property. He had his house at Clapton, which his father's 
parsimonious habits had suffered to fall into decay, repaired or rebuilt, 
intending to make it his general place of residence. Connected with the 
repairing of this house an anecdote is told of Mr. Howard, which will 
appear characteristic. He used to go every day to superintend the pro- 
gress of the workmen ; and an old man who had been gardener to his 
father, and who continued about the house until it was let some time after- 
wards, used to tell, as an instance of Mr. Howard's goodness of disposi- 
tion when young, that every day during the repairs he would be in the 
street, close by the garden wall, just as the baker's cart was passing, when 
he would regularly buy a loaf and throw it over the wall, saying to the 
gardener as he came in, ' Harry, go and look among the cabbages ; you 
will find something for yourself and family.' 

After passing his twentieth year, Mr. Howard, being of delicate health, 
quitted his native country, and made a tour through France and Italy, 
which lasted a year or two ; but of the particulars of which we have no 
account. On his return to England, probably about the year 1750, he 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 575 

took lodgings in Stoke Newington, living as a gentleman of independent 
property and quiet, retired habits, and much respected by a small circle of 
acquaintances, chiefly dissenters. The state of his health, however, was 
such as to require constant care. His medical attendants, thinking him 
liable to consumption, recommended to him a very rigorous regimen in 
diet, which 'laid the foundation,' says one of his biographers, 'of that 
extraordinary abstemiousness and indifference to the gratifications of the 
palate which ever after so much distinguished him.' This condition of his 
health obliged him also to have recourse to frequent changes of air and 
scene. Newington, however, was his usual place of residence. Here, 
having experienced much kindness and attention during a very severe 
attack of illness from his landlady, Mrs. Sarah Loidoire, an elderly widow 
of small property, he resolved to marry her ; and although she remon- 
strated with him upon the impropriety of the step, considering their great 
disparity of ages — he being in his twenty-fifth, and she in her fifty-second 
year — the marriage was concluded in 1752. Nothing but the supposition 
that he was actuated by gratitude, can account for this singular step in 
Mr. Howard's life. The lady, it appears, was not only twice as old as 
himself, but also very sickly; and that no reasons of interest can have 
influenced him, is evident, as well from the fact that she was poor in com- 
parison with himself, as from the circumstance of his immediately making 
over the whole of her little property to her sister. Mr. Howard seems to 
have lived very happily with his wife till her death shortly afterwards, in 
November, 1755. 

On his wife's death, he resolved to leave England for another tour on 
the continent. In his former tour he had visited most of the places of us- 
ual resort in France and Italy ; during the present, therefore, he intended 
to pursue some less common route. After some deliberation, he deter- 
mined to sail first to Portugal, in order to visit its capital, Lisbon, then in 
ruins from the effects of that tremendous earthquake the news of which had 
appalled Europe. Nothing is more interesting than to observe the effects 
which great public events of a calamitous nature produce on different minds; 
indeed one of the most instructive ways of contrasting men's dispositions, 
is to consider how they are severally affected by some stupendous occur- 
rence. It is to be regretted, therefore, that we are not informed more 
particularly by Howard's biographers of the reasons which determined him 
to visit the scene of the awful catastrophe which had recently occurred in 
Portugal — whether they were motives of mere curiosity, or whether they 
partook of that desire to place himself in contact with misery, that passion 
for proximity to wretchedness which formed so large an element in How- 
ard's character, and marked him out from the first as predestined for a 
career of philanthrophy. 

Before leaving England to proceed on his tour to the south of Europe, Mr. 
Howard broke up his establishment at Stoke Newington, and, with that 
generosity which was so natural to him, made a distribution among the 
poorer people of the neighborhood of those articles of furniture for which 
he had now no necessity. The old gardner already mentioned used to re- 
late that his dividend of the furniture on this occasion consisted of a bed- 
stead and bedding complete, a table, six new chairs, and a scythe. A few 
weeks after this distribution of his furniture, Mr. Howard set sail in the 
Hanover, a Lisbon packet. Unfortunately, the vessel never reached her 



576 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

destination, being captured during her voyage by a French privateer. 
The crew and passengers were treated with great cruelty by their captors, 
being kept for forty hours under hatches without bread or water. They 
were carried into Brest, and confined all together in the castle of that 
place as prisoners of war. Here their sufferings were increased ; and af 
ter lying for many hours in their dungeon without the slightest nourish- 
ment, they had a joint of mutton thrown in amongst them, which, not hav- 
ing a knife to cut it, they were obliged to tear with the hands, and gnaw 
like dogs. For nearly a week they lay on straw in their damp and unwhole- 
some dungeon, after which they were separated, and severally disposed of. 
Mr. Howard was removed first to Morlaix, and afterwards to Carpaix, 
where he was allowed for two months to go about on parole — an indulg- 
ence usually accorded to officers only, but which Mr. Howard's manners 
and behavior procured for him from the authorities. He was even furnish- 
ed, it is said, with the means of returning to England, that he might nego- 
tiate his own exchange for some French naval officer, a prisoner of war in 
the hands of the English. This exchange was happily accomplished, and 
Mr. Howard wa3 once more at liberty, and in England. His short cap- 
tivity in France, however, was not without its good effects, by interesting 
him strongly in the condition of those unfortunate men who, chancing like 
himself to be captured at sea during war, were languishing in dungeons 
both in France and England, and atoning by their sufferings for the mu- 
tual injuries or discords of the nations to which they belonged. Mr. How- 
ard's imprisonment may be said to have first given a specific direction to 
his philanthropic enthusiasm. In his 'Account of the State of Prisons,' 
published a considerable time afterwards, he subjoins the following note to 
a passage in which he contrasts the favorable treatment which prisoners 
of war usually receive, with the cruelties which domestic prisoners experi- 
ence : — ' I must not be understood here to mean a compliment to the 
French. How they then treated English prisoners of war I knew by 
experience in 1756, when a Lisbon packet in which I went passenger, in 
order to make the tour of Portugal, was taken by a French privateer. 
Before we reached Brest, I suffered the extremity of thirst, not having, 
for above forty hours, one drop of water, nor hardly a morsel of food. 
In the castle of Brest I lay for six nights upon straw ; and observing how 
cruelly my countrymen were used there and at Morlaix, whither I was 
carried next, during the two months I was at Carpaix upon parole I cor- 
responded with the English prisoners at Brest, Morlaix, and Dinnan. At 
the last of these towns were several of our ship's crew and my servant. 
I had sufficient evidence of their being treated with such barbarity, that 
many hundreds had perished, and that thirty-six were buried in a 
hole at Dinnan in one day. When I came to England, still on parole, I 
made known to the Commissioner of Sick and Wounded Seamen the sun- 
dry particulars, which gained their attention and thanks. Remonstrance 
was made to the French court ; our sailors had redress ; and those who 
were in the three prisons mentioned above were brought home in the first 
cartel-ships. Perhaps what I suffered on this occasion increased my sym- 
pathy with the unhappy people whose case is the subject of this book.' 
In Mr. Howard's conduct, as here described by himself, we discern the 
real characteristic of active philanthropy. How few men are there who, 
like him, would have turned a personal misfortune to such good account ; 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 577 

and who, while enduring sufferings themselves, would have occupied their 
thoughts with the means of putting an end, for all time coming, to the sys- 
tem which permitted such sufferings ! Most men would have occupied the 
time of their imprisonment with sighs and lamentations ; and once at lib- 
erty, they would have returned gleefully to the enjoyment of their homes, 
without troubling themselves about their less fortunate fellow-sufferers 
whom they had left behind, or at least without conceiving that their exer- 
tions could do anything for their benefit. But it is the characteristic of 
men like Howard, when once their attention is called to a wrong, not to 
rest until they have seen it rectified. 

On his return to England, Mr. Howard went to reside on the small 
estate of Cardington, near Bedford, which had been left him by his father, 
and which he had increased by the purchase of an additional farm. He 
appears to have resided here for the next two years, leading the life of a 
quiet country gentleman, superintending his farms, and earning the re- 
spect and good-will of all the neighborhood, by his attention to the comforts 
of his tenants, and his charities to the poor. It was during this period 
also, on the 13th of May 1756, that he was elected a fellow of the Royal 
Society ; an honor which did not necessarily imply that he possessed rep- 
utation as a scientific man, or even a man of brilliant abilities, but only 
that he was a gentleman of respectability, who, like many others of his 
class, took an interest in scientific pursuits. Howard's attainments in sci- 
ence do not seem to have ever been very great, and the only point of his 
character which connected him particularly with a scientific body, was his 
taste for meteorological observations. 

On the 25th of April 1758, Mr. Howard contracted a second marriage 
with Miss Henrietta Leeds, eldest daughter of Edward Leeds, Esq., of 
Croxton, Cambridgeshire. The lady whom he had selected as his partner 
in life is described as amiable, affectionate, pious, and in every way worthy 
of such a husband. Her tastes were the same as his, and she cordially 
seconded all his charitable plans for the assistance and relief of those who 
depended upon his benevolence. 

For seven years Mr. Howard enjoyed uninterrupted happiness in the so- 
ciety of his wife. During this period he resided first at Cardington, next 
for about three years at Watcombe in Hampshire, and latterly at Carding- 
ton again. The even tenor of his existence during these years presents 
few incidents worth recording. Reading, gardening, and the improvement 
of his grounds, occupied most of his time. His meteorological observa- 
tions were likewise diligently continued ; and it is mentioned, as a proof 
of his perseverance in whatever he undertook, that on the setting in of a 
frost, he used to leave his bed at two o'clock every morning while it lasted, 
for the purpose of looking at a thermometer which he kept in his garden. 
His charities, as before, were profuse and systematic. His desire, and that 
of his wife, was to see all around them industrious and happy. To effect 
this, they used all the influence which their position as persons of property 
and wealth gave them over the villagers and cottagers in their neighborhood. 
One of their modes of dispensing charity was to employ persons out of 
work in making articles of furnature or ornament ; and in this way, it is 
said, Mrs. Howard soon increased her stock of table-linen to a quantity 
greater than would ever be required by any household. 

On the 31st of March 1765, Mrs. Howard died in giving birth to a son, 
37* 



578 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the first and only issue of their marriage. This event was a source of 
poignant affliction to her husband. On the tablet which he erected to her 
memory in Cardington church, he caused to be inscribed the following pas- 
sage from the book of Proverbs : — ' She opened her mouth with wisdom, 
and on her tongue was the law of kindness.' Her miniature was ever after 
his constant companion by sea or land ; and the day of her death was ob- 
served by him annually as a day of fasting, meditation and prayer. 

From the death of his wife in 1765 to the end of the year 1769, Mr. 
Howard appears to have remained in England, and at Cardington as be- 
fore, with the exception of a month or six weeks in the year 1767, which 
he devoted to a tour through Holland. His principal occupation during 
these four years was the education of his infant son. From the circum- 
stance that this boy, when he arrived at the years of manhood, conducted 
himself in a profligate manner, and at last became insane, much attention 
has been drawn to Mr. Howard's mode of educating him in his infancy ; 
some insisting that his conduct as a parent was harsh and injudicious, others 
going so far as to asert that this man — whom the world reveres as a philan- 
thropist, and whose benevolent soul yearned for the whole human race — 
was in his domestic relations a narrow and unfeeling tyrant. This last as- 
sertion — although, abstractly considered, there is nothing impossible or 
absurd in it, inasmuch as we may conceive such a thing as real philanthropy 
on a large scale conjoined with inattention to one's immediate duties as a 
husband or father — appears to have absolutely no foundation whatever in 
Howard's case ; and to have originated either in malice, or in that vulgar 
love of effect which delights in finding striking incongruities in the char- 
acters of great men. Nor does the other assertion — that Howard's mode 
of educating his infant son was harsh and injudicious — appear more wor- 
thy of credit. The truth seems to be, that Howard was a kind and benev- 
olent man, of naturally strict and methodical habits, who entertained, upon 
principle, high ideas of the authority of the head of a family. A friend 
of his relates that he has often heard him tell in company, as a piece of 
pleasantry, that before his marriage with his second wife he made an 
agreement with her, that in order to prevent all those little altercations 
about family matters which he had observed to be the principal causes of 
domestic discomfort, he should always decide. Mrs. Howard, he said, had 
cheerfully agreed to this arrangement ; and it was attended with the 
best effects. The same principle of the supremacy of the head of a fam- 
ily — a principle much less powerful in society now than it was a genera- 
tion or two ago — guided him in his behavior to his son. 'Kegarding 
children,' says Dr. Aikin, 'as creatures possessed of strong passions and 
desires, without reason and experience to control them, he thought that na- 
ture seemed, as it were, to mark them out as the subjects of absolute 
authority, and that the first and fundamental principle to be inculcated 
upon them was implicit and unlimited obedience.' The plan of education 
here described may to some appear austere and injudicious, while others 
will cordially approve of it, as that recommended by experience and com- 
mon sense ; but at all events, the charges of harshness and cruelty which 
some have endeavored to found upon it are mere calumnies, refuted by all 
who knew Mr. Howard, and were witnesses to his affection for his son. 

Sensible of the loss which the boy had sustained by the death of his 
mother, Mr* Howard placed him, in his fifth year, under the care of a lady 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 579 

in whom he had confidence, who kept a boarding-school at Cheshunt in 
Hertfordshire. This and other arrangements having been made, he went 
abroad on a fourth continental tour towards the end of 1769. Proceeding 
through the south of France, and spending a few weeks in Geneva, he 
visited most of the remarkable places in Italy, some of them for the second 
time ; and returned home through Germany in the latter part of 1770, 
having been absent in all about twelve months. 

When Howard had again settled at Cardington, he resumed his benevo 
lent schemes of local improvement. It appears that the vicinity of Bed- 
ford, and Cardington especially, was inhabited by a very poor population, 
liable to frequent visitations of distress from the fluctuations of the only 
manufacture which yielded them employment — that of lace ; as well as 
generally from the unhealthy and marshy nature of the soil, rendering agues 
prevalent. Mr. Howard's first care with respect to those to whom he was 
attached as landlord, was to improve their dwellings. ' At different times,' 
says his biographer, Mr. Brown, ' he pulled down all the cottages on his 
estate, and rebuilt them in a neat but simple style, paying particular atten- 
tion to their preservation, as much as possible, from the dampness of the 
soil. Others which were not his property before, he purchased, and reelect- 
ed upon the same plan ; adding to the number of the whole by building 
several new ones in different parts of the village. To each of these he al- 
lotted a piece of garden-ground, sufficient to supply the family of its occu- 
pier with potatoes and other vegetables ; and generally ornamented them in 
front with a small fore-court, fenced off from the road by neat white palings, 
enclosing a bed or two of simple flowers, with here and there a shrub, or 
an evergreen ; thus imparting to these habitations of the poor, with their 
white fronts and thatched roofs, that air of neatness and comfort so strik- 
ingly characteristic of everything in which he engaged.' ' These comfort- 
able habitations, which he let at a rent of twenty or thirty shillings a year,' 
says another biographer, Dr. Aikin, ' he peopled with the most industrious 
and sober tenants he could find ; and over them he exercised the superin- 
tendence of master and father combined. He was careful to furnish them 
with employment, to assist them in sickness and distress, and to educate 
their children.' In consequence of these exertions of Mr. Howard, aided 
and seconded by those of his friend and relative, Samuel Whitbread, Esq., 
who possessed property in the same neighborhood, ' Cardington, which 
seemed at one time to contain the abodes of poverty and wretchedness, 
soon became one of the neatest villages in the kingdom — exhibiting all the 
pleasing appearances of competence and content, the natural rewards of 
industry and virtue.' Industry and cleanliness were the two virtues which 
Mr. Howard sought by all means to naturalize among the villagers of Card- 
ington. It was his custom to visit the houses of his tenants now and then, 
conversing with them on the state of their affairs. During such visits he 
was particular in requesting them to keep their houses clean ; and it was 
one of his standing advices that they should ' swill the floors well with wa- 
ter.' After talking with the children, he would tell them, at parting, to be 
' good boys and girls, and keep their faces and hands clean.' 

Among Mr. Howard's other benefactions to the locality of Cardington, 
he established schools for the education of the boys and girls of the neigh- 
borhood, in the rudiments of knowledge. Of these it was strictly required 
that they should regularly attend some place of worship on Sundays ; 



080 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

whether the established church, or any other, was indifferent, provided it 
was a church at all. His anxiety on this point also led him to convert one 
of his cottages into a preaching station, where the neighboring clergymen 
of different pursuasions, or occasionally a clergyman from a distance pass- 
ing through the village, might officiate to such as chose to attend ; and 
very rarely was the little congregation without at least one sermon a week. 
Mr. Howard, when at Cardington, was invariably present at these meet- 
ings. His regular place of worship was the Old Meeting-house at Bedford, 
of which the Rev. Mr. Symonds was pastor for 1766 to 1772. In the 
latter year, however, when Mr. Symonds declared his adherence to the 
theological tenets of the Baptists, Mr. Howard seceded along with a con 
siderable part of the congregation, and established a new meeting-house. 
The truth is, however, that, with all his piety, and indeed on account of 
the very strength and sincerity of it, the theological differences of sects oc- 
cupied very little space in his attention, and did not in the least affect his 
schemes of philanthropy ; and though a dissenter of a particular denomina- 
tion himself, dissenters of all other denominations, as well as members of 
the established church, were equally the objects of his respect and his be- 
nevolent solicitude. 

The following recollections of Mr. Howard's habits at this period, by the 
Rev. Mr. Townsend, who resided with him at Cardington for a short period, 
in the interval between the secession from the Old Meeting-house, and the 
erection of the new one, may be interesting : ' He found him,' he said, 
* not disposed to talk much ; he sat but a short time at table, and was in 
motion during the whole day. He was very abstemious ; lived chiefly on 
vegetables, ate little animal food, and drank no wine or spirits. He hated 
praise ; and when Mr. Townsend once mentioned to him his labors of be- 
nevolence ' — not those general ones for which he is now so celebrated, but 
his exertions for the improvement of the condition of the people in his 
neighborhood — ' he spoke of them slightingly, as a whim of his, and imme- 
diately changed the subject.' ' He was at all times,' adds his biographer, 
Mr. Brown, ' remarkably neat in his dress, but affected no singularity in it. 
Though he never thought it right to indulge in the luxuries of life, he did 
not despise its comforts. Wine or fermented liquors of any kind he him- 
self never drank ; but they were always provided, and that of the best 
quality, for his friends who chose to take them. He always maintained an 
intercourse of civility with some of the most considerable persons in the 
country, and was on visiting terms with the greater part of the country 
gentlemen around him, and with the most respectable inhabitants of tho 
town of Bedford, churchmen and dissenters. His aversion to mix much 
with promiscuous assemblies was the result of his religious principles and 
habits, which taught him that this was no very profitable method of spend- 
ing his time ; yet however uncomplying he might be with the freedoms 
and irregularities of polite life, he was by no means negligent of its receiv- 
ed forms ; and though he might be denominated a man of scruples and sin- 
gularities, no one would dispute his claim to the title of a gentleman.'' 

From these details our readers will be able to fancy Mr. Howard as ho 
was in the year 1773 — a widower country gentleman, of plain, upright, 
methodical habits, aged about forty-six ; devout and exemplary in his con- 
duct, and a dissenter by profession, but without any strong prejudices for 
or against any sect ; temperate and economical, but the very reverse of 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 581 

parsimonious ; fond of traveling, and exceedingly attentive to what fell un- 
der his observation ; of a disposition overflowing with kindness at the aspect 
of a miserable object, and prompting him to go out in search of wretched- 
ness, and to distribute over his whole neighborhood the means of comfort 
and happiness. Such was Mr. Howard in the year 1773 ; and if he had 
then died, his name would never have been so celebrated as it is over the 
world, but would only have been remembered in the particular district 
where his lot was cast, as the names of many benevolent landlords and 
good men are locally remembered all over the country. Fortunately, how- 
ever, a circumstance happened which opened for this unostentatious benefac- 
tor of a village a career of world-wide philanthropy. This was his election, 
in the year 1773, to the important office of high-sheriff of the county of 
Bedford. Regarding the special circumstances which led to his election to 
such a post, we have no information. It may be mentioned, however, that, 
in accepting the office, he subjected himself to the liability of a fine of .£500 
— the laws which disqualified dissenters from holding such offices not having 
been yet repealed, although they were practically set at defiance by the 
increasing liberality of the age. A story was indeed once current that Mr. 
Howard, on his nomination to the office, stated to earl Bathurst, then lord 
chancellor, his scruples about accepting it, arising from the fact of his not 
being a member of the Church of England ; and that lord Bathurst, in re- 
ply, gave him an assurance of indemnification, in case any malicious person 
should endeavor to put the law in force against him. This story, however, 
does not appear to have been well-founded. 

The duties of a high-sheriff in England are important and various. To 
him are addressed the writs commencing all actions, and he returns the 
juries for the trial of men's lives, liberties, lands and goods. He executes 
the judgments of the courts. In his county he is the principal conservator 
of the peace. Pie presides in his own court as a judge ; and he not only 
tries all causes of forty shillings in value, but also questions of larger 
amount. He presides at all elections of members of parliament and coro- 
ners. He apprehends all wrongdoers, and for that purpose, he is entitled 
to break open outer-doors to seize the offender. He defends the county 
against riot, or rebellion, or invasion. The sheriff takes precedence of all 
persons in the county. He is responsible for the execution of criminals. 
He receives and entertains the judges of assize, on whom he is constantly 
in attendance whilst they remain in his shire. To assist him in the per- 
formance of his duties, the sheriff employs an under-sheriff, and also a bail- 
iff and jailers, from whom he takes secux*ity for their good conduct. Such 
was the office to which, fortunately for society, Mr. Howard was appointed 
at the annual election of sheriffs in the year 1773. 

The office of high-sheriff became a different thing in the hands of such a 
man as Howard from what it had been before. It was no longer a mere 
honorable office, all the drudgery of which was performed by the under- 
sheriff; it was no longer the mere right of going in state twice a-year to 
meet the judges, and of presiding during the gayeties of an assize-week ; it 
was a situation of real power and laborious well-doing. Already alive to 
the existence of numerous abuses in prison management — as well by his 
general information respecting the institutions of the country, as by his 
own experience of prison life in France seventeen years before — he had 
not been a month in office before all the faculties of his heart and soul were 



582 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

engaged in searching out and dragging into public notice the horrible cor- 
ruptions and pollutions of the English prison system. 

Within Mr. Howard's own cognizance as sheriff of Bedfordshire, there 
were three prisons — the county jail, the county bridewell, and the town 
jail, all in Bedford ; and, as a matter of course, it was with these that his 
inquiries commenced. Various abuses struck him in their management, 
particularly in that of the county jail, the accommodations of which, 
whether for the purposes of work, health, or cleanliness, he found very 
deficient. But what roused his sense of justice most of all, was to find 
that the jailer had no salary, and depended for great part of his income on 
the following clause in the prison regulations : — ' All persons that come to 
this place, either by warrant, commitment, or verbally, must pay, before 
being discharged, fifteen shillings and fourpence to the jailer, and two shil- 
lings to the turnkey.' The effect which this and similar exactions from 
prisoners in the Bedford jail made upon him, will be best learned from his 
own statement prefixed to his ' Account of the State of Prisons.' ' The 
distress of prisoners,' he says, ' of which there are few who have not some 
imperfect idea, came more immediately under my notice when I was sheriff 
of the county of Bedford ; and the circumstance which excited me to activ- 
ity in their behalf was seeing some who, by the verdict of juries, were de- 
clared not guilty — some on whom the grand jury did not find such an 
appearance of guilt as subjected them to trial — and some whose prosecutors 
did not appear against them — after having been confined for months, drag- 
ged back to jail, and locked up again till they should pay sundry fees to 
the jailer, the clerk of assize, etc. In order to redress this hardship,' he 
continues, ' I applied to the justices of the county for a salary to the jailer 
in lieu of his fees. The bench were properly affected with the grievance, 
and willing to grant the relief desired ; but they wanted a precedent for 
charging the county with the expense.' 

With a view to find the precedent required, Mr. Howard undertook to 
visit the jails of some of the neighboring counties, that he might inquire 
into the practice adopted there. His first visits were to the jails of Cam- 
bridge and Huntingdon ; and in the course of the same month — November 
1773 — he prosecuted his tour through those of the following counties in 
addition — Northampton, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Stafford, Warwick, 
Worcester, Gloucester, Oxford, and Buckingham. In each and all of these 
jails he found abuses and grievances ; different, indeed, in one from what 
they were in another, and in some fewer and less shocking than in others, 
but in all disgraceful to a civilized country. In all of them, the income of 
the jailer was derived, as at Bedford, from fees exacted from the prisoners, 
and not from a regular salary ; nay, in one of them the sheriff himself 
drew fees from the prisoners ; and in another, that of Northampton, the 
jailer, instead of having a salary, paid the county <£40 a-year for his office. 
To enter into the details of his investigations of the abuses of the various 
prisons above enumerated, as these are given in the first edition of his 
' Account of the State of Prisons,' would be impossible ; suffice it to say, 
that Mr. Howard's reports on the various jails he visited are not mere gen- 
eral assertions that this or that jail was defective in its arrangements, but 
laborious and minute accounts of the statistics of each — containing in the 
briefest possible compass, every circumstance respecting every jail which 
it could possibly be useful to know. Indeed no parliamentary commission 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 583 

ever presented a more searching, clear, and accurate report than Howard's 
account of the state of the prisons he visited. 

His visits to the jails of the counties adjoining Bedford had only disclosed 
to him those depths of misery which he was yet to sound. ' Looking into 
the prisons,' he says, ' I beheld scenes of calamity which I became daily 
more and more anxious to alleviate. In order, therefore, to gain a more 
perfect knowledge of the particulars and extent of it, by various and accu- 
rate observation, I visited most of the county jails in England.' This 
more extensive tour was begun in December 1773, and by the 17th of that 
month he had inspected the jails of the counties of Hertford, Berks, Wilts, 
Dorset, Hants, and Sussex ; occupying, therefore, it will be perceived, a 
much less space of time in his survey than most official commissioners, and 
yet probably doing the work much better. The next six weeks he appears 
to have spent at Cardington with his son, then about eight years of age, 
and at home no doubt on his Christmas vacation ; but towards the end of 
January 1774, his philanthropic tour was resumed. The jails of Rutland- 
shire were first visited, then those of York : on his journey southward from 
York he passed through the shires of Lincoln, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, 
visiting the prisons of each : a fortnight was then devoted to an examina- 
tion of the monster prisons of London: from London he set out on a jour- 
ney to the western counties, inspected the jails of Devon, Cornwall, 
Somerset, Hereford, and Monmouth ; and, after a short absence, returned 
to London, having, in the course of three months of expeditious and exten- 
sive, but most thorough scrutiny, acquired more knowledge of the state of 
English prisons than was possessed by any other man then living. Such 
is the effect of having a definite object in view, and attending exclusively 
to it. If we measure ability by mere largeness of intellect, there were 
undoubtedly hundreds of abler men than Howard then alive in England ; 
but what is the lazy and languid greatness of these intellectual do-nothings 
compared with the solid greatness of a man like Howard, who, gifted by 
God with a melting love for his fellow-men, laboriously and steadily pur- 
sued one object, made himself master of one department, and dragged into 
daylight one class of social abuses till then unknown or unheeded ? 

It happened by a fortunate conjunction, that at the time Mr. Howard 
was pursuing his prison inquiries, a few members of the legislature were 
interesting themselves in the same subject. In the previous session of 
parliament a bill had been introduced into the House of Commons by Mr. 
Popham, member for Taunton, proposing the payment of jailors, not by 
fees from the prisoners, as heretofore, but out of the county rates. The 
bill had been dropped in committee on the second reading ; but the subject 
of prison management was resumed next session, the principal movers in 
the inquiry being Mr. Popham, and Mr. Howard's intimate friends, Mr. 
St. John and Mr. Whitbread. It would appear that it had been in conse- 
quence of consultations with Mr. Howard that these gentlemen broached 
the subject in parliament at so early a period in the session ; at all events, 
we find Mr. Howard immediately after his return from his western tour, 
examined before a committee of the whole House regarding his knowledge 
of the state of English prisons. So full and valuable were the details 
submitted to the committee by Mr. Howard, that on the House being resum- 
ed, the chairman of the committee, Sir Thomas Clavering, reported that 
' he was directed by the committee to move the House that John Howard, 



584 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Esq:, be called in to the bar, and that Mr. Speaker do acquaint him that 
the House are very sensible of the humanity and zeal which have led him 
to visit the several jails of this kingdom, and to communicate to the House 
the interesting observations he has made upon that subject.' The motion 
was adopted unanimously ; and Mr. Howard had, accordingly, the honor of 
receiving the public thanks of the House for his philanthropic exertions. To 
show however, how little the spirit which animated these exertions was under- 
stood or appreciated, we may mention that it is related that during his ex- 
amination before the committee, one member put the question to him, ' At 
whose expense he traveled ? ' 

Mr. Howard, however, was still only at the commencement of his labors. 
In the month of March 1774, only a few days after receiving the thanks 
of the House of Commons, he set out for the extreme north of England, 
to visit the jails there. In an incredibly short space of time he had trav- 
ersed the counties of Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmore- 
land, Lancaster, Chester, and Shropshire, visiting the jails in each ; then, 
after revisiting those of Stafford, Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, and 
Northampton, he returned home to Cardington ; from which, after a week's 
repose he sent out for Kent. With the examination of the jails of Kent, 
Mr. Howard's first survey of the jails of England may be said to have been 
finished. To give once for all, an idea of the minute and thorough manner 
in which he discharged his self-imposed duty, we may quote his remarks 
on the county jail at Durham. After giving a list of the officials and their 
salaries, he proceeds thus : — ' The high jail is the property of the bishop. 
By patent from his lordship, Sir Hedworth Williamson, Bart., is perpetual 
sheriff. The court for master's side debtors is only 24 feet by 10 : they 
are permitted sometimes to walk on the leads. They have beds in the 
upper hall, and in several other rooms. Their rooms should be ceiled, that 
they might be lime-whited, to prevent infectious disorders, and that great 
nuisance of bugs, of which the debtors complain much here and other places. 
Common side debtors have no court ; their free wards, the low jail, are 
two damp, unhealthy rooms, 10 feet 4 inches square by the gateway. They 
are never suffered to go out of these except to chapel, which is the master's 
side debtor's hall ; and not always to that : for on Sunday, when I was 
there, and missed them at chapel, they told me they were not permitted to 
go thither. No sewers. At more than one of my visits I learned that 
the dirt, ashes, etc., had lain there many months. There is a double-bar- 
reled pump, which raises water about 70 feet. Felons have no court ; but 
they have a day-room, and two small rooms for an infirmary. The men 
are put at night into dungeons : one, 7 feet square, for three prisoners ; 
another, the great hole, 161 feet by 12, has only a little window. In this 
I saw six prisoners, most of them transports, chained to the floor. In this 
situation they had been for many weeks, and were very sickly ; their 
straw on the stone floor almost worn to dust. Long confinement, and not 
having the king's allowance of two shillings and sixpence a-week, had urged 
them to attempt an escape ; after which the jailer had chained them a3 
already mentioned. There is another dungeon for women felons, 12 feel 
by 8 ; and up stairs, a separate room or two. The common side debtors in 
the low jail, whom I saw eating boiled bread and water, told me that this 
was the only nourishment some had lived upon for near a twelvemonth. 
They have, from a legacy, one shilling and a sixpence a-week in winter 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 585 

and one shilling a-week in summer, for coals. No memorandum of it in 
the jail : perhaps this may in time be lost, as the jailer said two others 
were — namely, one of Bishop Crewe, and another of Bishop Wood, from 
which prisoners had received no benefit for some years past. But now the 
bishop has humanely filed bills in Chancery, and recovered these legacies, 
by which several debtors have been discharged. Half-a-crown a-week is 
paid to a woman for supplying the debtors with water in the two rooms on 
the side of the gateway. The act for preserving the health of prisoners is 
not hung up. Jail delivery once a-year. At several of my visits there 
were boys between thirteen and fifteen years of age confined with the 
most profligate and abandoned. There was a vacant piece of ground 
adjacent, of little use but for the jailor's occasional lumber. It extends 
to the river, and measures about 22 yards by 16. I once and again advised 
the enclosing this for a court, as it might be done with little expense ; and 
it appears that formerly here was a doorway into the prison. But when I 
was there afterwards in January 1776, 1 had the mortification to hear that 
the surgeon, who was uncle to the jailer, had obtained from the bishop, in 
October preceding, a lease of it for twenty-one years, at the rent of one 
shilling per annum. He had built a little stable on it.' 

Having completed his survey of the English jails, Mr. Howard turned 
his attention next to those of Wales ; and by the end of the autumn of 
1774, he appears to have visited the principal jails in that principality. 
During these last months the field of his inquiries had been extended, so 
as to embrace a new department. ' Seeing,' he says ' in two or three of 
the jails some poor creatures whose aspect was singularly deplorable, and 
asking the cause of it, the answer was, * They were lately brought from 
the bridewells.' This started a fresh subject of inquiry. I resolved to 
inspect the bridewells ; and for that purpose traveled again into the coun- 
ties where I had been ; and indeed into all the rest, examining houses of 
correction, city and town jails. I beheld in many of them, as well as in 
the county jails, a complication of distress.' 

Mr. Howard's philanthropic labors for now nearly a twelve-month had 
of course made him an object of public attention, and it became obviously 
desirable to have such a man in parliament. Accordingly, at the election 
of 1774, he was requested by a number of the electors of Bedford to al- 
low himself to be put in nomination for that town, in the independent in- 
terest, along with his friend Mr. Whitbread. Mr. Howard consented ; but 
when the polling had taken place, the numbers stood thus — Sir William 
Wake, 527 votes ; Mr. Sparrow, 517 ; Mr. Whitbread, 429 ; and Mr. 
Howard, 402. A protest was taken by the supporters of Mr. Whitbread 
and Mr. Howard, most of whom were dissenters, against the election of 
the two former gentlemen, on the ground that the returning officers had 
acted unfairly in rejecting many legally good votes for Messrs. Whitbread 
and Howard, receiving many legally bad ones for the other two candidates. 
Petitions impeaching the return were also presented to the House of Com- 
mons by Mr. Whitbread and Mr. Howard. 

Nothing, however, could divert our philanthropist from his own peculiar 
walk of charity, and the interval between the election and the hearing of 
the petitions against its validity was diligently employed by him in a tour 
through Scotland and Ireland, for the purpose of inspecting the prisons there, 
and comparing them with those of England and Wales. With the Scotch 



586* AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

system of prison management he seems to have been, on the whole, much 
better pleased than with that of England ; and he mentions, with particular 
approbation, that in Scotland ' all criminals are tried out of irons ; and 
when acquitted, they are immediately discharged in open court ,' and that 
' women are not put in irons.' Still he found sufficient grounds for complaint 
in the state of the prisons themselves. ' The prisons,' he says, ' that I 
saw in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Stirling, Jedburgh, Haddington, Ayr, 
Kelso, Nairn, Banff, Inverness, etc., were old buildings, dirty and offensive, 
without courtyards, and also generally without water.' ' The tolbooth at 
Inverness,' he afterwards observes, ' has no fire place, and is the most dirty 
and offensive prison that I have seen in Scotland.' In the Irish prisons 
he found, as might have been expected, abuses even more shocking than 
those he had generally met with in England. 

In March 1775, Mr. Howard having by this time returned to England, 
his petition and that of Mr. Whitbread against the return of Sir William 
Wake and Mr. Sparrow were taken into consideration by a committee of 
the House of Commons. On a revision of the poll, the numbers, after 
adding the good votes which had been rejected, and striking off the bad 
ones which had been accepted, stood thus — Mr. Whitbread, 568; Sir 
William Wake, 541; Mr. Howard, 537; Mr. Sparrow, 529. ^ Thus, 
although by a small majority, Mr. Howard lost the election ; his friend, Mr. 
Whitbread, who had formerly been in the same predicament, was now 
returned at the top of the poll in lieu of Mr. Sparrow. 

It was perhaps a fortunate circumstance for the world that Mr. Howard 
did not succeed in being returned to parliament. He might no doubt have 
been of great service as a member of the legislature ; but his true func- 
tion was that which he had already chosen for himself — a voluntary and 
unofficial inquirer into the latent miseries of human society. It was not 
so much as a propounder of schemes of social improvement that Mr. How- 
ard appeared ; it was rather as an explorer of unvisited scenes of wretched- 
ness, who should drag into the public gaze all manner of grievances, in 
order that the general wisdom and benevolence of the country might be 
brought to bear upon them. In a complex state of society, where wealth 
and poverty, comfort and indigence, are naturally separated from each 
other as far as possible, so that the eyes and ears of the upper classes may 
not be offended and nauseated by the sights and sounds of wo, the inter- 
ference of this class of persons — inspectors, as they may be called, whose 
business it is to see and report — is among the most necessary of all acts 
for social wellbeing. 

Mr. Howard having completed his survey of the prisons of Great 
Britain, began to prepare his reports for publication. 'I designed,' says 
he, ' to publish the account of our prisons in the spring of 1775, after I 
returned from Scotland and Ireland. But conjecturing that something 
useful to my purpose might be collected abroad, I laid aside my papers, 
and traveled into France, Flanders, Holland, and Germany.' The pre- 
cise route which he pursued during this, his fifth continental tour, is not 
known ; he appears, however, to have gone to France first. He gives the 
following account of his attempt to gain admission to the famous Bastile 
of Paris. 1 1 was desirous of examining it myself, and for that purpose 
knocked hard at the outer gate, and immediately went forward through 
the guard to the drawbridge before the entrance of the castle. But while 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 587 

I was contemplating this gloomy mansion, an officer came out much sur- 
prised, and I was forced to retreat through the mute guard, and thus 
regained that freedom which, for one locked up within those walls, it is 
next to impossible to obtain.' On this singular adventure of Mr. Howard 
one of his biographers makes the following remark. ' In the space of four 
centuries, from the foundation to the destruction of the Bastile, perhaps 
Mr. Howard was the only person that was ever compelled to quit it reluc- 
tantly.' Although denied admission to the Bastile, Mr. Howard was able 
to obtain entrance into the other prisons of Paris. His first application, 
indeed, for admittance to the Gf-rand Qhatelet was unsuccessful ; but hap- 
pening to remark that, by the tenth article of the arret of 1717, jailers 
were authorized to admit persons desirous of bestowing charity on the 
prisoners, he pleaded it before the Commissaire de la Prison ; and in this 
way gained admission not only to that prison, but to the others. Except 
for the horrible subterranean dungeons, in which he found that certain 
classes of prisoners were sometimes confined in France, he appears to have 
considered the prisons in that country better managed than those of Eng- 
land. 

Mr. Howard's proceedings in France, French Flanders, and the Nether- 
lands, will be best gathered from the following letter to a friend: — ' I 
came late last night to this city ; the day I have employed in visiting the 
jails, and collecting all the criminal laws, as I have got those of France. 
However rigorous they may be, yet their great care and attention to their 
prisons is worthy of commendation : all fresh and clean ; no jail distemper ; 
no prisoners ironed. The bread allowance far exceeds that of any of our 
jails ; for example, every prisoner here has two pounds of bread a-day ; 
once a-day, soup ; and on Sunday, one pound of meat. I write to you, 
my friend, for a relaxation from what so much engrosses my thoughts. 
And indeed I force myself to the public dinners and suppers for that pur- 
pose, though I show so little respect to a set of men who are so highly 
esteemed (the French cooks), that I have not tasted fish, flesh, or fowl 
since I have been this side the water. Through a kind Providence I am 
very well; calm, easy in spirits. The public voitures have not been 
crowded, and I have met, in general, agreeable company. I hope to be in 
Holland the beginning of next week.' 

After visiting the principal prisons in Holland and part of Germany, 
most of which seem to have particularly pleased him, when contrasted 
with those at home, Mr. Howard returned to England in the end of July, 
1775. Not to rest, however ; for he immediately commenced a second 
survey of the English prisons. This was interrupted, in the beginning of 
the year 1776, when he made a trip to Switzerland to visit the Swiss jails, 
taking some of the French ones in his way. Returning to England, he 
resumed his second survey of the English and Welsh prisons ; and when 
this was completed to his satisfaction in the beginning of 1777, he took 
up his residence for the spring at the town of Warrington, in Lancashire, 
where he had resolved to have his work on prisons printed. His reasons 
for printing the book there, rather than in London, were various ; one of 
them was, that he wished to be near his friend Dr. (then Mr.) Aikin, 
employed as a surgeon in Warrington, whose literary talents were of 
assistance to him in fitting the work for publication. Dr. Aikin gives the 
following account of the process which Mr. Howard's notes underwent, in 



588 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

order to qualify them for being sent to press — his own composition, as our 
readers are already aware, being none of the most correct in a grammati- 
cal point of view. .' On his return from his tours,' says Dr. Aikin, 'he 
took all his memorandum-books to an old, retired friend of his, who 
assisted him in methodising them, and copied out the whole matter in cor- 
rect language. They were then put into the hands of Dr. Price, from 
whom they underwent a revision, and received occasionally considerable 
alterations. With his papers thus corrected, Mr. Howard came to the 
press at Warrington; and first he read them all over carefully to me, 
which perusal was repeated sheet by sheet, as they were printed. As new 
facts and observations were continually suggesting themselves to his mind, 
he put the matter of them upon paper as they occurred, and then requested 
me to clothe them in such expressions as I thought proper. On these occa- 
sions such was his diffidence, that I found it difficult to make him acquiesce 
in his own language, when, as frequently happened, it was unexceptionable. 
Of this additional matter, some was interwoven with the text, but the 
greater part was necessarily thrown into notes.' So intent was he upon 
the publication of the work, that, ' for the purpose,' we are told by his 
biographer, Mr. Brown, ' of being near the scene of his labors, he took 
lodgings in a house close to his printer's shop ; and during a very severe 
winter he was always called up by two in the morning, though he did not 
retire to rest till ten. His reason for this early rising was, that in the 
morning he was least disturbed in his work of revising the sheets as they 
came from the press. At seven he regularly dressed for the day, and had 
his breakfast ; when, punctually at eight, he repaired to the printing-office, 
and remained there till the workmen went to dinner at one, when he 
returned to his lodgings, and putting some bread and raisins, or other dried 
fruit, in his pocket, generally took a walk in the outskirts of the town, eat- 
ing, as he walked, his hermit fare, which, with a glass of water on his 
return, was the only dinner he took. When he had returned to the print- 
ing-office, he generally remained there until the men left work, and then 
repaired to Mr. Aikin's house, to go through with him any sheets which 
might have been composed during the day ; or, if there were nothing upon 
which he wished to consult him, he would either spend an hour with some 
friend, or return to his own lodgings, where he took his tea or coffee in 
lieu of supper, and at his usual hour retired to bed.' 

In April 1777 appeared the work which had cost him so much labor. 
Its title was, 'The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, with Pre- 
liminary Observations, and an Account of some Foreign Prisons. By 
John Howard, F.R.S.' Although the work was very bulky, consisting of 
520 quarto pages, with four large plates, yet 'so zealous was he,' says 
Dr Aikin, 'to diffuse information, and so determined to obviate any idea 
that he meant to repay his expenses by the profitable trade of book-making, 
that he insisted on fixing the price of the volume so low, that, had every 
copy been sold, he would still have presented the public with all the 
plates and great part of the printing.' Besides, he distributed copies pro- 
fusely among all persons who possessed, or might possibly possess, influ- 
ence in carrying his benevolent views into effect. 'As soon as the book 
appeared,' continues Dr. Aikin, ' the world was astonished at the mass of 
valuable materials accumulated by a private unaided individual, through a 
course of prodigious labor, and at the constant hazard of life, in conse- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 589 

quence of the infectious diseases prevalent in the scenes of his inquiries. 
The cool good sense and moderation of his narrative, contrasted with 
that enthusiastic ardor which must have impelled him to the undertaking, 
were not less admired ; and he was immediately regarded as one of the extra- 
ordinary characters of the age, and as a leader in all plans of meliorating 
the condition of that wreched part of the community for whom he inter- 
ested himself.' 

To give an idea of the extent of the evils of the prison system in the 
time of Howard, and of the thorough manner in which these were taken 
cognizance of by him, we will present our readers with an abridgment of 
the introductory section of his work, in which, before passing to his special 
report on the state of the various prisons which he had visited, he gives a 
summary, or 'General View of Distress in Prisons.' The extracts will be 
found not only interesting in their connexion with Howard's life, but also 
interesting in themselves. 

' There are prisons,' he begins, 'into which whoever looks will, at first 
sight of the people confined, be convinced that there is some great error 
in the management of them ; their sallow, meagre countenances declare, 
without words, that they are very miserable. Many who went in healthy, 
are in a few months changed to emaciated, dejected objects. Some are 
seen pining under diseases, 'sick and in prison,' expiring on the floors, in 
loathsome cells, of pestilential fevers and confluent small-pox ; victims, I 
must not say to the cruelty, but I will say to the inattention, of sheriffs 
and gentlemen in the commission of the peace. The cause of this dis- 
tress is, that many prisons are scantily supplied, and some almost totally 
destitute, of the necessaries of life. 

l Food. — There are several bridewells in which prisoners have no allow- 
ance of food at all. In some, the keeper farms what little is allowed them ; 
and where he engages to supply each prisoner with one or two penny- 
worths of bread a-day, I have known this shrunk to half, sometimes less 
than half the quantity — out of, or broken from, his own loaf. It will per- 
haps be asked — Does not their work maintain them ? The answer to that 
question, though true, will hardly be believed. There are few bridewells 
in which any work is done, or can be done. The prisoners have neither 
tools nor materials of any kind, but spend their time in sloth, profaneness, 
and debauchery, to a degree which, in some of those houses that I have 
seen, is extremely shocking. . . . The same complaint — ivant of food — 
is to be found in many county jails. In above half of these debtors have 
no bread, although it is granted to the highwayman, the housebreaker, and 
the murderer ; and medical assistance, which is provided for the latter, is 
withheld from the former. In many of these jails, debtors who would work 
are not permitted to have any tools, lest they should furnish felons with 
them for escape, or other mischief. I have often seen these prisoners 
eating their water-soup (bread boiled in mere water), and heard them say, 
'We are locked up, and almost starved to death.' As to the relief pro- 
vided for debtors by the benevolent act 32d of George II, I did not find 
in all England and Wales, except in the counties of Middlesex and Surrey, 
twelve debtors who had obtained from their creditors the fourpence a-day 
to which they had a right by that act. The truth is, some debtors are the 
most pitiable objects in our jails. To their wanting necessary food, I must 
add not only the demands of jailers, etc., for fees, but also the extortion 



590 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of bailiffs. These detain in their houses (properly enough denominated 
spunging-houses), at an enormous expense, prisoners who hare money. 
I know there is a legal provision against this oppression ; but the mode of 
obtaining redress is attended with difficulty, and the abuse continues. The 
rapine of these extortioners needs some more effectual and easy check : no 
bailiff should be suffered to keep a public-house. . . . Felons have in some 
jails two pennyworth of bread a-day ; in some, three halfpennyworth ; in 
some, a pennyworth ; in some, none. I often weighed the bread in differ- 
ent prisons, and found the penny loaf seven ounces and a half to eight 
ounces ; the other loaves in proportion. It is probable that, when this allow- 
ance was fixed by its value, near double the quantity that the money will 
now purchase might be bought for it ; yet the allowance continues unaltered, 
and it is not uncommon to see the whole purchase, especially of the smaller 
sums, eaten at breakfast — which is sometimes the case when they receive 
their pittance but once in two days ; and then on the following day, they 
must fast. This allowance being so far short of the cravings of nature, and 
in some prisons lessened by farming to the jailer, many criminals are half- 
starved ; such of them as at their commitment were in health, come out 
almost famished, scarcely able to move, and for weeks incapable of labor. 

' Water. — Many prisons have no water. This defect is frequent in 
bridewells and town jails. In the felon's courts of some county jails there 
is no water ; in some places where there is water, prisoners are always 
locked up within doors, and have no more than the keeper or his servants 
think fit to bring them ; in one place they were limited to three pints a-day 
each — a scanty provision for drink and cleanliness. 

l Air. — And as to air, my reader will judge of the malignity of that 
breathed in prisons, when I assure him that my clothes were, in my first 
journeys, so offensive, that in a postchaise I could not bear the windows 
drawn up, and was therefore obliged to travel commonly on horseback. 
The leaves of my memorandum-book were often so tainted, that I could 
not use it till after spreading it an hour or two before the fire ; and even 
my antidote — a vial of vinegar — has, after using it in a few prisons, be 
come intolerably disagreeable. I did not wonder that in those journeys, 
many jailors made excuses, and did not go with me into the felons' wards. 
From hence any one may judge of the probability there is against the 
health and life of prisoners crowded in close rooms, cells, and subterranean 
dungeons for fourteen or fifteen hours out of the four-and- twenty. In some 
of these caverns the floor is very damp ; in others there is an inch or two 
of water ; and the straw, or bedding, is laid on such floors — seldom on bar- 
rack bedsteads. Where prisoners are not kept in underground cells, they 
are often confined to their rooms, because there is no court belonging to 
the prison — which is the case in many city and town jails ; or because the 
walls round the yard are ruinous, or too low for safety ; or because the 
jailor has the ground for his own use. Some jails have no sewers or vaults ; 
and in those that have, if they be not properly attended to, they are, even 
to a visitor, offensive beyond description. How noxious, therefore, to peo- 
ple constantly confined in those prisons ! One cause why the rooms in some 
prisons are so close, is the window tax, which the jailors have to pay ; this 
tempts them to stop the windows, and stifle the prisoners. 

' Bedding. — In many jails, and in most bridewells, there is no allowance 
of bedding or straw for prisoners to sleep on ; and if by any means they 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 591 

get a little, it is not changed for months together, so that it is offensive, 
and almost worn to dust. Some lie upon rags, others upon the bare floors. 
When I have complained of this to the keepers, the justification has been, 
The countj allows no straw ; the prisoners have none but at my cost. 

'■Morals. — I have now to complain of what is pernicious to the morals 
of prisoners ; and that is, the confining all sorts of prisoners together — 
debtors and felons, men and women, the young beginner and the old offen- 
der ; and with all these, in some counties, such as are guilty of misdemean- 
ors only. In some jails you see — and who can see it without sorrow ? — 
boys of twelve and fourteen eagerly listening to the stories told by practised 
criminals of their adventures, successes, stratagems, and escapes. 

'■Lunatics. — In some few jails are confined idiots and lunatics. These 
serve for sport to idle visitants at assizes, and at other times of general 
resort. Many of the bridewells are crowded and offensive, because the 
rooms which were designed for prisoners are occupied by the insane. 
When these are not kept separate they disturb and terrify the other 
prisoners. 

' Jail Fever. — I am ready to think that none who have given credit to 
what is contained in the foregoing pages, will wonder at the havoc made 
by the jail fever. From my own observations in 1773, 1774, and 1775, 
I was fully convinced that many more prisoners were destroyed by it than 
were put to death by all the public executions in the kingdom.* This fre- 
quent effect of confinement in prison seems generally understood, and 
shows how full of emphatical meaning is the curse of a severe creditor, who 
pronounces his debtor's doom to rot in jail. I believe I have learnt the 
full import of this sentence from the vast numbers who, to my certain know- 
ledge, and some of them before my eyes, have perished by the jail fever. 
But the mischief is not confined to prisons. In Baker's Chronicle, p. 353, 
that historian, mentioning the assize held in Oxford in 1577 (called, from 
its fatal consequences, the Black Assize), informs us that 'all who were 
present died within forty hours — the lord chief baron, the sheriff, and 
about three hundred more ' — all being infected by the prisoners who were 
brought into court. Lord Bacon observes, that ' the most pernicious infec- 
tion next the plague, is the smell of a jail when the prisoners have been 
long, and close, and nastily kept ; whereof,' he says, ' we have had in our 
time experience twice or thrice, when both the judges that sat upon the 
jail, and numbers of those who attended the business, or were present, sick 
ened and died.' At the Lent assize in Taunton, 1730, some prisoners 
who were brought thither from Ivelchester jail infected the court ; and lord 
chief baron Pengelly, Sir James Sheppard, sergeant, John Pigot, Esq., 
sheriff, and some hundreds besides, died all of the jail distemper. At Ax- 
minster, a little town in Devonshire, a prisoner discharged from Exeter 
jail in 1755, infected his family with that disease, of which two of them 
died ; and many others in that town afterwards. The numbers that were 
carried off by the same malady in London in 1750 — two judges, the lord 
mayor, one alderman, and many of inferior rank — are well known. It 
were easy to multiply instances of the mischief ; but those which have been 
mentioned are, I presume, sufficient to show, even if no mercy were due 

* It may be necessary to remind our readers here that the annual number of public exe- 
cutions in Howard's time was fearfully large. 



592 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to prisoners, that the jail distemper is a national concern of no small im- 
portance.! 

' Vicious examples. — The general prevalence and spread of wickedness 
in prisons and abroad by discharged prisoners, will now be as easily account- 
ed for as the propagation of disease. It is often said, ' a prison pays no 
debts ;' I am sure it may be added, that a prison mends no morals. Sir 
John Fielding observes, that l a criminal discharged, generally by the next 
session after the execution of his comrades, becomes the head of a gang of 
his own raising.' And petty offenders who are committed to bridewell for 
a year or two, and spend that time, not in hard labor, but in idleness and 
wicked company, or are sent for that time to county jails, generally grow 
desperate, and come out fitted for the perpetration of any villainy. Half 
the robberies in and about London are planned in the prisons, and by that 
dreadful assemblage of criminals, and the number of idle people who visit 
them. Multitudes of young creatures, committed for some trifling offense, 
are totally ruined there. I make no scruple to affirm, that if it were the 
wish and aim of magistrates to effect the destruction, present and future, 
of young delinquents, they could not devise a more effectual method than 
to confine them so long in our prisons, those seats and seminaries of idleness 
and every vice. 

' These gentlemen who, when they are told of the misery which our pris- 
oners suffer, content themselves with saying, " let them take care to keep 
out," prefaced perhaps with an angry prayer, seem not duly sensible of the 
favor of Providence which distinguishes them from the sufferers. They do 
not remember that we are required to imitate our gracious Heavenly Pa- 
rent, who is kind to the unthankful and to the evil ; they also forget the 

t Of the famous ' Black Assize ' at Oxford, mentioned in the text as an instance of the 
malignity of the jail fever, the following is the account given by the chronicler Stowe : — The 
4th, 5th, and 6th days of July, 1577, were holden the assizes at Oxford, where was arraigned 
and condemned one Rowland Jenkes for his seditious tongue ; at which time there arose 
such a damp, that almost all were smothered. Very few escaped that were not taken at 
that instant. The jurors died presently. Shortly after died Sir Robert Bell, lord chief bar- 
on ; Sir Robert D'Olie, Sir William Babington, Mr. Weneman, Mr. D'Olie, high sheriff; Mr. 
Davers, Mr. Harcourt, Mr. Kirle, Mr. Phetplace, etc. There died in Oxford three hundred 
persons ; and sickened there, but died in other places, two hundred and odd, from the 6th 
of July to the 12th of August, after which day died not one of that sickness, for one of them 
infected not another, nor any woman or child died thereof.' An occurrence so horrible gave 
rise of course to much speculation at the time, and various strange explanations were had 
recourse to, of which the following will serve as a specimen : — 'Rowland Jenkes,' says one 
anonymous writer, ' being imprisoned for treasonable words spoken against the queen, and 
being a popish recusant, had notwithstanding, during the time of his restraint, liberty some- 
times to walk abroad with a keeper ; and one day he came to an apothecary and showed 
him a recipe which he desired him to make up; but the apothecary, upon the view of it, 
told him that it was a strong and dangerous recipe, and required some time to prepare it, 
but also asked him to what use he would apply it. He answered, to kill the rats that, since 
his imprisonment, spoiled his books ; so, being satisfied, he promised to make it ready ; after a 
time he cometh to know if it was ready; but the apothecary said the ingredients were so 
hard to procure, that he had not done it, and so gave him the recipe again, of which he had 
taken a copy, which mine author had there precisely written down, but did seem so horribly, 
poisonous, that I cut it forth, lest it might fall into the hands of wicked persons. But after, 
it seems, he had got it prepared, and against the day of his trial had made a week or wick of it 
Ifor so is the word — that is, so fitted, that, like a candle, it might be fired], which, as soon 
as ever he was condemned, he lighted, having provided himself with a tinder-box and steel 
to strike fire. And whosoever should know the ingredients of that wick or candle, and the 
manner of the composition, will easily be persuaded of the virulency and venomous ef- 
fects of it.' This explanation seems to have been adapted to the public appetite for the won- 
derful; at all events, being anonymous, it is to be regarded as nothing more than a curios- 
ity. The generally received explanation was, that the disease arose from infection brought 
into court by the prisoners; and the opinion, sanctioned by lord Bacon, that this infection 
was a fever bred by the filth of the jail, was but too surely confirmed by subsequent in- 
stances of a precisely similar nature. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 593 

vicissitudes of human affairs ; the unexpected changes to which all men are 
liable ; and that those whose circumstances are affluent, may in time be 
reduced to indigence, and become debtors and prisoners. As to criminality, 
it is possible that a man who has often shuddered at hearing the account 
of a murder, may, on a sudden temptation, commit that very crime. Let 
him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall, and commiserate those 
that are fallen.' 

Such, in an abridged form, is the introductory section of Mr. Howard's 
work, entitled ' A General View of Distress in Prisons ;' but in order fully 
to appreciate the enormous extent of his labors, it would be necessary to 
follow him into the remainder of the work, in which he describes and criti- 
cises, one by one, the various prisons, both foreign and British, which he had 
visited during the preceding four years. It is only in this way that one can 
gain an adequate conception of the misery and wretchedness of the prison 
system of Great Britain in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 

Mr. Howard did not consider that his labors were over when he had pub- 
lished his work on prisons, and laid before the world grievances which had 
long flourished in society undetected and unknown. In the end of the 
first edition of his work, he had made a promise that, ' if the legislature 
should seriously engage in the reformation of our prisons, he would take a 
third journey through the Prussian and Austrian dominions, and the free 
cities of Germany. This,' he says, ' I accomplished in 1778, and likewise 
extended my tour through Italy, and revisited some of the countries I had 
before seen in pursuit of my object.' His observations during this tour he 
published in a second edition of his work in 1780. Wishing, before the 
publication of a third edition, to acquire some further knowledge on the 
subject, he again visited Holland, and some cities in Germany. ' I visited 
also,' he says, ' the capitals of Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Poland ; 
and, in 1783, some cities in Portugal and Spain, and returned through 
France, Flanders, and Holland.' The substance of all these travels he 
threw into a third and final edition of his work on prisons. 

Thus, during ten years, had Howard labored incessantly at a single object, 
allowing no other to interfere with it ; traveling almost without intermission 
from place to place, and undergoing innumerable risks. From a table drawn 
up by one of his biographers, it appears that, between 1773 and 1783, he 
had traveled on his missions of philanthropy, at home and abroad, upwards 
of forty thousand miles. Forty thousand miles traveled in ten years ! — 
not from mountain to mountain, or from one object of natural beauty to 
another, but from jail to jail, and bridewell to bridewell — no wonder that 
Howard, on the retrospect of such a labor fairly accomplished, wrote in his 
diary, 'I bless God who inclined my mind to such a scheme.' 

During his journeys in Great Britain and Ireland, Mr. Howard was 
usually accompanied by a single servant. He traveled generally on horse- 
back, at the rate of forty miles a-day. ' He was never,' says his biogra- 
pher, Dr. Aikin, ' at a loss for an inn. When in Ireland, or the Highlands 
of Scotland, he used to stop at one of the poor cabins that stuck up a rag 
by way of sign, and get a little milk. When he came to the town he was 
to sleep at, he bespoke a supper, with wine and beer, like another traveler ; 
but made his man attend him, and take it away while he was preparing his 
bread and milk. He always paid the waiters, postilions, etc., liberally, 
because he would have no discontent or dispute, nor suffer his spirits to be 
38* 



594 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

agitated for such a matter ; saying that, in a journey which might cost 
three or four hundred pounds, fifteen or twenty pounds in addition were 
not worth thinking about.' 

In the spring of 1784 Mr. Howard, now about fifty-seven years of age, 
retired to his estate of Cardington, intending to spend the remainder of 
his life in peace and quiet, assisting in his private capacity in furthering 
those schemes of prison improvement which his disclosures had set on foot. 
He resumed the mode of life which he had led before commencing his prison 
inquiries ; with this difference, that, being now a distinguished public char- 
acter, his visitors were more frequent and more numerous than formerly. 
There was one sad circumstance, however, which embittered the peace of 
this benevolent man. His only son, who had received his early education 
at several academies in England, and had been sent in his eighteenth year 
to the university of Edinburgh, and placed under the care of the venerable 
and well-known Dr. Blacklock, had unhappily contracted habits of extrav- 
agance and dissipation ; which, to any parent, and especially to one of 
Howard's principles, must have caused poignant grief. Already the unfor- 
tunate young man had shown symptoms of that malady, brought on by his 
own imprudent and vicious conduct, which ultimately settled into complete 
insanity. Of the full extent of this domestic misfortune Mr. Howard was 
not yet aware. 

After nearly two years of repose, interrupted only by the circumstance 
to which we have alluded, Mr. Howard resolved to quit home on a new 
mission of philanthropy, fraught with greater danger than the one he had 
accomplished so successfully. During his inquiries into the state of prisons, 
his attention had been often directed to the spread of infectious diseases, 
and the inadequacy of the means provided for checking the progress of 
fever, pestilence, etc., whether originating in jails or elsewhere. The sub- 
ject thus suggested to him occupied much of his thoughts during his leisure 
at Cardington ; and he at length determined to devote the remainder of his 
life to an inspection of the principal hospitals and lazarettos of Europe, 
with a view to ascertain their defects, and the possibility of effecting such 
improvements in them as would in future preserve the populations of 
Europe from the ravages of that dreadful visitation — the plague. 

Towards the end of November 1785, Mr. Howard left England on his 
new expedition of philanthropy. He proceeded first to France, with a 
view to inspect the lazaretto at Marseilles ; but, owing to the jealousy of 
the French government, it was with the utmost difficulty he could accom- 
plish his object ; indeed he narrowly escaped apprehension and committal 
to the Bastile. After visiting the hospitals of Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, and 
Florence, he next proceeded to Rome. Here he was privately introduced 
to Pope Pius VI, himself a benevolent man. On this occasion the cere- 
mony of kissing the pope's toe was dispensed with ; and at parting, his 
holiness laid his hand on his visitor's head, saying kindly, ' I know you 
Englishmen do not mind these ceremonies, but the blessing of an old man 
can do you no harm.' From Rome our traveler went to Naples, and 
thence to Malta, pursuing always, as his single object, a knowledge of the 
state of the hospitals on his route. Writing from Malta to a friend in 
England, he says, ' I have paid two visits to the Grand Master. Every 
place is flung open to me. I am bound for Zante, Smyrna, and Constan- 
tinople. One effect I find during my visits to the lazaretto ; namely a 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 595 

heavy headache — a pain across my forehead ; but it has always quite left 
me in an hour after I have come from these places. As I am quite alone, 
I have need to summon all my courage and resolution.' 

After remaining about three weeks at Malta, Mr. Howard set out for 
Zante. 'From thence,' he says, 'in a foreign ship I got a passage to 
Smyrna. Here I boldly visited the hospitals and prisons ; but as some 
accidents happened, a few dying of the plague, several shrunk at me. I 
came thence to Constantinople, where I now am, about a fortnight ago. 
As I was in a miserable Turk's boat, I was lucky in a passage of six day3 
and a half. I am sorry to say some die of the plague about us. One is 
just carried before my window ; yet I visit where none of my conductors 
will accompany me. In some hospitals, as in the lazarettos, and yester- 
day among the sick slaves, I have a constant headache ; but in about an 
hour after it always leaves me. I lodge at a physician's house, and I 
keep some of my visits a secret.' From Constantinople he returned to 
Smyrna, where the plague was also raging ; his object being to obtain a 
passage from that port to Venice, in order that he might undergo the full 
rigors of the quarantine system, and be able to report, from personal ob- 
servation, respecting the economy of a lazaretto. On the voyage from 
Smyrna to Venice, the ship in which he sailed was attacked by a Tunis 
privateer, and all on board ran great risks. At length, after a desperate 
fight, a cannon loaded with spikes, nails, and old iron, and pointed by Mr. 
Howard himself, was discharged with such effect upon the corsair vessel, 
that it was obliged to sheer off. From Venice he writes thus to his confi- 
dential servant Thomasson, at Cardington ; the letter being dated Venice 
Lazaretto, October 12, 1786 : — 'I am now in an infectious lazaretto, yet 
my steady spirits never forsook me till yesterday, on the receipt of my 
letters. Accumulated misfortunes almost sink me. I am sorry, very 
sorry, on your account. I will hasten home ; no time will I lose by night 
or day. But forty days I have still to be confined here, as our ship had a 
foul bill of health, the plague being in the place from whence we sailed. 
Then that very hasty and disagreeable measure that is taken in London 
wounds me sadly indeed. Never have I returned to my country with such 
a heavy heart as I now do.' The two circumstances which he alludes to 
in this extract as distressing him so much, and making him so anxious to 
leave Venice and return home, were the misconduct of his son, of which 
he had received further accounts, and a proposal which had just been made 
in London, and of which intelligence had been conveyed to him, to erect a 
monument to commemorate the nation's sense of his former philanthropic 
labors. 

The term of his quarantine at Venice being finished, he proceeded to 
Trieste, and thence to Vienna. How the thoughts of his sad domestic 
affliction mingled and struggled with his daily exertions in connexion with 
the great object of his tour, we may learn from the following touching post- 
script to a letter to Mr. Smith of Bedford, written from Vienna, and dated 
17th December 1786: — 'Excuse writing, etc., as wrote early by a poor 
lamp. What I suffered, I am persuaded I should have disregarded in the 
lazaretto, as I gained useful information. Venice is the mother of alHaza- 
rettos ; but oh, my son, my son ! ' At Vienna Mr. Howard had an inter- 
view with the Austrian emperor, who entered into conversation with him 
on the subject of his tour, discussed with him the state of the prisons and 



596 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

hospitals in his Austrian dominions, and expressed his intention to adopt 
some of his suggestions for their improvement. The attention shown by 
the emperor to his distinguished visitor procured him the notice of many 
of the courtiers ; and a characteristic anecdote is told of his interview with 
the governor of Upper Austria and his lady. The Austrian noble asked 
Howard, in a somewhat haughty manner, what he thought of the prisons 
in his government. ' The worst in all Germany,' said Howard ; 'particu- 
larly as regards the female prisoners ; and I recommend your countess to 
visit them personally, as the best means of rectifying the abuses in their 
management.' * I !' said the astonished countess ; ' I go into prisons ! ' 
and she rapidly descended the staircase with her husband, as if shocked 
beyond measure. The philanthropist indignantly followed, and called aftei 
her, ' Madam, remember you are but a woman yourself; and must soon, 
like the most miserable female in a dungeon, inhabit a little piece of that 
earth from which both of you sprung.' 

Returning home in February 1787, after an absence of fifteen months, 
Mr. Howard found his unhappy son a confirmed and incurable lunatic. 
For some time he attempted to keep him in his own house at Carding- 
ton, under a mild restraint ; at length, however, he yielded to the advice 
of the medical attendants, and suffered him to be removed to a well 
conducted asylum at Leicester. 

The proposal to erect a memorial to Mr. Howard, was so strenuously 
resisted by him on his return to England, that it was obliged to be given 
up. Out of £1533 which had been subscribed for the purpose, about 
£500 pounds were returned to the donors: the remainder was placed in 
the stocks — £200 of it being employed in obtaining the discharge of fifty- 
five poor prisoners in London, a similar sum in the striking of a medal 
in memory of Howard, and the rest being appropriated, after his death, 
to the object for which it had been collected. Howard's opposition 
to the scheme of erecting to him any species of monument, amounted to 
positive antipathy ; indeed nothing was more remarkable in his character 
than his dislike to be praised for what he had done. When one gentle- 
man happened to speak to him respecting his services to society in a 
flattering manner, Howard interrupted him by saying, 'My dear sir, what 
you call my merit is just my hobby-horse.' 

The three years which followed Mr. Howard's return from his first tour 
through the lazarettos of Europe, were spent by him in a new general 
inspection of the English, Scotch, and Irish prisons, with a view to ascer- 
tain whether any improvements had been effected in them since his former 
survey ; and in the preparation of a work giving an account of his recent 
continental journey. This work was entitled, 'An Account of the Principal 
Lazarettos of Europe, with Papers Relative to the Plague ; ' and was 
published in the year 1789. It contained, in the form of an appendix, 
additional remarks on the state of British prisons. 

In the conclusion of his work on Lazarettos, Howard announced his 
intention of again quitting England to visit the hospitals of Russia, Turkey 
and the Eastern countries, in order to gain more accurate and extensive 
views of the plague. 'I am not insensible,' he says, 'of the dangers that 
must attend such a journey. Trusting, however, in the protection of that 
Providence which has hitherto preserved me, I calmly and cheerfully 
commit myself to the disposal of unerring wisdom.' 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 597 

1 Should it please God to cut off my life in the prosecution of this 
design, let not my conduct be uncandidly imputed to rashness or enthusi- 
asm, but to a serious, deliberate conviction that I am pursuing the path of 
duty, and to a sincere desire of being made an instrument of more 
extensive usefulness to my fellow-creatures than could be expected in the 
narrower circle of a retired life.' With regard to his objects in underta- 
king this journey, his biographer, Dr. Aikin, observes that he had 
various conversations with him on the subject ; and found rather a wish 
to have objects of inquiry pointed out to him by others, than any specific 
views present to his own mind. 

On the 4th of July 1789, Mr. Howard, accompanied by a single 
servant, quitted England on his last philanthropic journey. He passed 
through Holland, part of Germany, Prusia, and several cities of Russia, 
examining the state of the hospitals ; and about the end of the year had 
reached Cherson, a new settlement of the Russian empress at the mouth 
of the Dnieper. This was destined to be the closing scene of his labors. 

Visiting, according to one account, the Russian hospital of the place ; 
according to another, a young lady, whose friends were anxious that he 
should prescribe for her, as he had done successfully in many similar 
cases, he caught a malignant fever, which, after an illness of twelve days, 
carried him off on the 20th of January, 1790, in the sixty-fourth year of 
his age. On his deathbed he showed the same calm and Christian spirit 
which had distinguished him through life. To Admiral Priestman, who 
resided at Cherson, and who visited him during his illness, and endeavored 
to amuse and cheer him by his remarks, thinking to divert his thoughts, 
he said, ' Priestman, you style this a dull conversation, and endeavor to 
divert my mind from dwelling on death ; but I entertain very different 
sentiments. Death has no terrors to me ; it is an event I always look to 
with cheerfulness, if not with pleasure ; and be assured the subject is more 
grateful than any other. I am well aware that I have but a short time to 
live ; my mode of life has rendered it impossible that I should get rid of 
this fever. I have no method of lowering my nourishment, and therefore 
I must die. It is such jolly fellows as you, Priestman, that get over these 
fevers.' Then alluding to the subject of his funeral, he continued — 
'There is a spot near the village of Dauphigny; this would suit me nicely. 
You know it well, for I have often said that I should like to be buried 
there ; and I beg of you as you value your old friend, not to suffer any 
pomp to be used at my funeral ; nor any monument, nor monumental 
inscription whatever, to mark where I am laid ; but lay me quietly in the 
earth, place a sun-dial over my grave, and let me be forgotton.' These 
directions were in spirit, although not strictly complied with ; and on the 
25th of January 1790, the body of Howard was buried^ in the spot 
which he had chosen near the village of Dauphigny, at a little distance 
from Cherson. 

The authorities and the inhabitants of the place testified their respect 
for him by attending his remains to the grave. Instead of the sun-dial, 
a small brick pyramid was erected on the spot. In Cardington church, 
according to his direction, a plain slip of marble was erected by his 
wife's tomb, bearing this inscription : ' John Howard ; died at Cherson, 
in Russian Tartary, January 20th, 1790. Aged 64. Christ is my 
hope.' A more stately monument was soon afterwards erected to his 



598 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

memory in St. Paul's Cathedral. Howard's son, who never recovered 
from his malady, died in April 1799, in his thirty-fifth year. 

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. 

George Gordon, the only son of Captain John Byron, by his second 
wife, Miss Gordon, of Gight, and grandson of the celebrated Admiral 
Byron, was born in Holies Street, London, on the 22d of January, 1788. 
His ancestry, of which he is said to have been more proud than of having 
been the author of Childe Harold and Manfred, was composed of persons 
of distinction, but possessing much of that daring recklessness of charac- 
ter which so early displayed itself in the subject of our memoir. His great 
uncle, Lord William, to whom he succeeded, was tried for killing his rela- 
tion, Mr. Chaworth, in a duel ; and his father, who had caused his first 
wife to die of a broken heart, after having seduced her, when Marchioness 
of Carmarthen, became the husband of our poet's mother, as he openly 
avowed, for her fortune alone ; after the dissipation of which, he separated 
from her, and died at Valenciennes, in 1791. At this time, young Byron 
resided, with his mother, at Aberdeen, where in November, 1792, he was 
sent to a day school ; but, according to his own account, ' learned little 
there, except to repeat by rote the first lesson of monosyllables.' After 
remaining a year in this school, he was placed with a clergyman, named 
Ross, under whom, he says, he made astonishing progress ; and observes, 
that the moment he could read, his grand passion was history. His next 
tutor was named Paterson ; with him, he adds, ' I began Latin in Ruddi- 
man's grammar, and continued till I went to the grammar-school, where 
I threaded all the classes to the fourth, when I was recalled to England by 
the demise of my uncle. 

The anecdotes which are told of him at this time, display his temper in 
an unfavorable light, both in his infancy and boyhood. Mr. Moore relates, 
that whilst yet in petticoats, being angrily reprimanded by his nurse for 
having soiled or torn a new frock, in which he had just been dressed, he 
got into one of his 'silent rages' (as he himself has described them), seiz- 
ed the frock with both his hands, rent it from top to bottom, and stood, in 
sullen stillness, setting his censurer and her wrath at defiance. The same 
authority tells us, that once, in returning home from school at Aberdeen, 
Byron fell in with a boy who had, on some former occasion, insulted him, 
but had then got off unpunished ; little Byron, however, at the time, prom- 
ising to 'pay him off' whenever they should meet again. Accordingly, on 
this second encounter, though there were some other boys to take his oppo- 
nent's part, he succeeded in inflicting upon him a hearty beating. On his 
return home, breathless, the servant inquired what he had been about, and 
was answered by him, with a mixture of rage and humor, that he had been 
paying a debt, by beating a boy according to promise ; for that he was a 
Byron and would not belie his motto. Other anecdotes are told of him, 
which show him to have been passionate and resentful to that degree, as to 
leave it doubtful whether the description of him as 'a malignant imp' is 
not more applicable to his early years, than that of 'a lively, warm- 
hearted, and high-spirited boy.' Before closing our account of his infancy, 
we should not omit to state that he suffered much from the malformation of 
one of his feet, which gave him much pain and mortification throughout his 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 599 

life. Even when a child, an allusion to this infirmity so provoked him, that 
he once struck at a person who remarked it, with a little whip which he 
held in his hand, exclaiming impatiently, as his eyes flashed fire, ' Dinna 
speak of it ! ' He himself says, in some memoranda of his early days, 
that he never felt greater horror and humiliation than when his mother, in 
one of her fits of passion, called him a ' lame brat : ' and it is certain, that 
he always felt it as a sort of ignominy, notwithstanding Mr. Moore's as- 
sertion that in after-life, ' he could sometimes talk indifferently, and even 
jestingly, of this lameness. ' His attachment to Mary Duff commenced 
when he was only eight years of age ; but, though, eight years afterwards, 
the account of her marriage with another, 'nearly threw him into convul- 
sions, ' and for a while embittered his existence, it was, he adds, ' the re- 
collection, not the attachment, which afterwards recurred to me so forcibly.' 
This affection, however, was not without its influence upon his mind, and 
probably tended to increase that love of contemplation and solitude, which 
he is said to have sometimes carried to a dangerous excess among the 
mountainous scenery of the highlands. 

In 1798, he prepared to quit Scotland for Newstead, in consequence of 
his accession to his family title, of which, perhaps, he was not a little 
proud ; for his mother having said to him, some time in the previous year, 
whilst perusing a newspaper, that she hoped to have the pleasure of some 
time or other reading his speeches in the house of commons ; he replied, 
1 1 hope not ; if you read any speeches of mine, it will be in the house of 
lords. ' On his arrival at Newstead, he continued his studies under Mr. 
Rogers, a schoolmaster in the neighborhood, and was also attended by a 
quack of the name of Lavender, who had undertaken to cure the defect in 
his foot. Of this man he had a great abhorrence, and took every oppor- 
tunity of ridiculing him ; and, about the same time, the first symptom of 
his predilection for rhyming showed itself in four lines of doggerel, respect- 
ing an old woman who had given him some offense. In 1799, he was 
removed to London ; and at the suggestion of his guardian, the Earl of 
Carlisle, placed under the care of Dr. Baillie, who also attended him on 
his subsequent removal to the school of Dr. Glennie, at Dulwich, where he 
appears to have gained the esteem both of his master and schoolfellows. 
His reading in history and poetry, says Dr. Glennie, was far beyond the 
usual standard of his age ; and ' he showed an intimate accquaintance with 
the historical parts of Holy Scriptures ; ' an assertion which serves to con- 
firm the subsequent declaration of Byron himself, ' that he was a great 
reader and admirer of the Old Testament, and had read it through and 
through before he was eight years old. ' The progress he was rapidly ma- 
king under Dr. Glennie was, unfortunately, interrupted by the foolish 
indulgence of his mother, who took him home so frequently, and behaved 
with so much violence when remonstrated with on the subject, that lord 
Carlisle determined upon removing his ward to Harrow, whither he was 
sent in his fourteenth year. 

In 1800, he had, as he expresses himself, made ' his first dash into po- 
etry ; the ebullition, ' he adds i of a passion for my first cousin, Margaret 
Parker, one of the most beautiful of evanescent beings. ' This was suc- 
ceeded by his attachment for Miss Mary Chaworth, whom he used to meet 
during the Harrow vacations ; she was two years older than himself, and 
does not appear to have given sufficient encouragement to his addresses, to 



600 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

warrant his declaration ' that she jilted him : ' especially as she was, at the 
time of their first acquaintance, engaged to Mr. Musters, whom she subse- 
quently married. There is no doubt, however, that his affection for the 
lady (who is now dead) was sincere, and that the loss of her had an em- 
bittering influence upon his future life. A person, who was present when 
Miss Chaworth's marriage was first announced to him, has thus described 
the scene that occurred : — ' Byron, I have some news for you,' said his 
mother. ' Well, what is it ?' ' Take out our handkerchief first, you will 
want it.' ' Nonsense !' ' Take out your handkerchief, I say.' He did 
so, to humor her. ' Miss Chaworth is married.' An expression very pe- 
culiar, impossible to describe, passed over his pale face, and he hurried his 
handkerchief into his pocket ; saying with an affected air of coldness and 
nonchalance, ' Is that all ?' ' Why, I expected,' said his mother, ' you 
would have been plunged into grief.' He made no reply, and soon began 
to talk about something else. 

This took place in 1805, the year of his leaving Harrow, which he quitted 
with the character of a plain-spoken, clever and undaunted, but idle boy. 
His master, Dr. Drury, for whom he always entertained respect and affec- 
tion, spoke of him as one who 'might be led by a silken string to a point, 
rather than by a cable ;' and being asked his opinion of his pupil, after 
some continuance at Harrow, by lord Carlisle, he replied, that ' he had 
talents which would add lustre to his rank.' Though generally, however, 
reputed to be too indolent to excel in school, it seems that he collected a 
vast fund of information, which was little suspected by those who saw him 
only when idle, in mischief, or at play. ' The truth is,' he says, ' that I 
read eating, read in bed, read when no one else read, and had read all sorts 
of reading since I was five years old, though I never met with a review 
till I was in my nineteenth year.' He was not, at first, liked by his school- 
fellows ; but with some of them he ultimately formed friendships, to which 
he always reverted with a melancholy delight, broken, as most of them were, 
by his own waywardness, or the peculiar circumstances which attended his 
subsequent career. 

His intrepidity was shown in several pugilistic combats, many of which 
he undertook in the defense and protection of other boys. One of his 
schoolfellows says, that he has seen him fight by the hour like a Trojan, 
and stand up, against the disadvantages of his lameness, with all the spirit 
of an ancient combatant. On the same person's reminding him of his 
battle with Pitt, he replied, ' You are mistaken, I think ; it must have 
been with Rice-pudding Morgan, or Lord Jocelyn, or one of the Doug- 
lases, or George Raynsford, or Pryce (with whom I had two conflicts), or 
with Moses Moore (the clod), or with somebody else, and not with Pitt; 
for with all the above-named, and other worthies of the fist, had I an inter- 
change of black eyes and bloody noses, at various and sundry periods. 
However, it may have happened, for all that.' He also told Captain 
Medwin, in allusion to two of his actions at Harrow, that he fought Lord 
Calthorpe for writing ' D — d atheist ' under his name ; and prevented the 
school-room from being burnt, during a rebellion, by pointing out to the 
boys the names of their fathers and grandfathers on the walls. 

In 1805, he was entered of Trinity College, Cambridge, which he 
describes as ' a new and heavy-hearted scene to him ; ' adding, it was one 
of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of his life, to feel that he was no 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 601 

longer a boy. His chief ambition seems to have been to attain the repu- 
tation of a rake and a spendthrift ; and his principal fear, lest he should 
become too fat, to prevent which, he took as much violent exercise as his 
naturally delicate constitution would allow. Among other of his eccen- 
tricities, for which he was more remarkable than his profligacy, though he 
seemed to take a pride in exaggerating the latter, it is said that he kept a 
bear, with the intention, as he observed, of training it up for a degree. 
The time not passed by him at the university, he at first spent with his 
mother, at Southwell, but her violent temper, which his own was not cal- 
culated to appease, soon led to their separation ; and he afterwards resided 
in London, Little Hampton, Harrowgate, and other places of fashionable 
resort. At this period, he is said to have been remarkably bashful, though 
he subsequently so far overcame his shyness, as to take a prominent part 
in some private theatricals at Southwell. In November, 1807, his Hours 
of Idleness was printed at Newark ; and, in the following year, appeared 
the memorable criticism upon them in The Edinburgh Review, which was 
decidedly unjust, though few, perhaps, will agree with the subject of our 
memoir, that these poems were as good as any he ever produced. The 
impression which the ciriticism above-mentioned made upon our poet, is 
described, by one who witnessed his fierce looks of defiance, during a first 
perusal of it, as fearful and sublime. Among the less sentimental effects 
of this review upon his mind, says Mr. Moore, he used to mention that, on 
the day he read it, he drank three bottles of claret to his own share after 
dinner ; that nothing, however, relieved him till he had given vent to his 
indignation in rhyme ; and that ' after the first twenty lines, he felt him- 
self considerably better.' During the progress of the satire, he passed his 
time alternately at Newstead, London, and Brighton, where he took les- 
sons in boxing, and appeared in public with a mistress who accompanied 
him, dressed in boy's clothes, and whom he introduced as his young 
brother. 

On coming of age, in 1809, he apprised Lord Carlisle of his wish to 
take his seat in the house of peers ; and to the formal reply of the earl, 
and his refusal to afford any information respecting the marriage of our 
poet's grandfather, is owing the bitterness with which he attacked the 
former in his English Bards. He at length took his seat on the 13th of 
March, and went down to the house for that purpose, accompanied only by 
Mr. Dallas, whom he had accidentally met. ' He was received,' says that 
gentleman, ' in one of the ante-chambers, by some of the officers in attend- 
ance, with whom he settled respecting the fees he had to pay: one of them 
went to apprise the lord-chancellor of his being there, and soon returned 
for him. There were very few persons in the house. Lord Eldon was 
going through some ordinary business. When Lord Byron entered, I 
thought he looked still paler than before ; and he certainly wore a counte- 
nance in which mortification was mingled with, but subdued by, indigna 
tion. He passed the woolsack without looking round, and advanced to the 
table, where the proper officer was attending to administer the oaths.' 
When he had gone through them, the chancellor quitted his seat, and went 
towards him with a smile, putting out his hand warmly to welcome him ; 
and, though I did not catch his words, I saw that he paid him some com- 
pliment. This was all thrown away upon Lord Byron, who made a stiff 
bow, and put the tips of his fingers into Lord Eldon's hand. The chan- 



602 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

cellor did not press a welcome so received, but resumed his seat ; while 
Lord Byron carelessly seated himself, for a few minutes, on one of the 
empty benches to the left of the throne, usually occupied by the lords in 
opposition. When, on his joining me, I expressed what I had felt, he said, 
" If I had shaken hands heartily, he would have set me down for one of 
his party ; but I will have nothing to do with any of them, on either side : 
I have taken my seat, and now I will go abroad." We returned to St. 
James' Street, but he did not recover his spirits.' Another account states 
that he offended the chancellor by replying to him, when he apologized for 
requiring the evidence of Admiral Byron's marriage, as being a part of his 
duty : < Your lordship was exactly like Tom Thumb ; you did your duty, 
and nothing more.' 

Shortly after he had taken his seat, his satire was published anony- 
mously, of which, though the success, at the time, highly gratified him, he, 
some years afterwards, wrote, ' Nothing but the consideration of its being 
the property of another, prevents me from consigning this miserable record 
of misplaced and indiscriminate anger to the flames.' Before a second 
edition was published, he left England, accompanied by Mr. Hobhouse, 
under the influence of those melancholy feelings, which he has described in 
the early part of the first canto of Childe Harold, in which poem a pretty 
accurate account of his travels is given, during his two years' residence 
abroad. Almost every event he met with, he has made subservient to his 
muse, particularly the incident on which is founded his Giaour, and it was 
during this tour that he swam from Sestos to Abydos. 

In July, 1811, he returned to England, and being visited by Mr. Dallas, 
put into his hands a Paraphrase of Horace's Art of Poetry, expressing a 
wish that it should be printed under the latter's superintendence ; but he 
mentioned nothing of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, until Mr. Dallas ex- 
pressed his surprise that he should have written so little during his absence. 
He then told his friend that ' he had occasionally written short poems, 
besides a great many stanzas in Spenser's measure, relative to the coun- 
tries he had visited ; ' and, at the same time, handed them to Mr. Dallas, 
observing, that they were not worth troubling him with. This gentleman 
had no sooner perused the poem, than he endeavored to persuade the 
author of its superiority, in every respect, to the Paraphrase of Horace ; 
but it was not until after much real or affected reluctance, that he con- 
sented to the publication of Childe Harold, in preference to that of the 
former. He had scarcely made up his mind on the subject, before he was 
called to Newstead, by the illness of his mother, who, however, died a 
short time before his arrival, on the 1st of August. He is said to have 
been sincerely affected at her loss ; and, on being found sitting near the 
corpse of his mother, by Mrs. Byron's waiting-woman, he, in answer to 
her remonstrance with him for so giving way to grief, exclaimed, bursting 
into tears, ' I had but one friend in the world, and she is gone ! ' His 
subsequent conduct, however, had an eccentricity about it, which brought 
the sincerity of his grief into question : — ' On the morning of the funeral,' 
says Mr. Moore, ' having declined following the remains himself, he stood 
looking, from the abbey door, at the procession, till the whole had moved 
off; then turning to young Rushton, who was the only person left besides 
himself, he desired him to fetch the sparring gloves, and proceeded to his 
usual exercise with the boy. He was silent and abstracted all the time ; 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 603 

and, as if from an effort to get the better of his feelings, threw more vio- 
lence, Rushton thought, in his blows than was his habit ; but, at last, — the 
struggle seeming too much for him, — he flung away the gloves, and retired 
to his room.' 

A few months after the death of his mother, a correspondence took 
place between himself and Mr. Moore, the poet, of whose duel with Mr. 
Jeffrey, Byron had given a ludicrous, but untrue, account in his English 
Bards. After several letters of an explanatory, rather than hostile, nature, 
had passed on both sides, and in which each exhibited a manly and for- 
bearing spirit, they became mutual friends, and remained so ever after- 
wards. On the 27th of February, 1812, Lord Byron made his first 
speech in the house of lords, on the subject of the Nottingham Frame- 
breaking Bill, and appears to have pleased both himself and his hearers. 
Mr. Dallas, who met him coming out of the house, says, that he was 
greatly elated ; and, after repeating some of the compliments which had 
been paid him, concluded by saying, ' that he had, by his speech, given 
the best advertisement for Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,' which was two 
days afterwards published. The effect upon the public, as his biographer 
observes, was electric ; as he has himself said, in his memoranda, ' he 
awoke one morning, and found himself famous.' The first edition of his 
work was disposed of instantly ; ' Childe Harold,' and ' Lord Byron,' were 
the theme of every tongue ; the most eminent literati of the day, including 
many whom he had attacked in his satire, left their names at his door ; 
upon his table lay the epistolary tribute of the statesman and philosopher, 
the billet of some incognita, or the pressing note of some fair leader of 
fashion ; and, in fine, ' he found himself among the illustrious crowds of 
high life, the most distinguished object.' The sum of .£600 which he 
received for the copyright of the poem, he presented to Mr. Dallas ; ob- 
serving, ' he would never receive money for his writings ; ' a resolution 
which he subsequently abandoned. Among other results of the fame he 
had acquired by his Childe Harold, was his introduction to the prince 
regent, which took place at a ball, at the request of his royal highness, 
whose conversation so fascinated the poet, that had it not been, says Mr. 
Dallas, for an accidental deferring of the next levee, he bade fair to 
become a visitor at Carlton House, if not a complete courtier. 

In the spring of 1813, he published, anonymously, his poem on waltzing; 
and as it was not received with the applause he anticipated, did not avow 
himself to be its author. In the same year, appeared The Giaour, and 
The Bride of Abydos ; the former of which reached a fifth edition in four 
months. Mr. Murray offered him a thousand guineas for the copyright of 
the two poems, but he still refused to derive any pecuniary benefit from 
his writings. In 1814, his Corsair was published ; the copyright of which 
he presented to Mr. Dallas. Fourteen thousand copies of the poem were 
sold in one day ; but the popularity which this and his other works had 
procured for him, began to be lessened by his verses to the Princess Char- 
lotte, and by a certain peculiarity of conduct which was looked upon as 
more indecorous than eccentric. Under these circumstances, he was per- 
suaded to marry, and, in consequence, proposed to Miss Milbanke, the 
daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke ; but was at first met with a polite refu- 
sal. He was however, not so much mortified as not to make her a second 
offer, though he says, in his memoranda, that a friend strongly advised him 



604 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

against doing so ; observing that Miss Milbanke had, at preset t, no fortune, 
and that his embarrassed affairs would not allow him to marry without one ; 
that she was, moreover, a learned lady, which would not at all suit him.' 
He then agreed that his friend should write a proposal for him to another 
lady, and a refusal being the consequence, he said, 'you see, after all, 
Miss Milbanke is to be the person : I will write to her : ' which he accord- 
ingly did, and was accepted. His marriage took place at Seaham, on the 
2d of January, 1815 ; a day to which he seems to have always reverted 
with a shudder, and on which he, in reality, perhaps, experienced those 
emotions so touchingly described in his beautiful poem of The Dream. 
Superstition had, no doubt, some influence over his mind on the occasion ; 
for, in addition to the circumstances hereafter related in his own words, he 
fancied, a short time previous to his marriage, that he had seen, at New- 
stead, the ghost of the monk which was supposed to haunt the abbey, and 
to appear when misfortune impended over the mansion, — a legend which 
he was versified in the sixteenth canto of Don Juan. His own memoranda 
relative to his union form an interesting prelude to its unhappy conse- 
quences. 'It had been predicted by Mrs. Williams,' says he, 'that twenty- 
seven was to be the dangerous age for me. The fortune-telling which was 
right : it was destined to prove so. I shall never forget the 2d of January. 
Lady Byron was the only unconcerned person present : Lady Noel, her 
mother, cried : I trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and after 
the ceremony called her Miss Milbanke. There is a singular history at- 
tached to the ring : — the very day the match was concluded, a ring of my 
mother's that had been lost, was dug up by the gardener at Newstead. I 
thought it was sent on purpose for the wedding ; but my mother's marriage 
had not been a fortunate one, and this ring was doomed to be the seal of 
an unhappier union still. After the ordeal was over, we set off for a coun- 
try seat of Sir Ralph's ; and I was surprised at the arrangements for the 
journey, and somewhat out of humor to find a lady's maid stuck between 
me and my bride. It was rather too early to assume the husband, so I 
was forced to submit ; but it was not with a very good grace. I have been 
accused of saying, on getting into the carriage, that I had married Lady 
Byron out of spite, and because she had refused me twice. Though I was, 
for a moment, vexed at the prophecy, or whatever you may choose to call it, 
if I had made so uncavalier, not to say brutal, a speech, I am convinced 
Lady Byron would instantly have left the carriage to me and the maid. 
She had spirit enough to have done so, and would properly have resented 
the insult. Our honeymoon was not all sunshine ; it had its clouds ; and 
Hobhouse has some letters which would serve to explain the rise and fall 
in the barometer ; but it was never down at zero.' 

About ten months after his marriage, the birth of his daughter took 
place ; an event that was, in a few weeks, followed by a total separation 
of the parents. So many various reasons have been assigned for this step, 
by the friends of either party, and so much more than has yet come to 
light, has been insinuated by Lady Byron herself, that the real cause of 
their continued disunion still remains a mystery. Our poet has avowed, 
both in his conversation and correspondence, that, during his residence 
with his wife, he had nothing to complain of ; and it was only when he 
found her unwilling to resume her connection with him that he gave vent 
to that bitterness of spirit with which he alludes to her in some of his po- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. G05 

ems. Mr. Moore speaks with all evident bias in favor of the subject of his 
biography ; but whatever inferences may be drawn from the sacrifice of 
the papers relating to this affair, at the request of Lady Byron's family, — 
and the previous request of the lady herself to her husband, that he would 
not publish them, on his sending them to her for perusal, which she declined, 
— it is clear, from the facts that have as yet been made public, that the 
conduct of Lord Byron was at least as culpable, as that of his wife appears, 
in the absence of furtner explanation, to have been extraordinary. Many 
excuses, however, are to be made for the subject of our memoir, who was 
most unwarrantably calumniated on the occasion, and publicly taxed with 
crimes, of which conjugal infidelity was not the least, though, perhaps, at 
the time of its imputation, the most unjustifiable. The ostensible cause of 
their separation was the involvement of his lordship's affairs, and his connex- 
ion with the managing committee of Drury Lane, which led him into a 
course of life unsuitable to the domestic habits of Lady Byron. 'My in- 
come, at this period,' says his own account of the affair, 'was small, and 
somewhat bespoken. We had a house in town, gave dinner parties, had 
separate carriages, and launched into every sort of extravagance. This 
could not last long. My wife's .£10,000 soon melted away. I was beset 
by duns, and at length, an execution was levied, and the bailiffs put in 
possession of the very beds we had to sleep on. This was no very agree- 
able state of affairs, no very pleasant scene for Lady Byron to witness ; 
and it was agreed she should pay her father a visit till the storm had blown 
over, and some arangements had been made with my creditors.' 

The lady, however, expressed her determination never to return to him, 
in a letter which had been preceded by one, beginning, as he ludicrously 
says, 'dear duck !' 'You asked me,' he says in a communication to Captain 
Medwin, 'if no cause was assigned for this sudden resolution ? — if I 
formed no conjecture about the cause ? I will tell you : I have prejudices 
about women ; I do not like to see them eat. Rousseau makes Julie un 
peu gourmande ; but that is not at all according to my taste. I do not like 
to be interrupted when I am writing. Lady Byron did not attend to these 
whims of mine. The only harsh thing I ever remember saying to her was, 
one evening, shortly before our parting. I was standing before the fire, 
ruminating upon the embarrassment of my affairs, and other annoyances, 
when Lady Byron came up to me, and said, " Byron, am I in your way ? " 

to which I replied, " D bly ! " I was sorry, and reproached myself for 

the expression ; but it escaped me unconsciously, — involuntarily : I hardly 
knew what I said.' 

His lordship's next poems were, Lara, The Siege of Corinth, and Pari- 
sina ; the two last of which appeared in February, 1816 ; and, in the 
following April, he again left England, having previously published The 
Sketch, and his celebrated Fare-thee-well. He set out upon his travels 
in no very dejected state of mind, which may be accounted for by an obser- 
vation in one of his letters, that ' agitation or contest of any kind gave a 
rebound to his spirits, and set him up for the time.' After reaching France, 
he crossed the field of Waterloo, and proceeded by the Rhine, to Switzer- 
land, where he became acquainted with Shelley ; and, whilst at Geneva, 
began ^he composition of a poem founded on his recent separation ; but 
hearing that ms wlfs was ill, he threw the manuscript into the fire. From 
Switzerland he proceeded to Italy, where he resided principally at Venice, 



606 AMEBICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and transmitted thence to London his third and fourth cantos of Childe 
Harold, the Prisoner of Chillon, and other poems, Manfred, and The La- 
ment of Tasso. He also wrote, in that city, his Ode to Venice, and Beppo, 
which he is said to have finished at a sitting. His mode of living is accur- 
ately described in his own letters from Italy, which show him to have been 
equally candid and shameless in the confession of his amours. The first 
connexion he formed was with the wife of a linen-draper, in whose house 
he lodged ; and highly censurable, says Mr. Moore, as was his course of 
life, while under the roof of this woman, ' it was venial, in comparison with 
the strange, head-long career of license, to which he subsequently so un- 
restrainedly and defyingly abandoned himself.' It will be unnecessary, 
after this admission from his most partial biographer, to say more than, 
that, after a gross and degrading course of libertinism, his desires were 
contracted into a passion for the Countess Guiccioli ; with whom he first 
became acquainted in the April of 1819, and, in a few months, he became 
her acknowledged paramour. In the same year he was visited, at Venice, 
by Mr. Moore, to whom he made a present of the memoirs, which have 
been before alluded to. He brought them in, says Mr. Moore, one day, 
in a white leather bag, and holding it up, said, ' look here ; this would be 
worth something to Murray, though you, I dare say, would not give six- 
pence for it.' — 'What is it?' — 'My life and adventures: — it is not a 
thing that can be published during my life-time, but you may have it, if 
you like, — there, do whatever you please with it.' In giving the bag, 
continues Mr. Moore, he added, ' you may show it to any of our friends 
you think worthy of it.' 

The Countess Guiccioli having gone back to Ravenna, at her husband's 
desire, lord Byron was about to return to England, when a letter from his 
inamorata changed his mind, and he resumed his connexion with her, on 
her separation from her husband, which took place, on an understanding 
that she should in future reside with her father, Count Gamba. She ac- 
cordingly, in July 1820, removed from Ravenna to the count's villa, a dis- 
tance of about fifteen miles from the city, where our poet now took up his 
abode, visiting Madam Guiccioli once or twice in a month. After he had 
been about a twelvemonth at Ravenna, the state of the country began to 
render it unsafe for him to remain there any longer ; and the Gambas (the 
father and brother of the Countess Guiccioli) having been exiled, he was 
induced to remove with them to Pisa, in the autumn of 1821. It appears, 
that he was himself suspected of having secretly joined the Carbonari ; 
but, though such was the fact, and he had received warnings to discontinue 
his forest rides, he, as he observes, ' was not to be bullied,' and did not 
quit Ravenna till he had shown the authorites he was not afraid of remain- 
ing. His poetical productions, within the three last years, were, Mazeppa, 
his tragedies of Marino Faliero, the Two Foscari, and Sardanapalus, The 
Prophecy of Dante, Cain, and several cantos of Don Juan, the sixteenth 
canto of which he completed at Pisa. At this place he also wrote Werner, 
The Deformed Transformed, Heaven and Earth, and the celebrated Vision 
of Judgment ; the two last of which appeared in The Liberal, the joint 
production of himself, Mr. Shelley, and Mr. Leigh Hunt, who had joined 
his lordship at Pisa. Of this periodical it is unnecessary to say more, m 
this, place, than that it failed after the fourth numbei, and gave rise to a 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 607 

prosecution against the publisher, on account of The Vision of Judg- 
ment. 

An affray with some soldiers of Pisa, who, for some reason or other, 
had attempted to arrest our poet, and some other Englishmen, induced him 
to remove, with the Gambas, to Leghorn, and, subsequently, to Geneva, 
where he took up his residence, in September, 1822. The fervor of his 
attachment had now, probably, declined towards the Countess Guiccioli ; 
and, anxious for more stirring scenes than those in which he had hitherto 
mixed, he engaged in a correspondence with the leaders of the insurrec- 
tion in Greece, which ended in his departure for that country, in the sum- 
mer of 1823. He has been censured by some for quitting Italy without 
having made a provision for his mistress, but it seems that she had refused 
to accept of any : upon what terms they parted is doubtful ; for according 
to Mr. Gait, a friend of his was told, by the lady herself, ' that she had 
not come to hate lord Byron, but she feared more than loved him.' Her 
brother, however, Count Gamba, accompanied his lordship to Cephalonia, 
where he equipped forty Suliotes to assist in the defense of Missolonghi, 
and undertook to provide a loan of £12,000 for the equipment of a fleet 
against the Turks. 

In the beginning of January 1824, he entered Missolonghi, where the in- 
habitants, who hailed his coming as that of a Messiah, received him with en- 
thusiastic demonstrations of respect and applause. He began by attempt- 
ing to induce the Greeks to a more civilized system of warfare than had 
been lately carried on ; and, with this view, he not only personally rescued 
a Turk from some Greek sailors, on the very day of his landing, but re- 
leased several prisoners in the town, and sent them back to Prevesa, in the 
hope that it would beget a similar mode of treatment towards the captives 
in the hands of the Turks. He then formed a brigade of Suliotes, five 
hundred of whom he took into his pay ; and ' burning,' says Colonel Stan- 
hope, ' with military ardor and chivalry, prepared to lead them to Lepanto.' 
The insubordination, however, among the troops, and the differences that 
hourly arose amid - the half-famished and ill-accoutred garrison, rendered 
this step impracticable, and threw him into a state of feverish irritation, 
that destroyed his self-possession at a time when it was most necessary to 
the cause he was struggling to serve. An attack of epilepsy was the con- 
sequence of this state of mind, and on his recovery, he was strongly urged 
to remove, for a while, from the marshy and deleterious air of Missolonghi. 
This he indignantly refused to do ; 'I will remain here,' he said, to Cap- 
tain Parry, ' until Greece is secure against the Turks, or till she has fallen 
under their power. All my income shall be spent in her service ; but, 
unless driven by some great necessity, I will not touch a farthing of the 
sum intended for my sister's children. When Greece is secure against 
external enemies, I will leave the Greeks to settle their government as they 
like. One service more, and an eminent service it will be, I think I may 
perform for them. You Parry, shall have a schooner built for me, or I 
will buy a vessel ; the Greeks shall invest me with the character of their 
ambassador, or agent : I will go to the United States, and procure that 
free and enlightened government to set the example of recognizing the fed- 
eration of Greece as an independent state. This done, England must 
follow the example, and Greece will then enter into all her rights as a 
member of the great commonwealth of Christian Europe.' 



608 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

This was the last ebullition of a mind which was now tottering to its final 
decadence ; though it occasionally broke out in those meteor-like flashes, 
which had belonged to its early vigor. On the 12th of April, a fever, of 
whose premonitory symptoms he had not been sufficiently heedful, confined 
him to his bed, and his physician, Dr. Bruno, proposed bleeding him, as 
the only means of saving his life. This, however, he repeatedly refused ; 
declaring, that he had only a common cold, and that he would not permit 
the doctor to bleed him for the mere purpose of getting the reputation of 
curing his disease. At length, on the 14th, after some controversy among 
the physicians, who now all saw the necessity of bleeding, he consented to 
the operation ; and also on the 16th, saying as he stretched out his arm, ' I 
fear they know nothing about my disorder ; but, here, take my arm, and do 
whatever you like.' On the 17th, his countenance changed, and he became 
slightly delirious ; he complained that the want of sleep would drive him 
mad ; ' and,' he exclaimed to his valet, Fletcher, ' I would ten times sooner 
shoot myself than be mad ; for I am not afraid of dying — I am more fit 
to die than people imagine.' It was not, however, till the 18th, that he 
began to think himself in danger, when he called Fletcher to his bed-side, 
and bid him receive his last instructions. ' Shall I fetch pen, ink, and 
paper ? ' said the valet, as he approached ; ' Oh, my God ! no ; ' was his 
reply ; ' you will lose too much time, and I have it not to spare.' He then 
exclaimed, ' Oh ! my poor dear child! — my dear Ada — could I have but 
seen her — give her my blessing.' And, after muttering something unin- 
telligibly, he suddenly raised his voice, and said, ' Fletcher, now, if you do 
not execute every order which I have given you, I will torment you here 
after, if possible.' The valet replying that he had not understood one 
word of what his lordship had been saying, 'Oh, my God?' he exclaimed, 
'then all is lost, for it is now too late, and all is over: yet, as you say, 
God's will, not mine, be done — but, I will try to — my wife! my child! 
my sister! — you know all — you must say all — you know my wishes.' 
Here his words became unintelligible. Stimulants were now, in direct op- 
position to the opinion of Dr. Bruno, administered to him, after taking 
which, he said, 'I must sleep now,' and never spoke again. For twenty- 
four hours he lay in a state of lethargy, with the rattles occasionally in his 
throat ; and at six o'clock in the evening of the 19th, an exclamation of 
Fletcher, who saw him open and then shut his eyes, without moving hand 
or foot, announced that his master was no more. 

The death of lord Byron created a mournful sensation in all parts of 
the civilized world ; his failings were forgotten in his recent struggles for 
the delivery of Greece, and one universal sound of admiration and regret 
was echoed throughout Europe. The authorities of Missolonghi paid 
every token of respect to his memory that reverence could suggest, and 
before his remains were deposited in their final resting place, some of the 
most celebrated men of the present century had, in glowing terms, ex- 
pressed their sense of his merits. His body after having been brought to 
England, and refused interment in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, was 
conveyed to Hucknell church, near Newstead, in conformity to a wish 
of the poet, that his dust might be mingled with his mother's. As the 
procession passed through the streets of London, a sailor was observed 
walking, uncovered, near the hearse, and on being asked what he was doing 
there, replied, that he had served lord Byron in the Levant, and had come 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 609 

to pay his last respects to his remains ; ' a simple but emphatic testimony,' 
observes Mr. Gait, ' to the sincerity of that regard which his lordship often 
inspired, and which, with more steadiness, he might always have com- 
manded.' 

The character of lord Byron has, of late years, been so frequently and 
elaborately discussed, that a lengthened dissertation upon it, in this place 
would be equally tedious and superfluous. Its best development is furnished 
by his memoirs, and having read these, we may, without fear of controversy, 
come to the conclusion, that in regard to his relation to society he was 
neither a great nor a good man. Had he been desirous of becoming so, it 
was not impossible for him to have succeeded ; the path of rectitude was 
not a greater mystery to him than to other men ; and the metaphysical 
subtlety that has been employed to prove him the possessor of high and 
virtuous principles, only shows how far he has diverged from the track to 
which his panegyrists would wish to restore him. It has been said, that he 
was not driven to profligacy by inclination, but was goaded into it by the 
world's attributing to him vices of which he was not guilty, but which he 
in consequence, out of scorn and defiance, chose to commit. ' I took,' he 
himself says, ' my gradation in the vices with great promptitude, but they 
were not to my taste ; I could not be a libertine without disgust ; and yet 
this very disgust, and my heart thrown back upon itself, threw me into 
excesses, perhaps, more fatal than those from which I shrank.' This is a 
metaphysical apology, calculated, perhaps, to mystify the judgment, and 
cajole the sympathies, of a portion of mankind, towards him by whom it is 
put forth ; but, surely, it is nothing more than the reckless avowal of a 
perverted and a depraved mind, too indolent, too weak, or too proud, to 
adopt any other mode of blunting the sting of one vice, than by plunging 
into another still more odious. We confess we are not among those who see 
in the circumstances of his lordship's life sufficient reason for that way- 
wardness of mind and conduct, of which his poetical and moral character 
form so singular a combination ; and from which, after all, he only averts 
our contempt, by investing it with an aspect that disdains our pity. Lord 
Byron is not the only sensitive young man who has entered upon life with 
blighted hopes, but it is doubtful whether the remembrance of them would 
be accepted as an apology for a similar career to that of his lordship, even 
though the sufferer possessed not the faculty of venting his anguish in 
verse, the opportunity of drowning it in dissipation, or the means and leisure 
of softening it by travel and amusement. 

The subject of our memoir, however, was not without redeeming quali- 
ties: he was brave, generous and benevolent; but he was also passionate, 
disingenuous, and resentful ; and more ready to inflict a wound, than to 
submit to one himself. He was sensitive to a painful degree, both in his 
sentiments, and his feelings ; but, though he writhed under an attack upon 
either, his pride hindered him from showing what he suffered, even when 
such emotions proceeded from impulses the most honorable to human nature. 
He certainly took pleasure in showing the dark side of his character to the 
world; for those who were admitted to an unreserved intimacy with him, 
give indubitable testimony of his possessing, in a very eminent degree, all 
the social and companionable qualities, a heart exquisitely alive to the 
kindness of others towards himself, and a hand unhesitatingly prompt in 
complying with the supplications of distress. There is, indeed, no reason 



610 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to doubt his own allegation (for falsehood was not one of his characteristics) 
when he says, l If salvation is to be bought by charity, I have given more 
to my fellow- creatures in this life, than I now possess. I never in my life, 
gave a mistress so much as I have some times given a poor honest man in 
distress.' Captain Medwin describes him as the best of masters, and as 
being perfectly adored by his servants, to whose families and children he 
also extended an affectionate kindness. His habits, in the latter part 
of his life, were regular and temperate, even to ascetic abstinence ; he 
seldom ate meat or drank wine, living chiefly upon biscuits, coffee, eggs, 
fish, vegetables, and soda water, of which he has been known to drink 
fifteen bottles in a night. Riding, swimming, and pistol-shooting, were his 
favorite amusements ; and one of three things which he used to pride 
himself upon, was his ability to snuff out a candle with a bullet, at twenty 
yards distance ; — the other two were, his feat of swimming across the 
Hellespont, and being the author of a poem (The Corsair), of which four- 
teen thousand copies were sold in one day. He had a great partiality for 
children ; and, besides the affection he always manifested for his child Ada, 
he is said to have felt severely the loss of a natural daughter, born in 1817, 
and who died at five years of age. Prejudice, affectation, and vanity, 
displayed themselves in many parts of his conduct ; he would talk of avoiding 
Shakspeare, lest he should be thought to owe him any thing ; and delighted 
in the addition of Noel to his name, because, as he said, Bonaparte and 
he were the only public persons whose initials were the same ; peculiarities 
which induced Mr. Hazlitt to call him ' a sublime coxcomb.' His pride of 
birth we have before alluded to : it would probably have been somewhat 
diminished, had he been aware of the singular fact of a baton sinister 
being in the escutcheon of his family. Though he professed to despise the 
opinion of the world, no man was a greater slave to it, in some respects, 
than himself. Speaking of duelling, he would say, ' we must act according 
to usages ; any man will, and must fight, when necessary — even without a 
motive.' He was himself concerned in many duels, as second, but only in 
two as principal ; one was with Mr. Hobhouse, before he became intimate 
with him. Of his person he was particularly vain, and it was certainly of 
superior order ; he was about five feet eight and a half inches in height, with 
a high forehead, adorned with fine, curling chesnut hair ; teeth, says an 
Italian authoress, which resemble pearls ; hands as beautiful as if they 
had been the works of art ; eyes of the azure color of the heavens ; cheeks 
delicately tinged with the hue of the pale rose ; and withal, a countenance, 
in which the expression of an extraordinary mind was fascinatingly con- 
spicuous. 

The religious sentiments of Lord Byron appear to have been much mis- 
represented : ' I am no bigot to infidelity,' he says, in one of his letters, 
' and did not expect that, because I doubted the immortality of man, I should 
be charged with denying the existence of a God.' Mr. Moore having sus- 
pected that Mr. Shelley swayed his lordship's opinions, the latter writes, 
* pray, assure Mr. Moore that I have not the smallest influence over lord 
Byron in this particular ; if I had, I certainly should employ it to eradicate 
from his great mind the delusions of Christianity, which, in spite of his reason, 
seem perpetually to recur, and to lay in ambush for the hours of sickness 
and distress.' It is doubtful, however, though he educated his natural 
daughter in the Catholic faith, and he himself observed some of its ceremo- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 611 

nies, whether he was a believer in the tenets of Christianity. He perceiv- 
ed and needed the consolation to be derived from a sincere adoption of its 
creed, but his intellectual pride would not suffer him to prostrate his reason 
at the humiliating shrine of faith. 

The following anecdotes are interesting, and, upon the whole, favorable 
illustrations of the paradoxical character of lord Byron : — A young lady of 
talent being reduced to great hardships on account of her family, came to 
the resolution of calling on lord Byron, at his apartments in the Albany, 
for the purpose of soliciting his subscription to a volume of poems. Having 
no knowledge of him, except from his works, she entered his room with 
diffidence, but soon found courage to state her request, which she did with 
simplicity and delicacy. He listened with attention, and, when she had 
done speaking, began to converse with her in so gentle and fascinating a 
manner, that she hardly perceived he had been writing, until he put a slip 
of paper into her hand, saying it was his subscription ; ' but,' added he, 
' we are both young, and the world is very censorious ; and so, if I were 
to take any active part in procuring subscribers to your poems, I fear it 
would do you harm rather than good.' The young lady, on looking at the 
paper, found it a check for X50. During his residence at Venice, the 
house of a shoemaker, who had a large family, being destroyed by fire, lord 
Byron ordered a new habitation to be built at his own expense, and pre- 
sented the tradesman with a sum equal in value to the whole of his loss. 
Whilst at Metaxata, in the island of Cephalonia, hearing of several persons 
having been buried under an embankment which had fallen in, he immedi- 
ately hastened to the spot, accompanied by his physician. After some of 
their companions had been extricated, the laborers becoming alarmed for 
themselves, refused to dig further, when he himself seized a spade, and, by his 
exertions, assisted by the peasantry, succeeded in saving two more persons 
from certain death. One of his household having subjected him to much 
perplexity by his amorous propensities, he hit upon the following means for 
curing them : — A young Suliote of the guard being dressed up like a wo- 
man, was instructed to attract the notice of the gay Lothario, who, taking 
the bait, was conducted by the supposed female to one of lord By- 
ron's apartments, where he was almost terrified out of his senses by the 
sudden appearance of an enraged husband, provided for the occasion. The 
following anecdote shows how jealous he was of title : — an Italian apothe- 
cary having sent him, one day, a packet of medicines addressed to Mon- 
sieur Byron, he indignantly sent the physic back to learn better manners. 
His coat of arms was, according to Leigh Hunt, suspended over the foot 
of his bed ; and even when a schoolboy at Dulwich, so little disguised were 
his high notions of rank, that his companions used to call him the Old Eng- 
lish Baron. When residing at Mitylene, he portioned eight young girls 
very liberally, and even danced with them at their marriage feast ; he gave 
a cow to one man, horses to another, and silk to several girls who lived by 
weaving. He also bought a new boat for a fisherman who had lost his 
own in a gale ; and he often gave Greek Testaments to the poor children. 
At Ravenna, he was so much beloved by the poor people, that his influence 
over them was dreaded by the government ; and, indeed, wherever he re- 
sided, his generosity and benevolence appear to have been eminently con- 
spicuous. 

Of the merits so universally acknowledged of lord Byron, as a poet, little 



612 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

need be said ; in originality of conception, depth and vigor of thought, 
boldness of imagination, and power of expression, he is unrivaled. His 
most sublime performances are Manfred, Childe Harold, Heaven and 
Earth, and Cain ; the first of these pieces has been highly commended by 
Goethe, who pronounces some parts of it superior to some of the productions 
of Shakspeare. His great and favorable art lies in his portraiture of the 
human character, thrown back upon itself by satiety, conscious of its own 
wreck, yet disdaining penitence for the vices it acknowledges, unable to 
find relief in itself, and scorning to derive consolation from others. In this 
respect, he surpasses Milton, who has only depicted the horrors of remorse ; 
a far less difficult task. Satan has an end in view, to which he is driven 
by despair and hate : Manfred has none, yet, in the stern apathy of his 
soul, he appears to us more terribly sublime even than Lucifer himself. 
Don Juan is lord Byron's most remarkable production ; and contains some 
of his finest and most common-place passages, and shows a command of 
language and versatility of style that have never been equaled. The ten- 
dency, however, of this and some other of his poems, cannot be too explic- 
itly condemned. In Don Juan, sensuality has one of its most powerful and 
accomplished advocates ; the sting by which it is followed he calls the mis- 
fortune of nature, instead of the consequence of vice ; and, thus, instead of 
exalting our notions of virtue, makes us regard the exercise of it as a mel- 
ancholy and irksome duty. 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley, eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, Baronet, of 
Castle Goring, Sussex, was born in that county, on the 4th of August, 1792. 
At the age of thirteen he was sent to Eton, where he was distinguished 
from his schoolfellows by a melancholy and reserved disposition, and an ab- 
stinence from every amusement natural to youth. He soon began to devel- 
op a rigid, unconventional tenacity of character, in relation to what he 
deemed the reason and justice of things, and he was in consequence, at an 
earlier period than usual, removed to the University of Oxford. Here his 
penetrating and inquisitive mind displayed more fully that pertinacious but 
conscientious eccentricity, which forbade his assent to the most common 
truths without investigation ; and, in consequence of publishing a pamphlet, 
in which he attacked the ordinarily received notions of the being of God, he 
was expelled from the university, on his refusal to retract his opinions. This 
step drew upon him the displeasure of his family, whose total discounten- 
ance of him soon after followed, on his marriage, at the age of about seven- 
teen or eighteen, with a lady equally young. The union ended in misery 
to both ; after the birth of two children they separated by mutual consent, 
and Mrs. Shelley subsequently destroying herself, the subject of our me- 
moir was looked upon as her murderer, and spoken of with proportionate 
obloquy. 

A perusal of Mr. Godwin's Political Justice, had first induced Shelley 
to adopt the systematic rule of conduct, by which he subsequently squared 
all his actions, at the sacrifice of every worldly interest. His conduct was, 
in consequence, equally noble and extraordinary ; and though, it is said, 
' he had only to become a yea and nay man in the house of commons, to be 
one of the richest men in Sussex,' he declined it to live upon a comparative 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 613 

pittance. After a visit to Italy, where he formed a friendship with lord 
Byron, and composed his Rosalind and Helen, and Ode to the Euganean 
Hill, he returned to England, and married the daughter of Mr. Godwin, 
with whom he resided for some time at Great Marlow, in Buckinghamshire. 
Here he was remarkable for his unostentatious charity ; and he not only 
administered pecuniary relief to the poor, but visited them when sick in 
their beds, having previously gone the round of the hospitals, on purpose 
to be able to practice on occasion. At Marlow, he composed the Revolt of 
Islam, his introduction to which, addressed to his wife, is, perhaps, one of 
the most beautiful and touching pieces of poetry ever composed. About 
this time he was deprived of the guardianship of his two children, in conse- 
quence of his alleged sceptical notions, and of certain peculiar opinions re- 
specting the intercourse of the sexes. After his separation from them, 
which deeply affected him, and increased his disgust towards the institu- 
tions of his country, he returned, with his family by his second wife, to 
Italy, where he joined lord Byron and Leigh Hunt in a periodical called 
The Liberal. In June, 1822, he visited the former, at Pisa, and, on the 
7th of July, set off, in a boat, on his return to his own family, at Lerici, in 
the bay of Spezzia ; when a tremendous storm came on, and, in a week af- 
terwards, the body of Shelley, with those of Mr. Williams and a seaman, 
his only companions, were washed on shore near Villa Reggio. Their remains, 
after having been interred by the Italian authorities, were, at the request 
of their respective friends, dug up, and reduced to ashes, when those of 
Shelley were deposited in the Protestant burial ground at Rome, near the 
grave of Keats. 

In person, Mr. Shelley was tall and slight, of a consumptive constitution, 
and subject to spasmodic pains, the violence of which would sometimes 
force him to lie on the ground till they were over. The marks of prema- 
ture thought and trouble were more visible in his frame than his counten- 
ance, which, says the writer from whom we have before quoted, ' had a cer- 
tain seraphical character, that would have suited a portrait of John the 
Baptist, or the angel whom Milton describes as " holding a reed tipped 
with fire." ' He had a small, but well-shaped face, with a fair and delicate 
complexion, cheeks not devoid of color, and large animated eyes, that had 
almost an appearance of wildness. His voice was weak and shrill, and had 
a peculiar effect on those who heard it for the first time. He passed a sol- 
itary and temperate life ; rising early in the morning, and retiring to bed 
at ten o'clock, having, in the meantime written, studied, and read to his 
wife, and taken sparingly of his meals, which consisted, at dinner, of vege- 
tables, as he partook neither of meat nor wine. His purse, though he 
possessed but a very limited income, was at the service of all who needed 
it ; it was not uncommon with him, says our previous authority, to give 
away all his ready money, and be compelled to take a journey on foot, or 
on the top of a stage, no matter during what weather. He allowed to a 
literary acquaintance a pension of £100 per annum ; but says Mr. Leigh 
Hunt, ' the princeliness of his disposition was seen most in his behavior to 
myself, who am proud to relate, that Mr. Shelley once made me a present 
of £1,400 to extricate me from debt, and his last sixpence was ever at my 
service, had I chosen to share it.' The following anecdote is told of lord 
Byron, and some of his cotemporaries ; Shelley, at the time, being on a 
visit to his house at Hampstead : — ' As I approached my door,' said Mr. 



614 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Hunt, ' I heard strange and alarming shrieks, mixed with the voice of a man. 
The next day it was reported, by the gossips, that Mr. Shelley, no Christ- 
ian (for it was he who was there), had brought some very strange female 
into the house, no better of course than she ought to be. The real Christ- 
ian had puzzled them : Mr. Shelley, in coming to our house that night, had 
found a woman, lying near the top of the hill, in fits. It was a fierce win- 
ter night, with snow upon the ground, and winter loses nothing of its fierce- 
ness at Hampstead. My friend, always the promptest, as well as most 
pitying, on these occasions, knocked at the first houses he could reach, in 
order to have her taken in, but the invariable answer was that they could 
not do it. At last, my friend sees a carriage driving up to a house at a 
little distance. The knock is given ; the warm door opens ; servants and 
lights pour forth. Now, thought he, is the time. He puts on his best ad- 
dress, which anybody might recognize for that of the highest gentleman, 
as well as an interesting individual, and plants himself in the way of an 
elderly person, who is stepping out of the carriage with his family. He 
tells his story ; and asks him if he will go and see the poor woman. ' No, 
sir ; there's no necessity for that sort of thing, depend on it ; imposters 
swarm everywhere, the thing cannot be done. Sir, your conduct is extra- 
ordinary.' ' Sir,' cried Mr. Shelley, at last, forcing the flourishing house- 
holder to stop, out of astonishment, ' I am sorry to say that your conduct 
is not extraordinary ; and, if my own seems to amaze you, I will tell you 
something that may amaze you a little more, and, I hope, will frighten. It 
is such men as madden the spirits and patience of the poor and wretched ; 
and, if ever a convulsion comes in this country, which is very probable, re- 
collect what I tell you ; you will have your house, that you refuse to put 
this miserable woman into, burnt over your head.' ' God bless me, sir! 
dear me, sir !' exclaimed the frightened wretch, and fluttered into his man- 
sion. The woman was then brought to our house, which was at some dis- 
tance, and down a bleak path ; the next day my friend sent her comfortably 
home ;' and, adds Mr. Hunt, this was one of the most ordinary of Shelley's 
actions. 

As a poet, we think Shelley has never been surpassed ; and we could 
point out many of his passages which are without their equal, even if we 
look for their parallel in the works of Shakspeare, Byron, and Milton. But 
the wild speculative sublimity of his thoughts, the refined intellectuality of 
his ideas, and the mysterious intertexture of sentiment with feeling, which 
are the characteristics of his poetry, will always hinder him from becoming 
popular. Yet, with all this, there is a simplicity about his writings, as re- 
markable, it has been observed, as its views and speculations are remote 
and peculiar. A very just notion of his style has been taken by the bio- 
grapher to whom we have before alluded, who observes, that in all Shelley's 
works there is a wonderfully sustained sensibility, and a language lofty and 
fit for it. ' He has the art,' continues the same authority, ' of using the 
stateliest words and the most learned idioms without incurring the charge 
of pedantry, so that passages of more splendid and sonorous writing are 
not to be selected from any writer since the days of Milton ; and yet, when 
he descends from his ideal world, and comes home to us in our humble 
bowers, and is yearning after love and affection, he attunes the most natural 
feelings to a style so proportionate, and withal to a modulation so truly 
musical, that there is nothing to surpass it in the lyrics of Beaumont and 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 615 

Fletcher/ In addition to the works before mentioned, Shelley is the au- 
thor of Queen Mab, Alastor, Prometheus Unbound, the tragedy of The 
Cenci, and a volume of posthumous poems. 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Oliver Goldsmith, the son of a clergyman, was, according to some 
writers, born in 1729, at Elphin, in Roscommon, Ireland ; but, according 
to the inscription on his monument, at Femes, in the province of Leinster, 
on the 29th of November, 1731. After having acquired the rudiments of 
education at a private school, he was, in June, 1744, admitted a sizer of 
Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B. A., in 1749, but did not 
display remarkable abilities in the course of his academical studies. 
Being destined for the medical profession, he attended some courses of 
anatomy in Dublin ; and, in 1751, entered the University of Edinburgh, 
where he studied medicine under the different professors. His thoughtless, 
though generous, disposition, soon involved him in difficulties ; and in order 
to avoid arrest for the debt of a friend, for which he had made himself 
responsible, he was obliged to quit Scotland abruptly. He arrived at Sun- 
derland in the early part of 1754, when his person was secured, but, being 
released, through the friendship of Dr. Sleigh, he sailed to Rotterdam ; 
and, after visiting great part of Flanders, proceeded to Louvain, where 
he remained some time, at the expense of his uncle, and took his degree of 
bachelor in physic. Hence, it is said, with only one clean shirt, and no 
money in his pocket, he set out on foot for Geneva, which he reached by a 
circuitous route, in the course of which he supported himself by his abili- 
ties, musical and classical. ' My learning,' he says, ' procured me a favor- 
able reception at most of the religious houses I visited, and whenever I 
approached a peasant's house, I played one of my most merry tunes, and 
that generally procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next 
day ; this, however, was not the case with the rich, who generally despised 
both me and my music' 

On his arrival at Geneva, he was appointed tutor and traveling compan- 
ion to a young gentleman of fortune, with whom he continued until they 
entered the south of France, where, in consequence of a disagreement, 
they parted. Goldsmith, however, did not turn his steps homeward, till he 
had still further gratified his passion for travel, although he was obliged to 
resort to his flute, as before, for lodging and subsistence. The death of 
his uncle, during our author's stay abroad, had reduced him to these exi- 
gencies, and on his arrival in London, in the winter of 1758, a few half- 
pence constituted the whole of his finances. In this extremity, he applied 
for employment to the apothecaries, but his awkward appearance, and 
broad Irish accent, were much against him ; and it was only from motives 
of humanity, that a chemist, at length, consented to take him into his 
service. Hearing, however, that his old friend, Dr. Sleigh, was in London, 
he paid him a visit, and accepted an asylum in his house, but soon after- 
wards left it, for an ushership at the Rev. Dr. Milner's academy at Peck- 
ham. In this situation he did not remain long ; for, having obtained some 
reputation from criticisms he had written in The Monthly Review, he' 
entered into an engagement with the proprietor, and, coming to London, 
took lodgings near the Old Bailey, and commenced authorship as a pro 



616 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

fession. Besides writing for The Review, he produced a weekly pamphlet, 
called The Bee ; An inquiry into the Pi'esent State of Learning in Europe ; 
and contributed several Essays to The Public Ledger, in which his Citizen 
of the World appeared, under the title of Chinese Letters. These publi- 
cations had brought him both fame and emolument, and, in 1765, at which 
time he resided in the Temple, he added to them by the production of his 
celebrated poem The Traveler. This had been written during his resi- 
dence abroad, and was revised and printed at the recommendation of Dr. 
Johnson, his acquaintance with whom was soon followed by that of other 
eminent literary characters of the day. In 1766, appeared his Vicar of 
Wakefield, and his History of England, in a series of letters, two of his 
most successful performances, and which were received with immediate 
applause. In 1768, his comedy of The Good-natured Man, was brought 
out at Covent Garden, with a prologue by Dr. Johnson ; but the success of 
it was not proportionate to its merits. In 1770, appeared his exquisite 
poem of The Deserted Village, for which he received <£100, but could 
hardly be prevailed upon to accept it, until satisfied that the profits of the 
bookseller could afford that sum. It is, indeed, said by one of his biogra- 
phers, that he went back and returned the money, observing, ' he had not 
been easy since he received it ;' and left it to the bookseller to pay him 
according to the profits of the sale. 

In 1772, was acted his celebrated comedy of She Stoops to Conquer, 
concerning the acceptance and success of which he appears to have been 
equally anxious and doubtful. His letter to Colman, about this time, does 
not represent his circumstances in a very favorable light : ' I have, as you 
know,' he says, ' a large sum of money to make up shortly ; by accepting 
my play, I can readily satisfy my creditors that way ; at any rate, I must 
look about to some certainty to be prepared. For God's sake, take the 
play, and let us make the best of it ; and let me have the same measure, 
at least, which you have given as bad plays as mine.' During the first 
performance of the comedy, he is said to have walked all the time in St. 
James' Park, in great uneasiness, until, thinking it must be over, he has- 
tened to the theatre. His ears were assailed with hisses as he entered the 
green-room; when he eagerly inquired of Mr. Colman the cause. — 'Psha! 
psha !' said Colman, ' don't be afraid of squibs, when we have been sitting 
on a barrel of gunpowder these two hours.' The fact was, that the comedy 
had been completely successful, and that it was the farce which had excited 
these sounds so terrific to Goldsmith. 

In the following year, his last theatrical piece, entitled The Grumbler, 
a farce, altered from Sedley, was acted, for the benefit of Mr. Quick ; but 
it was not repeated, and was never printed. His other productions are, a 
Roman History, a History of England, in four volumes, a Grecian History, 
and a History of the Earth and Animated Nature, compiled from Buffon and 
others. He had acquired more than a sufficiency, by his writings, for his com- 
forts and necessaries; but his indiscriminate and improvident liberality, added 
to a passion for gaming, rendered his emoluments comparatively useless ; 
and at length threw him into a state of despondency, which terminated in 
a nervous fever, and deprived him of fife on the 4th of April, 1774. He 
was buried in the Temple Church, and a monument was afterwards erected 
to his memory in Westminster Abbey, at the expense of a literary club to 
which he belonged, with an inscription by Dr. Johnson. He is described 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 617 

as a ' poet, natural philosopher, and historian ; who left no species of writing 
untouched, or unadorned by his pen, whether to move laughter, or draw 
tears. He was a powerful master over the affections, though, at the same 
time, a gentle tyrant ; of a genius at once sublime, lively, and equal to 
every subject : in expression at once noble, pure, and delicate.' 

The character of Goldsmith was in the highest degree good-natured and 
benevolent ; he was every one's friend, and any one's dupe ; retaining, as 
he did, amid all his worldly experience, his natural simplicity and philan- 
thropy of heart. But he was not truly estimable ; for he was, with all his 
good qualities, improvident, dissipated, and meanly jealous of a literary 
rival. He was also, at times, impetuous and passionate ; but corrected 
himself upon a moment's reflection ; and it is said his servants would throw 
themselves in his way upon these occasions, as they were certain of being 
rewarded after the anger of their master had subsided. Mrs. Piozzi 
describes him as a poor fretful creature, eaten up with affectation and envy, 
and the only person she ever knew who acknowledged himself to be envious. 
It is known that he used his pen better than his tongue ; and the same 
lady calls his conversation a strange mixture of absurdity and silliness. 
Some one who saw him for the first time in company, declared he was ' the 
most solemn coxcomb he had ever met with ;' and the phrase of ' inspired 
idiot ' is well known as applied to him. As an author he is to be consid- 
ered in the character of a poet, historical compiler, novelist, essayist, and 
dramatist ; in all of which he has been so far successful, as to leave some 
work in these respective departments of literature, alone sufficient to per- 
petuate his reputation. It is as a poet, however, that he will be chiefly 
esteemed ; The Traveler, The Deserted Village, and The Hermit, are un- 
rivaled in their class ; and, though Dr. Aikin has placed them at the head 
of the minor compositions, will always retain their original popularity. 
His literary qualifications cannot be better described than in the words of 
Dr. Johnson, who calls him ' a man of such variety of powers, and such 
felicity of performance, that he always seemed to do best that which he 
was doing : a man, who had the art of being minute, without tediousness ; 
and general, without confusion ; whose language was copious, without exu- 
berance ; exact, without constraint ; and easy, without weakness.' John- 
son was always ready to testify to the merits of Goldsmith ; and being, one 
day, of a party at Sir Joshua Reynolds', where several affirmed that the 
author of The Traveler had neither talent nor originality, he rose with 
great dignity, looked them full in the face, and exclaimed, ' If nobody was 
suffered to abuse poor Goldy but those who could write as well, he would 
have few censors.' 

Many anecdotes are told of his credulous simplicity, and indiscriminate 
benevolence. Sitting, one evening, at the tavern where he was accustomed 
to take his supper, he called for a mutton chop, which was no sooner placed 
on the table, than a gentleman near him, with whom he was intimately 
acquainted, showed great tokens of uneasiness, and wondered how the 
doctor could suffer the waiter to place such a stinking chop before him. 
* Stinking!' said Goldsmith, 'in good truth I do not smell it.' ' I never 
smelled anything more unpleasant in my life, ' answered the gentleman ; 
' the fellow deserves a caning for bringing you meat unfit to eat. ' ' In 
good troth,' said the poet, relying on his judgment, ' I think so too ; but I 
will be less severe in my punishment. ' He instantly called the waiter, 



618 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and insisted that he should eat the chop, as a punishment. The waiter 
resisted, but the doctor threatened to knock him down with his cane if he did 
not immediately comply. When he had eaten half the chop, the doctor gave 
him a glass of wine, thinking that it would make the remainder of the sen 
tence less painful to him. When the waiter had finished his repast, Gold 
smith's friend burst into a loud laugh. ' What ails you now ? ' said the 
poet. 'Indeed, my good friend,' said the other, 'I never could think that 
any man, whose knowledge of letters is so extensive as yours, could be so 
great a dupe to a stroke of humor ; the chop was as fine a one as I ever 
saw in my life. ' ' Was it ? ' said Dr. Goldsmith, ' then I will never give 
credit to what you say again ; and so, in good truth, I think I am even 
with you.' Being pressed by his tailor for a debt, he appointed a day for 
payment, and procured the money in due time ; but before the tailor came, 
Glover called on the doctor, and related a piteous tale of his goods being 
seized for rent. The thoughtless and benevolent Goldsmith immediately 
gave Glover all the money he possessed. When the tailor arrived, Gold- 
smith assured him that had he called a little earlier he should have had his 
money ; 'but' added he, ' I have just parted with every penny I had in 
the woild to a friend in distress. I should have been a cruel wretch, you 
know, not to have relieved him when it was in my power. ' In the suite 
of the doctor's pensioners was one Jack Pilkington, who had served the 
doctor so many tricks, that he despaired of getting any more money from 
hin, without resorting to a chef d'oeuvre once for all. He accordingly 
called on the doctor one morning, and running about the room in a fit of 
joy, told him his fortune was made. ' How so Jack ? ' says the doctor. 
'Why,' replied Jack, 'the Duchess of Marlborough, you must knoAV, has 
long had a strange penchant for a pair of white mice ; now, as I knew they 
were sometimes found in the East Indies, I commissioned a friend of mine, 
who was going out there, to get them for me, and he is this morning arriv- 
ed with two of the most beautiful little animals in nature. ' After Jack 
had finished this account with a transport of joy, he lengthened his visage, 
by telling the doctor all was ruined, for without two guineas, to buy a cage 
for the mice, he could not present them. The doctor unfortunately, as he 
said himself, had but half-a-guinea in the world, which he offered him. 
But Pilkington was not to be beat out of his scheme ; he perceived the 
doctor's watch hanging up in his room, and after premising on the indeli- 
cacy of the proposal, hinted that if he could spare that watch for a week, he 
could raise a few guineas on it, which he would repay him with gratitude. The 
doctor accordingly took down the watch, and gave it to him, which Jack 
immediately carried to the pawnbroker's, — raised what he could on it, and 
never once looked after the doctor, till he sent to borrow another half-gui- 
nea from him on his deathbed, which the other, under such circumstances, 
very generously sent him. One afternoon, as Colonel O'Moore and Mr. 
Burke were going to dine with Sir Joshua Reynolds, they observed Gold- 
smith (also on his way to Sir Joshua's) standing near a crowd of people, 
who were staring and shouting at some foreign women in the windows of 
one of the houses in Leicester Square. 'Observe Goldsmith,' said Mr. 
Burke to Colonel O'Moore, ' and mark what passes between him and me by- 
and-by at Sir Joshua's. ' They passed on, and arrived before Goldsmith, 
who came soon after, and Mr. Burke affected to receive him very coolly. 
This seemed to vex poor Goldsmith, who begged Mr. Burke would tell him 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 619 

how he had the misfortune to offend him. Burke appeared very reluctant 
to speak, but, after a good deal of pressing, said ' that he was really 
ashamed to keep up an intimacy with one who could be guilty of such 
monstrous indiscretions as Goldsmith had just exhibited in the square.' 
Goldsmith, with great earnestness, protested he was unconscious of what 
was meant. ' Why, ' said Burke, ' did you not exclaim, as you were look- 
ing up at those women, What stupid beasts the crowd must be for staring 
with such admiration at those painted Jezebels, while a man of my talents 
passes by unnoticed ? ' Goldsmith was horror-struck, and said, ' Surely, 
surely, my dear friend, I did not say so. ' ' Nay, ' replied Burke, ' If you 
had not said so, how should I have known it ? ' ' That's true,' answered 
Goldsmith, with great humility : ' I am very sorry ; it was very foolish : 
I do recollect that something of that kind passed through my mind, but I 
did not think I had uttered it. ' 

EDWARD GIBBON. 

This celebrated historian, the son of a gentleman who for some time rep- 
resented the borough of Petersfield in parliament, was born at Putney, on 
the 27th of April, 1737. After having received the elements of instruction 
at a day school, and under a private tutor, he was, in 1746, sent to an 
academy at Kingston-upon-Thames ; and from thence, in 1748, to West- 
minster, where he entered the school, and resided in a boarding-house kept 
by his aunt. His delicate health soon occasioned his removal from West- 
minster school, though he subsequently attempted to renew his attendance 
there, after having passed some time at Bath and Winchester, by the ad- 
vice of his physicians. In his fifteenth year, he was placed under the care 
of the Rev. Mr. Philip Francis, the translator of Horace : and, on the 3d 
of April, 1752, he was matriculated as a gentleman commoner of Magdalen 
College, Oxford. Here, according to his own account, ' he spent fourteen 
months, the most unprofitable of his whole life,' and appears to have been 
conspicuous only for his dissipation and extravagance. Such a mode of 
passing his t'tne he attributes less to his own inclination, than to the negli- 
gence of hi? tutors, whom he charges with recommending no plan of study 
for his use, and prescribing no exercises for his inspection. 'I was not,' 
he says, ' devoid of capacity or application ;' and insinuates that he might 
have arrived at academical distinction, 'in the discipline of a well-consti- 
tuted university, under the guidance of skillful and vigilant professors.' 

His departure from Oxford was hastened by his adoption of the catholic 
faith, bis conversion to which he attributed to a perusal of Bossuet's Exposi- 
tion of the Catholic Doctrine, and the History of the Protestant Variations. 
At «. future period he observes : ' To my present feelings, it seems incredi- 
ble that I should ever believe that I believed in transubstantiation. But 
mv conqueror oppressed me with the sacramental words, "this is my body ;" 
ami dashed against each other the figurative half-meanings of the protest- 
ant sects. Every objection was resolved into omnipotence ; and, after re- 
peating, at St. Mary's, the Athanasian creed, I humbly acquiesced in the 
mystery of the real presence.' On his arrival in London, he introduced 
himself to a priest, renounced the protestant, and was admitted a member 
of the Romish church, in June, 1753. His father was highly indignant at 
his religious conversion, and sent him, in consequence, to Lausanne in 



620 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Switzerland, where he resided in the house with Mr. Pavillard, and ' spent 
nearly five years with pleasure and profit.' His tutor, who was a Cahvnis- 
tic minister, spared no effort to convince him that he had come to an er- 
roneous conclusion concerning the catholic doctrine ; and his exertions, aided 
by the mature reflections of his pupil, were at length successful. ' The 
various articles of the Romish creed,' says our author, ■ disappeared like 
a dream ; and, after a full conviction, on Christmas day, 1754, I received 
the sacrament in the church of Lausanne.' During his stay in this city, 
he made rapid and profitable progress in his studies ; and, besides opening 
a correspondence with the chief literati of the continent, he acquired a 
knowledge of French and Italian, and perfected his acquaintance with the 
Greek and Latin languages. 

Previous to his leaving Lausanne, he formed an attachment to a Made- 
moiselle Curchod, the commencement and termination of which, in his own 
words, is too interesting to be omitted. ' I saw,' he says, 'and loved. I 
found her learned, without pedantry ; lively in conversation ; pure in sen- 
timent ; elegant in manners. She permitted me to make her two or three 
visits in her father's house. I passed some happy days there in the moun- 
tains of Burgundy, and her parents honorably encouraged the connexion. 
In a calm retirement, the gay vanity of youth no longer flattered in her 
bosom. She listened to the voice of truth and passion, and I might pre- 
sume to hope I had made some impression on a virtuous heart. At Crassy 
and Lausanne, I indulged my dream of felicity ; but, on my return to 
England, I soon discovered that my father would not hear to this strange 
alliance. After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate. I sighed as a 
lover ; I obeyed as a son : my wound was insensibly healed by time, ab- 
sence, and the habits of a new life. My cure was accelerated by a faith- 
ful report of the tranquillity and cheerfulness of the lady herself ; and my 
love subsided into friendship and esteem. A rich banker of Paris, a citizen 
of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to discover and possess 
this inestimable treasure ; and, in the capital of taste and luxury, she re- 
sisted the temptation of wealth, as she had sustained the hardships of indi- 
gence. The genius of her husband has exalted him to the most conspicu- 
ous station in Europe ; and Mademoiselle Curchod is now the wife of M. 
Necker.' 

In 1758, he returned to England, and took up his residence at his fa- 
ther's house, where he devoted himself to the gradual collection of a library, 
and to a strict course of reading. In 1761, he acquired some reputation on 
the continent, but little at home, by the publication of a small work, written 
in the French language, entitled, Essai surl'Etude de la Litterature. His 
literary occupation received an interruption in the same year, by his enter- 
ing as captain in the Hampshire militia, in which he remained till the peace 
of 1763. He then set out for Paris, where the reputation he had acquired 
by his Essai, procured him an introduction to the first literary and fashion- 
able circles. After a stay of eleven months at Lausanne, he proceeded to 
Rome, where, as ' he sat musing amongst the ruins of the capital, while the 
bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, the idea 
of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to his mind.' He re- 
turned from Italy in 1765, and again entered the militia as lieutenant- 
colonel commandant ; but resigned the situation on the death of his father, 
in 1770. The interval between these periods was passed by him in a 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 621 

variety of amusements and occupations, partly in the country, and partly 
in London, where, in conjunction with other travelers, he established a 
weekly convivial meeting, under the name of the Roman Club. Alluding 
to this period of life, he says, ' I lamented that, at the proper age, I had 
not embraced the lucrative pursuits of the law or of trade, the chances of 
civil office or India adventure, or even the fat slumbers of the church.' 
His regret at the want of a profession arose, in a great measure, from an 
apprehension of being left, in his old age, without a sufficient maintenance ; 
a fear that acted as a stimulus to his subsequent exertions. 

He had already.made some progress in a History of the Revolutions of 
Switzerland, and, in conjunction with his friend Mr. Deyverdun, had pro- 
duced two volumes of a literary journal, entitled Memoires Litteraires de 
la Grande Bretagne. The former, however, he committed to the flames, 
before it was finished, and the latter met with little encouragement. His 
next performance was more successful ; it was a masterly refutation of 
Warburton's hypothesis that Virgil's description of iEneas' descent into 
the shades was an allegorical representation of the hero's initiation into 
the Eleusinian mysteries. About two years after the death of his father, 
he sat down steadily to the composition of the first volume of his celebra- 
ted history. 'At the outset,' he says, ' all was dark and doubtful ; even 
the title of the work, the true era of the decline and fall of the empire, 
the limits of the introduction, the division of the chapters, and the order 
of the narrative ; and I was often tempted to cast away the labor of seven 
years ; ' and, again, ' three times did I compose the first chapter, and 
twice the second and third, before I was tolerably certain of their effect.' 
At length, in 1776, previously to which he had been returned to parlia- 
ment for the borough of Liskeard, through the influence of his cousin, Mr. 
Eliot, appeared the first quarto volume of his Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire. It was received with a burst of applause, and almost 
immediately reached a third edition ; but the most gratifying result to its 
author was the spontaneous approbation of Hume and Robertson. ' My 
book,' says Gibbon, ' was on every table, and almost on every toilette.' 
The two chapters, however, in which revealed religion was impugned, gave 
rise to various attacks ; but he only thought fit to reply to one, by Mr. 
Davis, who called in question ' not the faith, but the fidelity of the his- 
torian.' 

In parliament, our author was a silent supporter of ministers, and was 
employed by them to compose, in the French language, a manifesto against 
that government, which was sent as a state paper to all the courts of Eu- 
rope, under the title of Memoire Justificatif. For this service he was 
appointed one of the lords commissioners of trade and the plantations, but 
on the retirement of the North administration, his place being abolished, 
he meditated a retirement to Lausanne, for the purpose of completing his 
History. Previously to his departure from England, the second and third 
volumes had appeared in 1781, in which he tells us, 'his Ecclesiastical 
History still breathed the same spirit of freedom ; ' but, ' that his obsti- 
nate silence, with regard to former attacks, had damped the ardor of the 
polemics.' In 1783, he sold every thing but his library, and proceeded to 
Lausanne ; where, in conjunction with his friend, Mr. Deyverdun, he took 
an elegant and beautifully situated house, and devoted himself to the com- 
position of his History, and the pleasures of the society which the place 



622 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

afforded. In four years he brought his Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire to a termination, and seems to have arrived at the close of his lite- 
rary labors with mingled feelings of regret and delight. 'It was,' he 
says, ' on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between 
the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, 
in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took sev- 
eral turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a 
prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was tem- 
perate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from 
the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emo- 
tions of joy, on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establish- 
ment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melan- 
choly spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting 
leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be 
the future date of my history, the life of the author might be short and 
precarious. I will add two facts, which have seldom occurred in the com- 
position of six, or at least five, quartos : First — My rough manuscript, 
without any intermediate copy, has been sent to press. Second — Not a 
sheet has been seen by any human eyes excepting those of the author and 
the printer. The faults and merits are exclusively my own.' 

In April, 1788, the publication of the concluding volumes took place, 
under his own superintendence, for which purpose he had come to London, 
where he passed most of his time with Lords North and Sheffield, and resi- 
ded with the family of the latter. In July, he returned to Lausanne, but 
the death of his friend Deyverdun, which occurred shortly afterwards, and 
' the tide of emigration and wretchedness,' caused by the explosion of the 
French revolution, had broken the charm which that place once had for 
him. In 1791, he was visited by Lord Sheffield, and in 1793, on the 
death of that nobleman's wife, he, at the earnest desire of the former, pro- 
ceeded to England, and again took up his residence at his friend's house. 
After some months spent in familiar intercourse with the principal political 
and literary characters of the time, he sunk under the effects of a hydro- 
cele, the result of a rupture, with which he had been afflicted for nearly 
thirty years. He was tapped several times previously to his decease, 
which took place on the 16th of January, 1794. On the preceding day 
he had talked as usual, and, so far from anticipating his death, said, ' that 
he thought himself good for a life of ten, twelve, or perhaps twenty years.' 

The character of Gibbon, in many points, resembled that of Hume ; he 
died a bachelor ; was a gentleman, a sceptic, and a historian ; treated his 
literary antagonists with contempt, and had a dignified sense of his own 
abilities. He was careful to retain his place in society, by a strict adhe- 
rence to its established rules ; and as he lived for the world, took care not 
to lose its esteem by any conduct inconsistent with the calmness of a phi- 
losopher, the dictates of honor, or the" maxims of morality. He possessed 
a lofty mind and spirit, but acted rather from motive than principle ; and, 
as a politician, he can be considered in no other character than that of a 
ministerial follower for the sake of convenience and emolument. His con- 
duct in his domestic relations was in the highest degree exemplary ; and 
in his friendships he was sincere, constant, and ardent. He possessed 
great natural powers of mind, which he assiduously studied to improve : in 
conversation he is described, by Lord Sheffield, as ready, cheerful, enter 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 628 

taining, brilliant, illuminating, and interesting. As an author, he is 
among the most distinguished of the eighteenth century ; but the lapse of 
forty years has somewhat impaired his reputation for a style which is now 
generally admitted to be enigmatical, pompous, and elaborate, where it 
should have been concise, simple, and explicit. Dr. Beattie says, ' Such 
is the affectation of his style, that I could never get through the half of one 
of his volumes ; ' and a celebrated bishop observed of his ' bulky quartos,' 
that they were ' only fit for the gloom and horror of wintry storms.' None 
can deny to it, however, a pervading splendor, stateliness, and majesty ; 
and, indeed, the writer seems to be always on his guard against a common 
expression, as if he were afraid of degrading his own powers, by descend- 
ing to the level of ordinary capacities. It is thus that he has some passa- 
ges of surprising and matchless beauty ; and where his language is in 
keeping with his subject, the understanding is readily captivated, and the 
ear unconsciously delighted. 

As to the matter of his history, the principal charges against him arc 
the grave ones of a covert attempt to overthrow a belief in revealed re- 
ligion, and a complacent indelicacy of description, especially in the latter 
volumes. To this he answers, that ' the licentious passages are confined to 
the notes, and to the obscurity of a learned language ; ' an apology which 
few, perhaps, will consider sufficient. His attack on Christianity he him- 
self seems to have regretted, though he never retracted. ' Had I be- 
lieved,' he says, ' that the majority of English readers were so fondly 
attached, even to the name and shadow of Christianity; had I foreseen 
that the pious, the timid, and the prudent, would feel, or affect to feel, 
with such exquisite sensibility ; I might, perhaps, have softened the two 
invidious chapters, which could create many enemies, and conciliate few 
friends.' His pathetic observations at the close of his memoirs, show that 
his own notions offered no security for felicity here, if, as he insinuated, 
those of others would fail to do so hereafter. After quoting the opinion 
of Fontenelle, who, he observes, fixes our moral happiness to the mature 
season in which our passions are supposed to be calmed, our duties ful- 
filled, our ambition satisfied, our fame and fortune established on a solid 
basis, he says, ' I am far more inclined to embrace than to dispute this 
comfortable doctrine. I will not suppose any premature decay of mind or 
body ; but I must reluctantly observe, that two causes, the abbreviation of 
time, and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the 
evening of life.' In a letter to Lord Sheffield, after the death of his wife, 
he says, ' the only consolation in these melancholy trials to which human 
life is exposed, the only one at least in which I have any confidence, is the 
presence of a real friend.' 

DAVID HUME. 

This celebrated historian was born at Edinburgh, on the 26th of April, 
1711. He was of a good family, both by father and mother, and the for- 
mer dying whilst he was an infant, he was brought up under the care of 
his mother, whom he describes as a women of singular merit. A passion 
for literature took possession of him at a very early period of his education, 
and, in consequence of his sobriety and studious disposition, he was des- 
tined by his family for the law ; but 'while they fancied,' he says in his 



624 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

autobiography, ' I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil 
were the authors which I was secretly devouring.' His health, however, 
becoming impaired by sedentary application, he, in 1634, went to Bristol, 
with a view of engaging in mercantile pursuits, but found them unsuitable 
to his disposition, that in a few months afterwards he took up his residence 
in France, and laid down a plan of life which he steadily and successfully 
pursued. 'I resolved,' he says, 'to make a very rigid frugality supply 
my deficiency of fortune ; to maintain unimpaired my independency ; and 
to regard every object as contemptible, except the improvement of my tal- 
ents in literature.' 

After a stay of three years abroad he returned to England, and, in 
173,8, published his Treatise of Human Nature, the fate of which he des- 
cribes by saying, 'it fell dead born from the press.' Of too sanguine a 
temperament to be discouraged, he continued his literary labors, and in 
1742, printed, at Edinburgh, the first part of his Essays, which were receiv- 
ed in a manner that fully compensated for his former disappointments. In 
1745, he went to England as tutor to the young Marqueis of Annandale, 
and after remaining in that situation for a twelvemonth, he stood candi- 
date for the professorship of moral philosophy at Edinburgh, but although 
strongly supported, the notoriety of his sceptical opinions prevented his 
success. In 1746, he accepted an invitation from General St. Clair to attend 
him as a secretary to his expedition, which ended in an incursion on the 
coast of France ; and, in 1747, he accompanied him in his military embassy 
to the courts of Vienna and Turin. During his residence at the latter 
place, imagining that his Treatise of Human Nature had failed of success 
from the manner rather than the matter, he published the first part of the 
work anew, under the title of an Inquiry concerning Human Understand- 
ing. Its new shape, however, made but little difference in its success ; and 
on his return from Italy, Hume observes, 'I had the mortification to find 
all England in a ferment, on account of Dr. Middleton's Free Inquiry, 
while my performance was entirely overlooked and neglected.' 

His disappointment was increased by the failure of a new edition of his 
Essays ; but borne up by the natural cheerfulness of his disposition, he, in 
1749, went to his brother's residence in Scotland, and composed his Polit- 
ical Discourses, and Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, both of 
which were published at Edinburgh in 1752. At this time his former 
publications had begun to attract notice, and more than one answer had 
been written to his Essays, of which, however, he took no notice, having 
made a fixed resolution, which he inflexibly maintained, never to reply to 
any body. His Political Discourses were favorably received both abroad 
and at home, but his Principles of Morals, although, in his own opinion, 
incomparably the best of 'all his writings, came, as he says, unnoticed and 
unobserved into the world. In the year of its application, already men- 
tioned, he was chosen librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, when the 
large library, of which he had the command, suggested to him the idea of 
writing the History of England, ' Being frightened,' he says, 'with the 
notion of continuing a narrative through a period of seventeen hundred years, 
I commenced with the accession of the House of Stuart ; an epoch when I 
thought the misrepresentation of faction began chiefly to take place.' The 
history of this period appeared in one quarto volume, in 1754 ; but instead 
of meeting with the applause which he confesses he expected, it was assail- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 625 

ed, as he tells us, c by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detest- 
ation.' The only individuals of literary consideration from whom he re- 
ceived encouragement to proceed, were the primates of England and Ire- 
land, Drs. Herring and Stone ; whilst the sale was so inconsiderable, that, 
in the course of a twelvemonth, only forty-five copies were disposed of. 
He attributed the opposition it met with to the regret expressed by the 
author of the fate of Charles the First and the Earl of Stafford ; but, in 
all probability, it arose from the contemptuous tone in which he spoke of 
adverse religious parties. 

He was so far discouraged by the reception of his work, that he resolv- 
ed to quit his country for ever, and pass the remainder of his days in 
France. The war, however, breaking out between that country and Eng- 
land, his intention was frustrated, and he determined to persevere in his 
historical design. In the meantime he published his Natural History of 
Religion, which was answered by Warburton in the name of Dr. Hurd, in 
1 a pamphlet,' says our author, that ' gave me some consolation for the 
otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.' In 1756, appeared 
his second volume of the History of England, containing the period from 
the death of Charles the First till the Revolution ; and, in 1759, it was 
succeeded by the History of the House of Tudor. This performance was 
not less obnoxious than his first published volume, but being now grown 
4 callous against the impressions of public folly, ' he devoted himself, with 
calm perseverance, of the early part of the English History, which he 
completed in two volumes, in 1761. 

Notwithstanding the altogether unfavorable reception of his History of 
England, which had now become a chief standard work, our author received 
a sum for the copyright, which, together with a pension he enjoyed through 
the influence of Lord Bute, had procured him not only independence but 
opulence. He therefore meditated passing the rest of his life in philo- 
sophical retirement, when, in 1763, he accepted an invitation to accompany 
the Earl of Hertford on his embassy to Paris, where his literary reputation 
obtained for him a reception, which, after the apathy of his own country- 
men, astonished and delighted him. He remained at the French capital, 
in the situation of charge d'affaires, until the beginning of 1766, when he 
returned to England in company with the celebrated Rousseau, who is 
said to have repaid the delicate and generous behavior of our author with 
his usual ingratitude. In 1767, he was appointed under secretary of state 
to Mr. Conway, and after holding that situation for about two years, he re- 
turned to Edinburgh, in 1769, with a fortune of .£1,000 a year. The 
next four years of his life were passed in the enjoyment of ease and repu- 
tation ; the succeeding portion is best described towards the close of his 
autobiography, dated April 18th, 1776. ' In spring 1775 , ' he says, ' I was 
struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at first gave me no alarm, 
but has since, as I apprehend it, become mortal and incurable. I now 
reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very little pain from 
my disorder ; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great 
decline of my person, never suffered a moment's abatement of my spirits ; 
insomuch, that were I to name a period of my life, which I should most 
choose to pass over again, I might be tempted to point to this latter period. 
I possess the same ardor as ever in duty, and the same gayety in company. 
I consider, besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few 
40* 



626 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

years of infirmities ; and though I see many symptoms of my literary repu- 
tation's breaking out at last with additional lustre, I know that I could 
have but a few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from 
life than I am at present.' 

After having finished the account of his life, he, at the request of his 
friends, went to England for the improvement of his health, but returned 
with no benefit, after a few weeks' stay at London and Bath. He now 
employed himself in correcting his works for a new edition, and consider- 
ing himself as a dying man, talked familiarly and even jocularly of his ap- 
proaching dissolution. To one of his friends, who, struck by his cheerful- 
ness, could not help expressing hopes of his recovery, he said, ' Your hopes 
are groundless ; I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could 
wish, and as easily and cheerfully as my best fiends could desire.' His 
weakness increased daily, until the afternoon of the 26th of August 1776, 
when he expired, says Dr. Black, 'in such a happy composure of mind, 
that nothing could exceed it.' 

Hume seemed to have formed a very just estimate of his own character : 
he describes himself as a man of mild disposition, of command of temper, 
of an open, social, and cheerful humor, capable of attachment, but little 
susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all his passions. This 
account of himself is fully corroborated by Dr. Adam Smith, who speaks of 
his social and intellectual qualities in the highest strain of eulogy : ' Upon 
the whole,' says the doctor, in his concluding remarks upon the death of 
Hume, ' I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his 
death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtu- 
ous man, as, perhaps, the nature of human frailty will permit.' Of this 
frailty he exhibited no inconsiderable portion in treating all systems of re- 
ligion as founded in superstition ; and, perhaps, there was a levity of con- 
duct immediately preceding his death, which was beyond the dignity even 
of a philosopher, as it was certainly very opposite to the unpretending re- 
signation of a dying Christian. His person had no affinity to his mind ; 
his face was broad and flat, his mouth wide, his eyes vacant, and the corp- 
ulency of his whole person is said to have been better fitted to communi- 
cate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman, than of a refined philosopher. 
At Turin he fell in love with a lady, and addressing her, declared that he 
was " abime aneanti" "Oh! pour aneanti," replied the lady, " ce n'est 
en effet qu'une operation tres naturelle de votre systeme." 

In his intellectual character he takes his place in the first rank of 
modern philosophical sceptics, and it must be confessed that few writers 
have insisted on their thecries with more vigor, self-command, or ability. 
The merit of his History of England is now generally allowed, though 
notwithstanding his own claim to perfect impartiality, prejudices, particu- 
larly in favor of the House of Stuart, appear in his work, and he has been 
accused of coloring facts to support his favorite and somewhat erroneous 
position that the English constitution cannot be considered as a regular 
plan of liberty before the reigns of the first two Stuarts. Upon the whole, 
however, few historians are more free from prejudice than Hume ; nor is 
he often excelled in the clearness and eloquence of his style. About seven 
years after his death appeared an Essay on Suicide, generally believed to 
have been the production of his pen, and which, it is said, would have 
appeared in his lifetime, had not the booksellers been afraid to publish it. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 627 

An anecdote of Hume is told in one of Dr. Beattie's letters to Mrs. 
Montague, which shows that however sincere a sceptic our author may 
have been, he admitted the propagation of his opinions might be destructive 
to the morals, if not the happiness, of at least one half of the intellectual 
world. 'Mr. Hume,' says Beattie, 'was boasting to Dr. Gregory, that 
among his disciples in Edinburg, he had the honor to reckon many of the 
fair sex. " Now tell me," said the doctor, " whether if you had a wife or a 
daughter, you would wish them to be your disciples ? Think well before 
you answer me ; for, I assure you, that, whatever your answer is, I will 
not conceal it." Mr. Hume, with a smile, and some hesitation, made this 
reply : " No ; I believe scepticism may be too sturdy a virtue for a woman." ' 
At another time, Mrs. Mallet, wife of the poet, meeting him at an assembly, 
boldly accosted him in these words : ' Mr. Hume, give me leave to intro- 
duce myself to you ; we Deists ought to know each other.' ' Madam,' 
replied he, ' I am no Deist ; I do not style myself so ; neither do I desire 
to be known by that appellation.' 

ALEXANDER POPE. 

Alexander Pope was born in Lombard Street, London, of Roman 
Catholic parents, on the 22d of May, 1688. He was according to Johnson, 
more willing to show what his father was not, than what he was ; but his 
principal biographers make him the son of a linen-draper, who had grown 
rich enough to retire from business to Binfield, near Windsor. Alexander 
was deformed from his birth, and of so delicate a constitution, and such 
weakness of body, that he constantly wore stays ; and when taking the air 
on the water, had a sedan-chair in the boat, in which he sat with the 
glasses down. He received the early part of his education at home, and, 
when about eight, was placed under the care of one Taverner, a Romish 
priest, who taught him the rudiments of Latin and Greek. His taste for 
poetry was first excited by the perusal of Ogilby's Homer and Sandy's 
Ovid ; and, on his removal to school at Twyford, near Winchester, he exer- 
cised his talents in verse, by lampooning the master. He was next sent 
to a school in the vicinity of Hyde Park Corner, whence his occasional 
visits to the play-house induced such a fondness for theatrical exhibitions, 
that he composed a play from Ogilby's Iliad, with some verses of his own 
intermixed, which was acted by his schoolfellows. 

About twelve years of age, when he wrote his earliest production, The 
Ode of Solitude, he was called by his father to Binfield, where he improved 
himself by translating into verse the Latin classics, and in reading the 
English poets. The versification of Dryden particularly struck him, and 
he conceived such a veneration for the genius of that poet, that he per- 
suaded some friends to take him to the coffeehouse which he fre- 
quented, and pleased himself with having seen him. As early as 1702, 
he had put into more elegant verse Chaucer's January and May, and The 
Prologue to the Wife of Bath ; and in the same year, he translated the 
epistle of Sappho to Phaon, from Ovid. At this time, the smoothness of 
his versification, which might be said to be formed, surpassed his original ; 
'but this,' says Johnson, 'is a small part of his praise ; he discovered such 
acquaintance both with human and public affairs, as is not easily conceived 
to have been attainable by a boy of fourteen, in Windsor Forest.' 



628 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

In 1703, he passed some time in London, in the study of the French 
and Italian languages ; and on his return to Binfield, wrote a coinedy, a 
tragedy, or epic poem, with panegyrics on all the princes of Europe, and, 
as he confesses, 'thought himself the greatest genius that ever was.' Many 
of the productions upon which he founded this idea of himself, he subse- 
quently destroyed ; nor is it from an earlier period than 1705, that his life, 
as an author, is properly computed. In that year, he wrote his Pastorals, 
which, together with the very elegant and learned preface, received the 
praise of all the poets and the critics of the time ; to whose society he, in 
the following year, more particularly introduced himself, by attending 
Will's Coffee-house, in London, where most of them used to assemble. 
His pastorals did not appear until 1709, and in the same year he wrote, 
and in 1711 published, his Essay on Criticism, which he seems to have 
considered either so learned or so obscure, as to declare that 'not one gen- 
tleman in sixty, even of a liberal education, could understand it.' The 
piece was translated into French and German, and however overrated 
may have been the author's estimation of it, has not been inadequately 
praised by Johnson, who observes that it displayed extent of comprehension, 
nicety of distinction, acquaintance with mankind, and knowledge both of 
ancient and modern learning, not often attained by the maturest age and 
longest experience. The essay, however, was not without opponents, and 
was attacked in a bitter and elaborate pamphlet, by Dennis, in consequence 
of some lines applied to him by Pope, whom he designated as 'a little 
affected hypocrite, who had nothing in his mouth at the same time but truth, 
candor, friendship, good-nature, humanity and magnanimity.' In this year, 
he also wrote his Messiah, first published in The Spectator, and his verses 
on the Unfortunate Lady, who, we are told by Ruff head, having been 
removed by her guardian into a foreign country to avoid the addresses of 
Pope, put an end to her life by stabbing herself with a sword. 

His next production was The Rape of the Lock, which is considered the 
most airy, the most ingenious, and the most delightful of all his composi- 
tions. The origin of it is too well known to need repetition here ; but it is 
doubtful, as generally asserted, whether it had the effect of reconciling the 
parties whose conduct gave rise to the subject. On its first appearance, 
Addison called it a delicious little thing, and urged Pope not to alter it : 
he was, however, too confident of improving it to follow this advice, and 
considerably altered, and added to, the poem. 'His attempt,' says Johnson, 
'was justified by its success : The Rape of the Lock stands forward in the 
classes of literature as the most exquisite example of ludicrous poetry.' 
In 1712, he published The Temple of Fame, and, about the same period, 
his Eloise to Abelard ; to the composition of which he was led, according 
to Savage, by the perusal of Prior's Nut-brown Maid. In 1713, appeared 
his Windsor Forest, the conclusion of which is said to have given pain to 
Addison, both as a poet and politician ; but this is doubted by Johnson, 
who, in proof of the apparant friendship that continued to exist between 
the two poets, refers to the prologue of Cato, written by Pope, and also to 
a defense of that tragedy against the attacks of Dennis. About this time, 
the subject of our memoir is said to have studied painting under Jervis, and 
to have made progress enough to take the portraits of several of his 
friends. 

He now turned his attention to the completion of his Iliad, which he 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 629 

offered to subscribers in six quarto volumes, for six guineas. The subscrip- 
tion soon rose to an amount that, while it gratified, at the same time 
alarmed him, when he thought of the extent of his undertaking ; which, he 
says, disturbed him in his dreams at night, and made him wish that some- 
body would hang him. It was also given out, by some of his enemies, that 
he was deficient in Greek ; and Addison, who does certainly, in this in- 
stance, seem to have been jealous of the fame of Pope, hinted to the 
Whigs, with a view to impede the subscription, that he was too much of 
a Tory ; whilst this suspected him to be of the other party, in consequence 
of his contributions to Steele's Guardian. His genius, however, carried 
him above all difficulties ; and at the rate of about fifty lines per day, he 
soon completed the whole of the volumes, though his repeated alterations 
delayed the appearance of the sixth until 1720. The clear profit which 
he gained by this work amounted to £5,324 4s.; a sum that relieved him 
from his present pecuniary difficulties, and enabled him to secure himself 
against future ones, by the purchase of considerable annuities. 

The Iliad, which is described by the author's biographer already men- 
tioned, as not only one of the noblest versions of English poetry ever seen 
by the world, but, as one of the greatest events in the annals of learning, 
was a source of much annoyance to Pope, both during its progress and 
after its completion. Whilst it failed to gain him a patron, it also lost 
him a friend ; the coldness of Addison he returned with indignation, and 
the overtures of Lord Halifax with indifference and contempt. He had taken 
umbrage at the conduct of the former, in endeavoring to create a rivalry 
between his translation of Homer and Tickall's ; the appearance of which, 
at the same time with his own, he had good reasons for attributing to the 
instrumentality of Addison. A reconciliation between them was after- 
wards attempted to be brought about, by Steele ; but the interview only 
increased their mutual dislike, which continued to the end of their lives. 
Another reason assigned for Pope's quarrel with Addison, is, that he had 
given one Gildon ten guineas to abuse the former in a letter, which was 
published respecting Wycherley. 'On hearing of which,' says Pope, 'I 
wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know that I was not unac- 
quainted with this behavior of his ; that if I were to speak severely of him 
in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty way ; that I should rather 
tell him myself fairly of his faults, and allow his good qualities ; and that 
it should be something in the following manner. I then adjoined the first 
sketch of what has since been called my satire on Addison, — the character 
of Atticus.' Our author's contempt for Lord Halifax arose from that noble- 
man's delay in the bestowal of his patronage, until he had secured some 
compliment, in the way of dedication or otherwise, which the poet was not 
over anxious to render. 'They, probably,' says Johnson, 'were suspicious 
of each other : Pope would not dedicate till he saw at what rate his praise 
was valued ; Halifax thought himself entitled to confidence, and would give 
nothing unless he knew what he should receive.' 

Pope had removed to his celebrated villa, at Twickenham, in the year 
1715, when the first volume of his Iliad was published, from which time he 
generally continued to reside there. In 1717, he collected his former 
works into one quarto volume ; and in 1720, partaking of the national 
infatuation, he lost a slight sum of money in the South Sea stock. In 1721, 
he was induced, by a reward of £211 12s., to give his name and labors 



630 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to an edition of Shakspeare, in which his various errors were detected and 
exposed with all the insolence of victory, by Theobald, in a book called, 
Shakspeare Restored. From this time, says Johnson, Pope became an enemy 
to editors, collators, and verbal critics ; and hoped to persuade the world that 
he miscarried in this undertaking only by having a mind too great for such 
minute employments. The same authority tells us that, in 1723, he ap- 
peared as a witness on the trial of Bishop Atterbury, and that, in the few 
words he had to utter, he made several blunders. In 1725, appeared his 
translation of the Odyssey, in which he was assisted by Broome and Fenton ; 
the former of whom he is said to have treated with great illiberality. 
About the year 1726, he had the misfortune to be overturned in the water 
whilst passing a bridge in a friend's coach, by which he narrowly escaped 
drowning, and lost the use of two of his fingers from the breaking of the 
windows. Upon this occasion he received a letter of consolation from 
Voltaire, whom he had previously entertained at this table, where he is 
said to have talked with so much grossness, that Pope was driven from the 
room. 

In 1727, he joined with Swift in the publication of three volumes of 
Miscellanies, wherein was inserted his Art of Sinking in Poetry ; and in 
the following year appeared his Dunciad, a general attack against all the 
inferior authors of his time, whom he distinguished by the appellation of 
The Dunces. ' On the day the book was first vended,' says Pope, ' a 
crowd of authors besieged the shop ; entreaties, advices, threats of law 
and battery, nay, cries of treason, were all employed to hinder the coming 
out of the Dunciad.' The poem excited a great sensation in all quarters, and 
was presented to the king and queen by Sir Robert Walpole. It is said 
to have blasted the literary reputation of all those whom it touched, and to 
have driven many of them to such an extent of hatred against the author, 
that they held weekly clubs to consider how they might injure him, and 
brought his image in clay for the purpose of executing him in effigy. In 
1731, he published a poem on Taste, by which he incurred the odium of 
all parties, in consequence of ridiculing, under the name of Timon, his 
former friend and patron, the Duke of Chandos ; to whom he wrote an 
explanatory letter, as full of hypocrisy as his verses were of ingratitude. 
In 1733, he published anonymously, the first, and in 1735, under his own 
name, the fourth part of his Essay on Man ; the idea of which he acknowl- 
edges to have received from Bolingbroke, who is said to have ridiculed Pope 
as having advanced in it principles of which he did not perceive the conse- 
quence, and as blindly propagating opinions contrary to his own. Pope 
certainly appears to more advantage as a poet than a theologist in this 
production ; which was on its translation into French, attacked with great 
skill by Professor Crousaz, of Switzerland, who discovered that many of 
the positions contained inferences against the doctrines of revelation. 
Warburton, however, defended the essay, in a manner that ever afterwards 
secured him the gratitude and friendship of Pope, who took the opportunity 
of acknowledging that he had not explained his own meaning properly, 
and of disclaiming any intention to propagate the principles of Bolingbroke. 

His next poems in succession, were An Epistle to lord Bathurst, the 
Characters of Men and of Women, several imitations of Horace. Dr. 
Donne's Satires, and an Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. In 1737, he 
published, by subscription, a quarto volume of his Correspondence ; for 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 631 

the previous publication of which, by Curill, -whom he had prosecuted 
in the house of lords, he accounts, in his preface, by saying that his 
letters had been stolen from a friend's library, and thence sent 
privately to the press. There is, however, good reason to believe that 
they were printed with his own connivance, in order to give him an oppor- 
tunity of subsequently publishing them himself, without incurring the 
imputation of vanity. In 1738, at which time he was visited by the 
Prince of Wales, and was of the opposition party, he published two 
Satirical Dialogues, in which he attacked several statesmen, but with a 
view rather of displaying his powers as a satirist than his sentiments as 
a patriot. These works were followed, in 1742, by a fourth book of The 
Dunciad, which brought on a paper war between himself and Cibber ; his 
attack against whom he repeated, in a new edition of that work, in a strain 
of virulence that contributed more to the amusement of his readers than to 
his own reputation. From this time his vital powers gradually declined ; 
he gave over original composition, and passed his time in the correction 
and revisal of his former works, and in social intercourse with his intimate 
friends, the chief of whom appear to have been Warburton and lordBoling- 
broke. An asthma, with which he had been for some years affected, now 
terminating in a dropsy, his end visibly approached ; he met it with resig- 
nation and calmness ; and after having taken the sacrament, and exclaimed, 
a short time previously to death, ' there is nothing meritorious but friend- 
ship and virtue !' he expired, on the 30th of May, 1744, so placidly that 
the attendants did not ascertain the exact time of his dissolution. He was 
interred at Twickenham, where a monument was erected to him by 
Warburton, to whom he lelft half his library and the copyright of such of 
his works already printed as were not otherwise disposed of. 

The character of Pope has been differently estimated by his biographers, 
Warburton, Bowles, Warton and Johnson. The last seems to have treated 
it in the most impartial manner ; but his view of it is too diffuse and incon- 
gruous to be altogether satisfactory. Upon the whole Pope seems to have 
been more deserving of praise than he is represented ; he has been con- 
sidered exclusively in his literary character to have had justice done to him 
as a man. His reputation even as a poet, in the complete sense of the 
word, has been a subject of dispute with many ; but it is idle to deny him 
a title to which none have so zealously, if so successfully, aspired. It is 
not to be denied that, upon the ground-work of others, he has raised some 
of his most beautiful superstructures ; but from whatever sources he may 
have drawn his ideas, he has transferred them immortally to his own verses, 
by the manner in which he there enshrined them. His Iliad will probably 
continue to supersede all other translations ; whilst the exquisite machinery 
of the sylphs in The Rape of the Lock, and the vigorous animation and 
pathetic tenderness pervading his Verses on the Unfortunate Lady, evince 
an original genius which may successfully challenge competition: His 
avowed model was Dryden ; between whom and himself, Johnson, in 
drawing an elaborate comparison, says, that where the one delights the 
other astonishes ; that Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid, — Pope 
always smooth, uniform, and gentle. His conclusion seems to be that the 
former wrote the brighter paragraphs, the latter the better poems. ' Pope,' 
he observes, ' had perhaps the judgment of Dryden ; but Dryden certainly 
wanted the diligence of Pope.' His Ode to St. Cecelia's Day, the same 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

authority thinks inferior to Dryden's, but his Epistle of Eloise to Abelard 
he ranks as one of the most happy productions of human wit. For seduc- 
tive eloquence and splendor of imagery, his Essay on Man is unequaled ; 
but stripped of their ornaments, the sentiments will be found common- 
places and the diction bombastic. His epistolary writings, composed, 
doubtless, with a view to publication, attest the care and elegance of his 
pen, but are too full of that affectation and ambition, with which he himself 
confesses his early letters to have been vitiated. 

Vanity and affectation were principal features in the character of Pope ; 
like Byron, he pretended a hatred of the world, whilst his highest pleasure 
consisted in pleasing those who lived in it ; and his egotism is sufficiently 
manifest in the contempt with which he treated all excellence in others 
that had not some affinity with his own. One of his boasts was, that he 
never obtained the notice of one titled acquaintance by adulation or servil- 
ity ; and Johnson, in confirming this, says, that he never flattered those 
whom he did not love or praised those whom he did not esteem. An ex- 
ception to this, however, appears in his conduct towards Lord Hervey and 
Lady Wortley Montagu, in a memoir of whom he will be found apologizing 
in a strain of meanness and hypocrisy commensurate with the grossness 
and vindictiveness of his previous abuse. But though sometimes violent 
in his attacks and mean in his retreat, he was warm and constant in his 
friendships ; and his social qualities, says Johnson, exhibit a perpetual and 
unclouded effulgence of general benevolence. Though his fortune was far 
from splendid, he assisted Dodsley with X100 to open a shop, and of the 
subscription of X40 a-year that he raised for Savage, X20 were paid by 
himself. 

In his domestic concerns, he was frugal almost to parsimoniousness ; in 
proof of which, it is said, that he used to write his compositions on the 
backs of letters ; and after a scanty entertainment to two of his guests, 
would place a single pint of wine, with two small glasses, upon the table, 
and say, ' Gentlemen, I leave you to your wine.' He, however, would 
sometimes give a splendid dinner to a party of his friends, and is said him- 
self to have been so great an epicure, that his heart was often won by a 
present of some luxury for his table. He used constantly to call for coffee 
in the night, when it is not probable he took much sleep, if the story of 
Lord Oxford's domestic be true, that she was called from her bed, by him, 
four times in one night, to supply him with paper, lest he should lose a 
thought. He did not excel in conversation ; and it was said no merriment 
of others, or of his own, excited him to laughter. There appears to have 
been a certain littleness and artifice in his intercourse with mankind, par- 
ticularly with regard to trifles, which made Lady Bolingbroke say that ' he 
played the politician about cabbages and turnips.' In his person, he was 
so much beneath the middle stature, that, to bring him to a level with com- 
mon tables, it was necessary to raise his seat ; his countenance was, upon 
the whole, prepossessing, and his eyes were animated and expressive. His 
physical debility continued throughout his life ; to conceal the tenuity of 
his legs, he wore three pairs of stockings ; and being unable to dress or 
undress himself, could neither retire to rest, nor rise, without assistance. 

An important feature in his private history, is his intimacy with Martha 
Blount, the daughter of a Catholic gentleman, near Reading, who is said 
to have been his intimate confidant and companion through life. She poa- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 633 

sessed great influence over him, and though she treated him with great 
neglect for some time previous to his death, he left her the greater part of 
his property. With this temporary exception, those to whom Pope was 
attached, remained his warm friends to the last; and Bolingbroke, who 
wept over him in his last illness, said, ' I never knew in my life a man that 
had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or more general friendship 
for mankind.' Having discovered, however, after the death of Pope, whom 
he had commissioned to procure a few impressions of his Patriot King, 
that he had ordered one thousand five hundred copies to be privately prin- 
ted, Bolingbroke was so enraged at the transaction, that he exerted his 
utmost efforts to blast the memory of the man over whom he had so lately 
shed tears of affection and regret. For this artifice, of which the motive 
is not apparent, Warburton attempted to apologize ; but in so unsatisfactory 
a manner, that it produced an answer, by Mallet, in A Letter to the most 
Impudent Man living. 

We conclude our memoir of this paradoxical character, with the follow- 
ing anecdotes respecting him: — Lord Halifax having expressed himself 
dissatisfied with several passages in Pope's translation of the Iliad, the 
latter observed to Garth, that, as he could not see where any alteration 
could be made for the better, his lordship's observation had laid him under 
some difficulty. ' All that you need do,' said Garth, laughing, 'is to leave 
them just as they are ; call on Lord Halifax two or three months hence, 
thank him for his kind observations on those passages, and then read them 
to him as altered.' Pope followed his advice, waited on Lord Halifax some 
time after, said he hoped his lordship would find his objections to those 
passages removed, read them to him exactly as they were at first, and his 
lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out, ' ay, now they 
are perfectly right ; nothing can be better.' 

On Pope's receiving, at his house, the Prince of Wales, with the most 
dutiful expression of attachment, the former remarked, * how shall we re- 
concile your love to a prince with your professed indisposition to kings, 
since princes will be kings in time ? ' ' Sir,' replied the poet, ' I consider 
royalty under that noble and authorized type of the lion ; while he is young, 
and before his nails are grown, he may be approached and caressed with 
safety and pleasure.' During his last illness, a squabble happening be- 
tween his two physicians, Dr. Burton and Dr. Thompson, who mutually 
charged each other with hastening the death of their patient by improper 
prescriptions, Pope silenced them by saying, 'gentlemen, I only learn by 
your discourse that I am in a dangerous way ; therefore all I now ask is, 
that the following epigram may be added, after my death, to the next edi- 
tion of The Dunciad, by way of postscript — 



Dunces rejoice, forgive all censures past, 
The greatest dunce has kill'd your foe at last. 



Pope, though some have attributed them to Young, is also said to have 
composed, on being asked for an extempore couplet, by lord Chesterfield, 
the following lines, with the pencil of that nobleman : — 

Accept a miracle, instead of wit 

See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ 



634 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



JOHN ADAMS. 

John Adams, a distinguished patriot of the revolution, was born at 
Braintree, Massachusetts, October 19, 1735. The ancestors of Mr. A. 
had left England for the wilds of America, in order to enjoy their religious 
opinions unmolested. They were among the first settlers of Massachusetts, 
Henry Adams, the great-great-grandfather of John, and one of the origi- 
nal proprietors of the town of Braintree, having fled from England, with 
other Puritans, in the year 1630. Their condition was that of substantial 
yeomen, who possessed the fee simple of their lands, and maintained them- 
selves and families by manual labor. Mr. A. having, when yet a boy, 
evinced great fondness for books, and readiness in learning, his father 
determined to give him a collegiate education, and placed him, in conse- 
quence, under the care of Mr. Marsh (who was afterwards the preceptor 
of the celebrated Josiah Quincy), that he might be prepared for entrance 
into the university of Cambridge. He remained in that institution until 
the year 1755, when he received his bachelor's degree, and in 1758 that 
of master of arts. Whilst at college, he is said to have been distinguished 
by intense application, retentiveness of memory, acuteness of reasoning, 
boldness and originality of thought, strength of language, and an honesty 
of character which could neither assume nor tolerate disguise. After he 
had left college, he commenced the study of law, at Worcester, with colo- 
nel James Putnam, and, during the period he was so engaged, instructed 
pupils in the Latin and Greek languages, in order to be able to defray his 
expenses himself. Before proceeding farther, it may not be amiss to notice 
the posture of affairs in Massachusetts at that epoch. For a long time past, 
that province had been disturbed by almost unremitted contentions between 
its inhabitants and the parliament of Great Britain, on various important 
subjects. The English legislature had, in fact, nothing to do with the col- 
onies, as all dominion acquired by conquest or discovery invariably accrued 
to the king. To him alone the emigrants paid allegiance and applied for 
protection, and, although parliament always affected to believe itself enti- 
tled to regulate their concerns, they received very little interruption from 
it in the exercise of the privilege granted them by the king of governing 
and legislating for themselves. In the course of time, however, parliament 
became jealous of the power, approaching to independence, which they 
enjoyed, and began to impose unconstitutional restraints upon their commerce, 
to violate their charters, and, in short, to treat them so arbitrarily, that 
their spirit was completely roused, and a vigorous resistance called forth. 
Massachusetts, especially, had become a theatre of perpetual struggle for 
power on the one side, and for freedom on the other. But it was hitherto 
only an intellectual warfare, no idea of a separation from the mother coun- 
try having been entertained. In 1758, Mr. A. left the office of colonel 
Putnam, and entered that of Jeremiah Gridley, then attorney-general of 
the province, and of the highest eminence at the bar. Gridley had, some 
years previously, superintended also the legal studies of James Otis, and, 
proud of his two pupils, used often to say, that ' he had raised two young 
eagles, who were, one day or other, to peck out his eyes.' In 1759, Mr. 
A. was admitted, at his recommendation, a member of the bar of Suffolk. 
Mr. A. commenced the practice of his profession in that part of his native 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 635 

town now called Quincy, but first brought himself into notice by his defense 
of a prisoner in the county of Plymouth, from which time a sufficiency of 
lucrative business generally occupied his attention. In 1761, he was 
admitted to the degree of barrister at law, and shortly afterwards was 
placed in the possession of a small landed estate by his father's decease. 
In February of this year, an incident occurred, which inflamed his enthu- 
siasm in the cause of his country's rights to the highest pitch. The Brit- 
ish cabinet had long shown a desire to assert the sovereign authority of 
parliament over the colonies in all cases of taxation and internal policy ; 
but the first evidence of its having determined to do so was an order in 
council, issued this year, enjoining the officers of the customs in Massa- 
chusetts Bay to execute the acts of trade, and make application for writs 
of assistance, to the supreme judicature of the province. These writs were 
a species of general search-warrants, authorizing those who were empowered 
to carry them into effect to enter all houses, warehouses, etc., for the pur- 
pose of discovering and seizing such goods as were not discharged from 
the taxes imposed upon them by the acts. The officers of the customs 
applied for them, in pursuance of their instructions, to the court at Salem, 
but the demand was refused, on account of doubts concerning their con- 
stitutionality. It was then determined to have the affair argued by counsel 
in Boston. Great alarm now pervaded the whole community. Mr. Otis 
was engaged, by the merchants of Salem and Boston, to oppose the con- 
cession of so formidable an instrument of arbitrary power. In order to do 
so with entire freedom, he resigned the lucrative station of advocate-general 
in the court of admiralty, which he then enjoyed. Of the masterly man- 
ner in which he performed his duty, Mr. A., who was present at the dis- 
cussion, has transmitted a vivid account. ' Otis,' says he, ' was a flame of 
fire ! With a promptitude of classical allusion, a depth of research, a rapid 
summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a 
prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous 
eloquence, he hurried away all before him. American- Independence was 
then and there bom.'' He afterwards adds, ' Every man of an immensely 
crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms 
against writs of assistance.' Speaking of this discourse on another occasion, 
he said, ' that James Otis, then and there, first breathed into this nation 
the breath of life.' In 1764, he married Abigail Smith, second daughter 
of the Rev. William Smith, of Weymouth, and grand-daughter of colonel 
Quincy, of Mount Wollaston, a lady every way worthy of her husband, 
endowed by nature with a countenance singularly noble and lovely, and 
with a mind whose fine powers were improved by an excellent education. 
Her ardor in the cause of her country was as elevated as his own, and her 
piety unaffected and exemplary. About a year afterwards, Mr. A. pub- 
lished in the Boston Gazette several pieces, under the title of ' An Essay 
on Canon and Feudal Law,' which were reprinted in London, in 1768, and 
called ' A Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law.' It is, perhaps, not the 
smallest proof of its merit, that it was there attributed to Gridley, who at 
that time enjoyed the highest reputation for ability. The friends of the 
colonies in England termed it ' one of the very best productions ever seen 
from North America.' The name of the real author was afterwards 
divulged, in 1783, when it was published in Philadelphia, by Robert Bell, 
in a pamphlet form, with lord Sheffield's observations on the commerce of 



636 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the American States, and entitled ' An Essay on Canon and Feudal Law, 
by John Adams, Esq.' It seems to have been the principal object of the 
author to extinguish, as far as possible, the blind and almost superstitious 
veneration of his countrymen for the institutions of the parent country, by 
holding up to their abhorrence the principles of the canon and feudal law, 
and showing to them the conspiracy which existed between church and 
state, for the purpose of oppressing the people. He inculcates the senti- 
ments of genuine liberty, as well as the necessity of correct information on 
the part of his fellow-citizens, in order that they might be prepared to 
assert and maintain their rights by force, if force should ever become nec- 
essary. It was indeed a work eminently calculated to excite the people of 
America to resist, at all hazards, any infringement of their liberties. In 
December, 1765, Mr. A. was engaged, as counsel with Mr. Gridley and 
Mr. Otis, to support, before the governor and council, a memorial presented 
to the former, from the town of Boston, praying that the courts, which had 
been closed on account of the opposition to the stamp act, might again be 
opened. Through their united exertions, the petition was successful. In 
the same year, he removed to Boston, where he continued in the practice 
of his profession on a very extensive scale. After he had resided there 
about two years, the crown officers of the province, thinking, perhaps, that 
his patriotism was not without its price, made him an offer, through Mr. 
Sewall (between whom and himself an intimate friendship subsisted, formed 
at the time when he was studying with colonel Putnam), of the office of 
advocate-general in the court of admiralty, the most lucrative post in the 
gift of the governor. This office also was one which conducted its incum- 
bents directly to the highest provincial honors. He refused it, however, as 
he says in his preface to the late edition of Novanglus, * decidedly and per- 
emptorily, though respectfully.' In 1769, he was appointed chairman of 
the committee chosen by the town of Boston, for the purpose of drawing up 
instructions to their representatives, to resist the encroachments of the 
British government. His colleagues were R. Dana and Jos. Warren. 
At the time they were thus employed, the metropolis was invested by an 
armed force, both by sea and land, and the state-house surrounded by a 
military guard, with cannon pointed at the door. Large majorities of both 
houses of parliament had signified their approval of the measures adopted 
by the king ; had promised him their support, and besought him to prose- 
cute, within the realm, all those who had been guilty of treasonable acts, 
in Massachusetts, since the year 1767, in accordance with the decree of 
parliament of the 35th of Henry VIII. Nevertheless, the committee 
performed their task with undaunted firmness, and reported the instructions 
which, no doubt, contributed to produce the strong resolutions subsequently 
adopted by the legislature of Massachusetts. It was on account of these 
instructions and resolutions, that the provincial garrison was withdrawn, 
by order of the governor, from the castle, and regular troops, in the pay 
of the crown, substituted. The instructions also formed one of the specific 
charges made against the colony by the committee of the lords of council 
for plantation affairs, to the lords of council, July 6, 1770. 

A striking example of the firmness- and uprightness of Mr. A. occurred 
during the course of that year. He had, hitherto, been very active in 
stimulating the people of his province to the strenuous maintenance of 
their rights, and had thereby aided in producing an excitement greater 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 637 

than he could have wished, and which he found it necessary to counteract. 
The people of Boston had become exasperated at the idea of a garrison 
placed in their city, and were extremely hostile to the soldiers composing 
it. These feelings led to an attack upon a party of them under the com- 
mand of captain Preston, March 5. They fired on the assailants in self- 
defense, and killed several of them. The soldiers were immediately 
arraigned before the civil authority, and Mr. Adams, in conjunction with 
Josiah Quincy and Mr. Sampson S. Blowers, was requested to aid them 
upon their trial. Although the minds of the people were inflamed almost 
to madness, and the defense of the accused seemed to involve a certain 
loss of popularity, Mr. A. immediately undertook to act as their advocate. 
Mr. A. was no demagogue ; he saw that the honor of his country was at 
stake, and he rejoiced, as has been well said, in the opportunity of show- 
ing to the world, that the cause of America did not depend upon a tem- 
porary excitement, which could stifle the voice of justice, but upon the 
sober, steady, persevering determination of the people to support their 
rights. The cause was conducted by him and his colleagues with great 
ability, and the soldiers were all acquitted save two, who were found guilty 
of manslaughter, received a slight branding as a punishment, and were 
then discharged. Scarcely any thing which occurred during the revolu- 
tion confers more honor upon the national character, and did more service 
to the cause of America, than this triumph of justice. Mr. A. soon 
received a proof that the public confidence in him was not diminished, by 
his election, in May, 1770, to the legislature of his state, as one of the 
representatives of the town of Boston. His conduct in this new situation 
displayed the same patriotism, courage and hostility to the despotism of 
the mother country, by which he had always been distinguished. He took 
a prominent part in every public measure, and served on several commit- 
tees, who reported some of the most important state papers of the time ; 
among which were the address and protest to the governor against the 
removal of the general court from Boston to Cambridge. In Bradford's 
History of Massachusetts, we find the following account of a controversy 
in which Mr. A. was engaged in the year 1773. ' The ministerial regula- 
tion for paying the salary of the judges, which rendered them wholly 
dependent on the crown, was the occasion of a learned and able discussion 
in the public papers, by William Brattle, senior member of the council, 
and John Adams. The essays of the latter were written with great learn- 
ing and ability, and had a happy effect in enlightening the public mind on 
a question of very great importance. It subjected him, indeed, to the dis- 
pleasure of governor Hutchinson and the ministerial party ; and at the 
next election in May, when chosen by the assembly into the council, the 
governor gave his negative to the choice. These essays were published in 
the Boston Gazette of February, 1773, under Mr. Adams' proper signa- 
ture, and would make a pamphlet of 50 or 60 pages.' In 1774, he was 
again rejected by governor Gage, and soon afterwards he was appointed 
one of the committee of the town of Boston, who prepared the celebrated 
resolutions on the Boston port-bill. June 17, of this year, governor Gage, 
having dissolved the assembly, this body, before separating, passed a reso- 
lution to appoint a committee to meet other committees from other colonies, 
for the purpose of consulting upon their common interests, and, in conse- 
quence, Mr. Thomas Cushing, Mr. Samuel Adams, Mr. John Adams and 



638 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Mr. Robert Treat Paine were elected to the first continental congress, 
which met at Philadelphia in the following September. Soon after Mr. A. 
was chosen, an incident occurred which gives an idea of his feelings on 
contemplating this great and daring national movement. His friend Sewall, 
who had taken the ministerial side in politics, and was at that time attor- 
ney-general of the province, hearing of his election, invited him to a 
morning walk, in the course of which he endeavored to dissuade him from 
his purpose of assuming the seat in congress to which he had been ap- 
pointed. He told him that the determination of Great Britain to pursue 
her system was fixed ; that her power was irresistible, and would involve 
him in destruction, as well as all his associates who persevered in opposi- 
tion to her designs. ' I know,' replied he, ' that Great Britain has determ- 
ined on her system, and that very determination determines me on mine. 
You know that I have been constant and uniform in opposition to her de- 
signs. The die is now cast. I have passed the Rubicon. Sink or swim, 
live or die, survive or perish with my country, is my fixed, unalterable 
determination.' On bidding him adieu, Mr. A. said to his friend, ' I see 
we must part, and with a bleeding heart I say, I fear forever. But, you 
may depend upon it, this adieu is the sharpest thorn on which I ever set 
my foot.' Mr. A. took his seat in congress, September 5, 1774, the first 
day of their session, and was soon chosen a member of some of the most 
important committees, such as that which drew up the statement of the 
rights of the colonies, and that which prepared the address to the king. 
He and his colleagues carried with them the character of being so thor- 
oughly desirous of independence, that, before they arrived at Philadelphia, 
warning had been given to them, by many of the most respectable inhabi- 
tants of the Middle States, not to utter a word on that subject, as it was 
as unpopular as the stamp act itself. Almost all the delegates from the 
other colonies were impressed with the idea that England could be brought 
to terms, without resorting to a declaration of independence. Washing- 
ton alone, of the Virginia delegation, was doubtful whether the measures 
adopted by congress would be efficacious in attaining the object for which 
they were designed. In one of his letters, Mr. A. says, that Richard 
Henry Lee used the following language to him, when they parted : ' We 
shall infallibly carry all our points ; you will be completely relieved ; all 
the offensive acts will be repealed; the army and fleet will be recalled, and 
Britain will give up her foolish project.' On his return to Massachusetts, 
he became engaged in a controversy with his friend Sewall, who was wri- 
ting a series of essays under the appellation of 31assachusettensis, for the 
purpose of vindicating the cause of the government party. Mr. A.'s 
papers were published in the Boston Gazette, with the signature of 
JVovanglus, and exhibit the cause of America in the most triumphant and 
favorable light. When Mr. A. resumed his seat in congress the following 
year, hostilities had in reality commenced between Great Britain and the 
colonists, though as yet not openly declared, and the blood of numbers of 
brave men had stained the plains of Lexington and Concord. On receiv- 
ing the account of this battle, congress determined upon war. It was 
necessary to fix upon some one for the post of commander-in-chief of the 
troops which were ordered to be raised. The eyes of all the New Eng- 
land delegation were turned upon General Ward, then at the head of the 
army in Massachusetts. At a meeting of them, when that officer was pro- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 639 

posed for nomination, Mr. A. alone dissented, and urged the selection of 
George Washington, one of the representatives from Virginia. He was 
resisted, and left the meeting with the declaration that Washington on the 
next day should be nominated. He was accordingly nominated, at the 
instigation of Mr. A., by governor Johnstone of Maryland, and choson 
without an opposing voice. Five days after the appointment of General 
Washington, Mr. Jefferson made his first appearance on the floor of con- 
gress, having been chosen by the people of Virginia to fill the place of 
Patrick Henry, who had lately been elected the governor of that province. 
Between this distinguished man and Mr. A. a friendship speedily arose, 
which subsisted, with a short interruption, during the remainder of their 
lives. When Mr. A. returned to Massachusetts, after the dissolution of 
the congress of 1775, the post of chief justice of the state was offered to 
him, which he declined, on account of his belief that he should be able 
to render more effectual service to the cause of his country in its national 
councils. At the time that he resumed his seat in them in 1776, hostili- 
ties were active between Great Britain and the colonies. But the object 
of the latter was as yet merely to resist the authority assumed by the 
parent country to impose taxes upon them at pleasure. Few persons 
entertained the idea of a dissolution of connexion ; very few, even of the 
delegates in congress, seemed to desire it ; but among those few John 
Adams was the foremost. We have already mentioned its unpopularity. 
As soon as Mr. A. was suspected in Philadelphia of being an advocate of 
that measure, he was represented constantly in the most odious light, and 
even pointed at and avoided on appearing in the streets. Still, however, 
he persevered, made every day proselytes, and, May 6, 1776, moved in 
congress a resolution, which was, in fact, a virtual declaration of inde- 
pendence, recommending to the colonies ' to adopt such a government as 
would, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to 
the happiness and safety of their constituents and of America.' This 
passed, after a hard struggle, on the 15th of the same month, and was the 
prelude to the glorious and daring resolution, moved by Richard Henry 
Lee, of Virginia, on the 7th of June following, and seconded by Mr. A., 
' that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and inde- 
pendent states ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British 
crown ; and that all political connexion between them and the state of 
Great Britain is, and of right ought to be, totally dissolved.' The debate 
upon this motion was of the most animated character. It continued from 
the 7th to the 10th, when the further discussion of the measure was post- 
poned to the 1st of July. A committee of five was also appointed to pre- 
pare a provisional draft of a declaration of independence. The members 
of it were chosen by ballot, and were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, 
Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Mr. 
Jefferson and Mr. A. were deputed a sub-committee to prepare the instru- 
ment, the former of whom, at the earnest solicitation of the latter, became 
its author. 

On the 1st of July, Mr. Lee's resolution was again considered, and de- 
bated during that and the following day, when it was finally adopted. The 
draft of the declaration was then submitted for the purpose of undergo- 
ing an examination in detail. It was passed on the 4th of the same month, 
as prepared by Mr. Jefferson, with only a few alterations, which were mado 



640 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

through a prudent deference to the views of some of the states. Mr. A 
always preferred the draft as it originally stood. The declaration was 
not adopted without serious opposition from many members of the congress, 
including John Dickinson, one of the ablest men in that assembly. But 
their arguments were completely overthrown by the force and eloquence of 
Mr. A., whose speech on the subject of independence is said to have been 
unrivaled. Mr. Jefferson himself has affirmed, ' that the great pillar of 
support to the declaration of independence, and its ablest advocate and 
champion on the floor of the house, was John Adams. ' Speaking of his 
general character as an orator, the same illustrious man observed, that he 
was ' the Colossus of that congress : not graceful, not elegant, not always 
fluent in his public addresses, he yet came out with a power, both of thought 
and expression, which moved his hearers from their seats. ' Mr. Silas 
Deane, who was a commissioner with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Arthur Lee, at 
the court of Versailles, having been recalled, Mr. A. was chosen, Nov. 28, 
1777, to fill his place. By this appointment, he was released from the la- 
borious and important duties of chairman of the board of war, which post 
he had filled since June 13, 1776. It is stated that he was a member of 
ninety committees, twice as many as any other representative, except 
Richard Henry Lee and Samuel Adams, of twenty-five of which he was 
chairman, though it was the policy to put Virginia generally at the head. 
Among these committees were several of the greatest consequence ; one 
of them was that which was sent to Staten Island at the request of lord 
Howe, who had solicited an interview with some of the members of con- 
gress, which, however, produced no effect, on account of the refusal of his 
lordship to consider them as commissioners from congress, and the declara- 
tion of Mr. A., that ' he might view him in any light he pleased, except in 
that of a British subject. ' About two months after his appointment, Mr. 
A. embarked in the Boston frigate, and arrived safely at his place of des- 
tination, though an English fleet had been despatched to intercept him. 
The treaties of commerce and alliance with France were signed before he 
reached that country, and, after remaining there until the following Au- 
gust, he returned to the United States, the nomination of Dr. Franklin as 
minister plenipotentiary to the court of Versailles having superseded the 
powers of the commissioners. Immediately on his arrival, he was elected 
a member of the convention to prepare a form of government for the state 
of Massachusetts, and placed upon the sub-committee chosen to draft the 
project of a constitution, to be laid before that body. The general frame 
of the constitution, particularly the manner of dividing and distributing 
power, and the clause respecting the duty incumbent upon government with 
regard to the patronage of literature and the arts and sciences, were the 
work of his pen. Three months after his return, congress again sent him 
abroad with two commissions, one as minister plenipotentiary to negotiate a 
peace, the other to form a commercial treaty with Great Britain. He 
embarked in the French frigate Sensible, Nov. 17, and was forced to land 
at Corunna, in Spain, from which place he traveled over the mountains 
to Paris, where he arrived in Feb, 1780. After remaining a short time 
in that city, having found the French court jealous of his commission to 
form a treaty of commerce with Great Britain, he repaired to Holland in 
Aug. 1780, the same year in which congress passed a vote of approbation 
of his conduct, instead of recalling him, as the French minister, count de 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 641 

Vergennes, had solicited thein to do, on account of his lefusal to commu- 
nicate to him his instructions about the treaty of commerce, and his oppo- 
sition to a claim set up by France, that, when congress called in the old 
continental money at forty for one, a discrimination ought to have been 
made, in favor of the French holders of that paper. The June previous 
to his journey to Amsterdam, Mr. A. was appointed in the room of Mr. 
Laurens to obtain loans in Holland, and, in December of the same year, 
was invested with full powers to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce 
with that country. Mr. A. at first had to contend with great difficulties in 
Holland. He was opposed by the whole influence of the British govern- 
ment, as well as by the power of the prince of Orange, and even, strange as 
it may appear, by the intrigues of France herself, the professed friend and 
avowed ally of the United States. He found the people of Holland en- 
tirely unacquainted with the affairs of his country, and immediately began 
to impart to them information concerning that subject, using, for this pur- 
pose, principally, two newspapers, one called the Leyden Gazette, and the 
other Le Politique ffollandois, in which he wrote various political articles. 
He also published a series of twenty-six letters, in answer to a set of que- 
ries proposed to him by Mr. Kalkoen, an eminent jurist of Amsterdam, 
containing an account of the rise and progress of the dispute with Great 
Britain, and of the resources, spirit and prospects of the United States. 
These epistles, together with some essays written by Mr. Kalkoen, drawing 
a comparison between the struggles of the United States for their liberty, 
and those formerly made by the seven United Provinces, which eventuated 
in their independence, had a great effect in enlightening the people of 
Holland, and inspired them with sentiments highly favorable to the Amer- 
ican cause. Shortly afterwards, Dec. 21, 1780, a rupture took place be- 
tween England and Holland, occasioned by the accession of the latter to 
the armed neutrality, and the discovery of a negotiation between Mr. Lee, 
the American commissioner at Berlin, and Mr. Van Berckel the pension- 
ary of Amsterdam, for a treaty of amity and commerce. Even at this 
early period, he had formed an opinion decidedly in favor of the establish- 
ment of a navy, and expressed it in almost all his letters home. In July, 
1781, he was summoned to Paris for the purpose of consulting upon the 
offer of mediation made by the courts of Austria and Russia, and sugges- 
ted an answer adopted by the French court, which put an end to the 
negotiation on that subject ; the mediating powers refusing to acknowledge 
the independence of the United States without the consent of Great Bri- 
tain. 

Oct. 19, 1781, Mr. A., in opposition to the advice of the duke de la 
Vauguion, the French minister at the Hague, and on his own responsibility, 
communicated to their high mightinesses his letters of credence, presenting 
to their president also, at the same time, a memorial, dated April 19th, in 
which he justified the declaration of independence, and endeavored to 
convince the people of Holland that it was for their interest to form a con- 
nection with the United States and to give them support in their difficulties. 
As he had not yet been acknowledged by the States General as the min- 
ister of a sovereign and independent nation, the president could not receive 
the memorial in form, but he engaged to make a report of the substance 
of what had been communicated to him by Mr. A. In the August previ- 
ous, Mr. A . had received instructions to propose a triple alliance between 
41* 



642 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

France, the United Provinces and the United States, to exist as long as 
hostilities were carried on by the latter against Great Britain, one of the 
indispensable conditions of which, on the part of Holland, was the recog- 
nition of American independence. The alliance never was effected, but the 
latter object Mr. Adams accomplished. Jan. 9, 1782, not having received 
a reply to his memorial, he waited upon the president, and demanded a 
categorical answer. The States General then took the subject immediately 
into consideration, and Mr. A. was acknowledged, April 19, as ambassador 
of the United States to their high mightinesses, and three days afterwards 
was received as such. Having obtained assurance that Great Britain 
would recognize the independence of the United States, he repaired, in 
Oct. 1782, to Paris, whither he had refused to go before such assurance 
was given, to commence the negotiation for peace, and there met Dr. Frank- 
lin, Mr. Jay and Mr. Laurens, who, as well as Mr. Jefferson, had been 
appointed his colleagues. Their instructions, a part of which was ' to un- 
dertake nothing without the knowledge and concurrence of the ministers 
of France, and ultimately to govern themselves by their advice and opinion,' 
placed them almost entirely under the control of the French court. They 
were greatly displeased at being thus shackled, and, after a short time, 
finding themselves in a very embarrassing situation, they boldly determined 
to disobey their instructions, and act for themselves and for their country, 
without consulting the ministers of a supposed treacherous ally. The de- 
finitive treaty of peace was ratified Jan. 14, 1783. 

After serving on two or three commissions to form treaties of amity and 
commerce with foreign powers, Mr. Adams, in 1785, was appointed the 
first minister to London. It is related that, upon his introduction to the 
king, the latter, knowing his disgust at the intrigues of the French court, 
and wishing to compliment him, expressed his pleasure at seeing a minister 
who had no prejudices in favor of France, the natural enemy of his crown. 
The reply of Mr. Adams evinced his patriotism and honesty of character. 
' May it please your majesty,' said he, ' I have no prejudices but for my 
own country.' In 1787, whilst in London, he published his Defense of the 
American Constitutions against the attacks which they had sustained, and 
in October of that year, by his own request, he was allowed to return to 
the United States. Congress, at the same time that they gave him such 
permission, passed a resolution of thanks to be presented to him for his 
able and faithful discharge of the various important commissions with which 
he had been entrusted. Immediately after his return, Mr. Adams was 
elected the first vice-president of the United States under the new consti- 
tution, and reelected as such in 1793. He discharged the duties of his 
office until March 4, 1797, when he succeeded to the presidency, vacated 
by the resignation of General Washington. This great man's confidence he 
possessed in an eminent degree, and Avas consulted by him as often as any 
member of the cabinet. As the two parties in the senate were nearly bal- 
anced, Mr. Adams, while acting, ex officio, as president of that body, had 
often to decide questions, by his casting vote, of the highest importance, 
and which had excited a great deal of party feeling. One instance of this 
occurred, when Mr. Clarke's resolution prohibiting all intercourse with 
Great Britain on account of the capture of several American vessels by 
British ships, and other grievances, was brought before the senate, after 
having been adopted by the house of representatives, April 18,1794. Up- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 643 

on this bill the senators were equally divided, and Mr. Adams decided 
against it, thinking that it would have no good effect upon the policy of 
England, would injure us as much as her, and perhaps occasion a war. 

In 1797, he became, we have said, president of the United States. It 
will not be necessary to enter into a detail of the events of his administra- 
tion, as they belong rather to the department of the historian than of the 
biographer. It will be sufficient to mention a few important circumstances. 
When he commenced the discharge of the duties of his office, he found the 
government embroiled in a dispute with France, and, in one of his earliest 
communications to congress, complained, in dignified and eloquent language, 
of a grievous insult offered by the government of that country to the am- 
bassador of the United States. Wishing still to preserve peace, he des- 
patched a commission consisting of three envoys, Messrs. Pinckney, Mar- 
shall and Gerry, to France. The French government treated them in the 
most contumelious manner. Such, however, was the violence of party spirit, 
and so large a portion of the American people entertained an enthusiastic 
admiration of France, that even the measures which Mr. Adams then took 
for sustaining the national dignity had no inconsiderable effect in diminish- 
ing his popularity. 

Mr. Adams was the founder of the American navy. Before his admin- 
istration, scarcely an American ship of war was to be seen upon the ocean ; 
but, during this period, by his strenuous exertions, mainly, a very respecta- 
ble naval force was created. His administration, however, was not of 
long continuance, having pleased neither of the two great parties which 
divided the country (the greatest praise, perhaps, that it could receive), 
his measures being too strong for the democrats and too weak for the fed- 
eralists. In consequence of this, after his term of four years had expired, 
March 4, 1801, it was found that his adversary, Mr. Jefferson, had suc- 
ceeded by a majority of one vote. After his retirement to his farm in 
Quincy, Mr. Adams occupied himself with agricultural pursuits, obtaining 
amusement from the literature and politics of the day. He was nominated 
as governor of Massachusetts, but declined being a candidate, wishing only 
for repose. During the disputes with England, which occurred while Mr. 
Jefferson was in office, Mr. Adams published a series of letters, in a Boston 
paper, supporting the policy of the administration. His published writings, 
besides those which we have already mentioned, are ' Discourses on Davi- 
la,' composed in 1790, while he was vice-president, and printed in June 
and July of that year, in the Gazette of the United States. In 1816, Mr. 
Adams was chosen member of the electoral college, which voted for the 
elevation of Mr. Monroe to the presidency ; and, the following year, sus- 
tained the greatest affliction he had ever been called upon to endure, 'by the 
loss of his wife. On this occasion, he received a beautiful letter of con- 
dolence from Mr. Jefferson, between whom and himself their former friend- 
ship, interrupted for a time by the animosities of party, had been revived. 
In 1820, he was elected a member of the convention to revise the consti- 
tution of his state, and chosen its president. This honor he was constrained 
to decline, on account of his infirmities and great age, being then 85 years 
old ; but he attended the convention as a member, and fulfilled the duty 
incumbent upon him as such. After that, his life glided away in uninter- 
rupted tranquillity, until the 4th of July, 1826, when he breathed his last 
with the same hallowed sentiment on his lips, which on that glorious day, 



644 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

fifty years before, he had uttered on the floor of congress — ' Independence 
forever.' On the morning of the jubilee, he was roused by the ringing of 
the bells and the firing of cannon, and, on being asked by the servant who 
attended him, whether he knew what day it was, he replied, ' yes ! it is 
the o-lorious 4th of July — God bless it — God bless you all.' In the course 
of the day, he said, ' It is a great and glorious day,' and, just before he 
expired, exclaimed, 'Jefferson survives.' But Jefferson had already, at 
one o'clock, that same day, rendered his spirit into the hands of its Crea- 
tor. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States of America, 
was born April 2, (old style,) 1743, at Shadwell, in Albemarle County, 
Virginia, and was the eldest of eight children. His father, though his 
education had been entirely neglected in early life, being a man of strong 
mind, acquired, by subsequent study, considerable information. He died 
when the subject of our sketch was about twelve years old, having previ- 
ously given him every means of knowledge that could be procured, and left 
him a considerable estate. After going through a course of school instruc- 
tion, young Jefferson entered the college of William and Mary where he 
remained for two years. He then commenced the study of law under the 
guidance of the celebrated George Wythe, by whom, in 1767, he was 
introduced to its practice, at the bar of the general court of the colony, at 
which he continued until the revolution. In 1769 he was elected a 
member of the provincial legislature from the county where he resided, 
and made a fruitless effort, in that body, for the emancipation of the slaves. 
By this time a spirit of opposition had been excited in the colonies to the 
arbitrary measures of the British government ; and when the governor of 
Virginia dissolved the general assembly, in 1769, in consequence of the 
sympathy which was displayed by the majority of its members with the 
feelings which had been manifested in Massachusetts, they met, the next 
day, in the public room of the Raleigh tavern, formed themselves into a 
convention, drew up articles of association against the use of any merchan- 
dise imported from Great Britain, and signed and recommended them to 
the people. They then repaired to their respective counties, and were all 
reelected, except those few who had declined assenting to their proceedings. 
In 1773 Mr. Jefferson associated himself with several of the boldest and 
most active of his companions in the house, (' not thinking,' as he says 
himself, ' the old and leading members up to the point of forwardness and 
zeal which the times required,') and with them formed the system of 
committees of correspondence, in a private room of the same Raleigh 
tavern. This system was adopted as the best instrument for communica- 
tion between the different colonies, by which they might be brought to a 
mutual understanding, and a unity of action produced. This end was 
completely accomplished, as well as another object, that of exciting through- 
out the colonies a desire for a general congress. It was accordingly 
resolved that one should be held, and in Virginia a convention was assem- 
bled for the purpose of choosing delegates. Of this convention Mr. 
Jefferson was elected a member ; but being suddenly taken ill on the road, 
as lie was repairing to Williamsburg, its place of meeting, he sent on to its 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 645 

chairman, Peyton Randolph, a draft of instructions which he had 
prepared as proper to be given to the delegates who should be sent to 
congress. It was laid on the taJble for perusal ; but, though approved by 
many, the sentiments contained in it were too bold to be adopted by the 
majority : ' tamer sentiments,' in his own words, ' were preferred, and, I 
believe, wisely preferred ; the leap I proposed being too long, as yet, for 
the mass of our citizens.' The position that he maintained was, that the 
relation between Great Britain and the colonies was exactly the same as 
that between England and Scotland, after the accession of James, and 
until the union, and the same as her relations with Hanover, having the 
same executive chief, but no other political connection. In this doctrine, 
however, the only person who entirely concurred with him was George 
Wythe, the other patriots 'stopping at the half-way house of John Dickinson, 
who admitted that England had a right to regulate our commerce, and to 
lay duties on it for the purposes of regulation, but not of raising revenue.' 
Though the paper was not adopted, the convention, nevertheless, caused it 
to be printed in a pamphlet form, under the title of a Summary View of 
the Rights of British America. Having found its way to England, it was 
taken up by the opposition, and, with a few interpolations of Mr. Burke, 
passed through several editions. It procured for its author considerable 
reputation, and likewise the dangerous honor of having his name placed on 
a list of proscriptions, in a bill of attainder, which was commenced in one 
of the houses of parliament, but was speedily suppressed. June 21, 1775, 
Mr. Jefferson took his seat for the first time in congress, having been 
chosen to fill the place of Peyton Randolph, who had resigned. In this 
new capacity, he persevered in the decided tone which he had assumed, 
always maintaining that no accommodation should be made between the 
two countries, unless on the broadest and most liberal basis. After serving 
on several committees, he was at length appointed a member of that, whose 
report has linked the name of its author with the history of American 
independence. June 7, 1776, the delegates from Virginia, in compliance 
with the instructions of the convention, moved that congress should declare 
the United Colonies free and independent states. This gave rise to a warm 
and protracted debate ; for as yet there were many who continued to cling 
to the hope of a peaceful adjustment. In the course of the discussion, it 
appearing that several colonies were not yet fully ripe for separation, it 
was deemed prudent to defer the final decision of the question for a short 
time ; and, in the meanwhile, a committee was appointed to prepare a 
declaration of independence, consisting of John Adams, doctor Franklin, 
Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, and Mr. Jefferson. The last 
named gentleman was requested to draw up the paper, which he did, and 
it was reported to the house, after receiving a few alterations from doctor 
Franklin and Mr. Adams. On the first of July, the day selected for 
deciding upon the original motion of the Virginia delegates, it was carried 
in the affirmative by a large majority, and two or three days afterwards by 
a unanimous vote. The declaration of independence was then brought 
before the house, by which, though generally approved, it was, in some 
respects, modified. Those passages, especially, which conveyed censure 
upon the people of England, were either greatly softened, or entirely 
omitted, as the idea was still entertained that the colonies possessed friends 
in England, whose good will it would be proper to cherish ; and a clause 



646 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

reprobating the slave-trade was canceled, in complaisance to some of the 
Southern States, who were largely engaged in the traffic. The debates 
respecting the declaration occupied three days, on the last of which, the 
fourth of July, it was signed by every member present, except John 
Dickinson, who deemed a rupture with the mother country, at that moment, 
rash and premature. September 2, 1776, Mr. Jefferson retired from his 
seat in congress, and, on the 7th of October, took his place in the 
legislature of Virginia, of which he had been elected a member from his 
county. In this situation he was indefatigable in his labors to improve the 
imperfect constitution of the state, which had been recently and hastily 
adopted before a draft of one which he had formed on the purest 
principles of republicanism, had reached the convention, which was 
deliberating at Richmond. The chief service which he performed was as 
a member of a commission for revising the laws, consisting, besides himself, 
of Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, George Mason, and Thomas 
Ludwell Lee, by whom no less than 126 bills were prepared, from which 
are derived all the most liberal features of the existing laws of the 
commonwealth. The share of Mr. Jefferson in this great task was 
prominent and laborious. June 1, 1779, he was chosen the successor of 
Mr. Henry in the office of governor of the state, and continued in it for 
two years, at the end of which period he resigned, ' from a belief,' as he 
says, ' that, under the pressure of the invasion under which we were then 
laboring, the public would have more confidence in a military chief, and 
that, the military commander being invested with the civil power also, 
both might be wielded with more energy, promptitude, and effect, for the 
defense of the state.' General Nelson was appointed in his stead. Two 
days after his retirement from the government, he narrowly escaped 
capture by the enemy, a troop of horse having been despatched to Monti- 
cello, where he was residing, for the purpose of making him prisoner. He 
was breakfasting, when a neighbor rode up at full speed with the intelligence 
that the troop was ascending a neighboring hill. He first sent off his 
family in a carriage, and, after a short delay for some indispensable 
arrangements, mounted his horse, and, taking a course through the woods, 
joined them at the house of a friend, a flight in which it would be difficult 
to discern any thing dishonorable, although it has been made the subject 
of sarcasm and reproach without end by the spirit of party. June 15, 
1781, Mr. Jefferson was appointed minister plenipotentiary, in conjunction 
with others, to negotiate peace then expected to be effected, through the 
mediation of the empress of Russia ; but he declined, for the same reason 
that had induced him, in 1776, to decline also the appointment of a 
commissioner, with doctor Franklin, to go to France in order to negotiate 
treaties of alliance and commerce with that government. On both occa- 
sions the state of his family was such that he could not leave it, and he 
' could not expose it to the dangers of the sea, and of capture by the 
British ships then covering the ocean.' He saw, too, that ' the laboring 
oar was really at home,' especially at the time of his first appointment. 
But, in November, 1782, congress having received assurances that a 
general peace would be concluded in the winter and spring, renewed the 
offer which they had made the previous year ; and this time it was accepted ; 
but the preliminary articles being agreed upon before he left the country, 
he returned to Monticello, and was chosen (June 6, 1783) a member of 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 647 

congress. It was during the session at Annapolis, that, in consequence 
of Mr. Jefferson's proposal, an executive committee was formed, called the 
committee of the states, consisting of a member from each state. Previ 
ously, executive and legislative functions were both imposed upon congress ; 
and it was to obviate the bad effects of this junction, that Mr. Jefferson's 
proposition was adopted. Success, however, did not attend the plan ; 
the members composing the committee quarreled, and finding it impossible, 
on account of their altercations, to fulfill their duties, they abandoned 
their post, after a short period, and thus left the government without any 
visible head, during the adjournment of congress. May 7, 1784, 
congress, having resolved to appoint another minister, in addition to Mr. 
Adams and doctor Franklin, for negotiating treaties of commerce with 
foreign nations, selected Mr. Jefferson, who accordingly sailed from 
Boston, July 5, and arrived in Paris August 6. Doctor Franklin was 
already there, and Mr. Adams having, soon after, joined them, they 
entered upon the duties of their mission. They were not very successful, 
however, in forming the desired commercial treaties, and, after some 
reflection and experience, it was thought better not to urge them too 
strongly, but to leave such regulations to flow voluntarily from the 
amicaole dispositions and the evident interests of the several nations. In 
June, 1785, Mr. Adams repaired to London, on being appointed minister 
plenipotentiary at the court of St. James, and, in July, doctor Franklin 
returned to America, and Mr. Jefferson was named his successor at Paris. 
In the February of 1786, he received a pressing letter from Mr. Adams, 
requesting him to proceed to London immediately, as symptoms of a better 
disposition towards America were beginning to appear in the British- 
cabinet, than had been manifested since the treaty of peace. On this 
account he left Paris in the following March, and on his arrival in 
London, agreed with Mr. Adams on a very summary form of treaty, 
proposing ' an exchange of citizenship for our citizens, our ships, and our 
productions generally, except as to office.' At the usual presentation, 
however, to the king and queen, both Mr. Adams and himself were 
received in the most ungracious manner, and, after a few vague and 
ineffectual conferences, he returned to Paris. Here he remained, with 
the exception of a visit to Holland, to Piedmont and the south of France, 
until the autumn of 1789, zealously pursuing whatever was beneficial to 
his country. September 26 of that year he left Paris for Havre, and, 
crossing over to Cowes, embarked for the United States. November 23 
he landed at Norfolk, Va., and, while on his way home, received a letter 
from President Washington, covering the appointment of secretary of 
state, under the new constitution, which was just commencing its operation. 
He soon afterwards received a second letter from the same quarter, giving 
him the option of returning to France, in his ministerial capacity, or of 
accepting the secretaryship, but conveying a strong intimation of desire 
that he would choose the latter office. This communication was produced 
by a letter from Mr. Jefferson to the president, in reply to the one first 
written, in which he had expressed a decided inclination to go back to the 
French metropolis. He then, however, consented to forego his preference, 
and, March 21, arrived in New York, where congress was in session, and 
immediately entered upon the duties of his post. It would be altogether 
inconsistent with our limits to give a minute account of the rest of Mr, 



648 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Jefferson's political life. This could not be done without writing the 
history of the United States for a certain period. We must therefore 
content ourselves with stating that he continued to fill the secretaryship 
of state, until the 31st of December, 1793, when he resigned. From that 
period until February, 1797, he lived in retirement. In this year he was 
elected vice-president of the United States, and, in 1801, was chosen 
president by a majority of one vote over his competitor, Mr. Adams. At 
the expiration of eight years he again retired to private life, from which he 
never afterwards emerged. The rest of his life was passed at Monticello, 
which was a continued scene of the blandest and most liberal hospitality. 
Such, indeed, was the extent to which calls upon it were made, by 
foreigners as well as Americans, that the closing year of his life was 
embittered by distressing pecuniary embarrassments. He was forced to 
ask permission of the Virginia legislature to sell his estate by lottery, 
which was granted. Shortly after Mr. Jefferson's return to Monticello, it 
having been proposed to form a college in his neighborhood, he addressed 
a letter to the trustees, in which he sketched a plan for the establishment 
of a general system of education in Virginia. This appears to have led 
the way to an act of the legislature, in the year 1818, by which commis- 
sioners were appointed with authority to select a site, and form a plan 
for a university, on a large scale. Of these commissioners, Mr. Jefferson 
was unanimously chosen the chairman, and, Aug. 4, 1818, he framed a 
report, embracing the principles on which it was proposed the institution 
should be formed. The situation selected for it was at Charlottesville, a 
town at the foot of the mountain on which Mr. Jefferson resided. He 
lived to see the university — the child of his old age — in prosperous 
operation, and giving promise of extensive usefulness. He fulfilled the 
duties of its rector until a short period before his death, which occurred on 
the 4th of July, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of 
independence, and within the hour in which he had signed it. 

In person, Mr. Jefferson was tall and well formed ; his countenance was 
bland and expressive ; his conversation fluent, imaginative, various and 
eloquent. Few men equaled him in the faculty of pleasing in personal 
intercourse, and acquiring ascendancy in political connection. He was 
the acknowledged head of the republican party, from the period of its 
organization down to that of his retirement from public life. The 
unbounded praise and blame which he received as a politician, must be 
left for the judgment of the historian and posterity. In the four volumes 
of his posthumous works, edited by his grandson, Thomas Jefferson 
Randolph, there are abundant materials to guide the literary or historical 
critic in forming an estimate of his powers, acquirements, feelings and 
opinions. His name is one of the brightest in the revolutionary galaxy. 
Mr. Jefferson was a zealous cultivator of literature and science. As early 
as 1781, he was favorably known as an author, by his Notes on Virginia. 
He published, also, various essays on political and philosophical subjects, 
and a manual of Parliamentary Practice, for the use of the Senate of the 
United States. In the year 1800 the French national institute chose him 
one of their foreign members. The volumes of posthumous works, in 
addition to an auto-biography of the author to the year 1790, consist 
principally of letters from the year 1775 to the time of his death, and 
embrace a great variety of subjects. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 649 



SAMUEL ADAMS 



Samuel Adams was one of the most remarkable men connected with 
the American revolution. He was descended from a family that had been 
among the early planters of New England, was born in Boston, September 
27, 1722, was educated at Harvard college, and received its honors in 
1740. When he took the degree of master, in 1743, he proposed the fol- 
lowing question : ' Whether it be lawful to resist the supreme magistrate, 
if the commonwealth cannot be otherwise preserved ?' He maintained the 
affirmative, and this collegiate exercise furnished a very significant index 
to his subsequent political career. On leaving the university, he engaged 
in the study of divinity, with the intention of becoming a clergyman, but 
did not pursue his design. From his earliest youth, his attention was 
drawn to political affairs, and he occupied himself, both in conversation and 
writing, with the political concerns of the day. He was opposed to gov- 
ernor Shirley, because he thought too much power was conferred upon him, 
and was the friend of his successor, Pownal, as the latter assumed the pop- 
ular side. He became so entirely a public man, and discovered such a 
jealous, watchful and unyielding regard for popular rights, that he excited 
the general attention of the patriotic party, and they took the opportunity, 
in the year 17G6, to place him in the legislature. From that period till 
the close of the revolutionary war, he was one of the most unwearied, effi- 
cient, and disinterested assertors of American freedom and independence. 
He grew conspicuous very soon after his admission into the house, of which 
he was chosen clerk, it being then the practice to take that officer from 
among the members. He obtained the same kind of influence, and exer- 
cised the same indefatigable activity in the affairs of the legislature, that 
he did in those of his town. He was upon every committee, had a hand in 
writing or revising every report, a share in the management of every po- 
litical meeting, private or public, and a voice in all the measures that were 
proposed, to counteract the tyrannical plans of the administration. The 
people soon found him to be one of the steadiest of their supporters, and 
the government was convinced that he was one of the most inveterate of its 
opponents. When his character was known in England, and it was also 
understood that he was poor, the partisans of the ministry, who felt annoyed 
by the ' disturbances in America,' resorted to the usual practice, when the 
clamorous grow too troublesome, and proposed that he should be quieted by 
a participation in some of the good things they were enjoying. Governor 
Hutchinson, in answering the inquiry of a friend, why he was not silenced 
in this manner, wrote, with an expression of impatient vexation — ' Such is 
the obstinacy and inflexible disposition of the man, that he never can be 
conciliated by any office or gift whatever.' 

He continued in the legislature till 1774, when he was sent to the first 
congress of the old confederation. He was subsequently chosen secretary 
of Massachusetts in 1775, which office was performed by deputy during 
his absence. He was one of the signers of the declaration of 1776, which 
he labored most indefatigably and unhesitatingly to bring forward. He 
was an active member of the convention that formed the constitution of 
Massachusetts ; and, after it went into effect, he was placed in the senate 
of the state, and for several years presided over that body. In 1789, he 



650 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

was elected lieutenant-governor, and held that office till 1794, when, after 
the death of Hancock, he was chosen governor, and was annually reelected 
till 1797. He then retired from public life, and died at his house in Win- 
ter street, Boston, October 2d, 1803, in the 82d year of his age. He 
was one of that class who saw very early, that, ' after all, we must fight ; ' 
and, having come to that conclusion, there was no citizen more prepared 
for the extremity, or who would have been more reluctant to enter into any 
kind of compromise. After he had received warning at Lexington, in the 
night of the 18th of April, of the intended British expedition, as he pro- 
ceeded to make his escape through the fields with some friends, soon after 
the dawn of day, he exclaimed, ' This is a fine day ! ' ' Very pleasant, in- 
deed,' answered one of his companions, supposing he alluded to the beauty 
of the sky and atmosphere. ' I mean,' he replied, ' this day is a glorious 
day for America ! ' His situation at that moment was full of peril and 
uncertainty, but, throughout the contest, no damage to himself or to his 
country ever discouraged or depressed him. The very faults of his char- 
acter tended, in some degree, to render his services more useful, by con- 
centrating his exertions, and preventing their being weakened by indulgence 
or liberality towards different opinions. There was some tinge of bigotry 
and narrowness both in his religion and politics. He was a strict Calvinist ; 
and, probably, no individual of his day had so much of the feelings of the 
ancient Puritans as he possessed. In politics, he was so jealous of dele- 
gated power, that he would not have given our constitutions inherent force 
enough for their own preservation. He attached an exclusive value to the 
habits and principles in which he had been educated, and wished to adjust 
wide concerns too closely after a particular model. One of his colleagues, 
who knew him well, and estimated him highly, described him, with good- 
natured exaggeration, in the following manner : ' Samuel Adams would 
have the state of Massachusetts govern the Union, the town of Boston 
govern Massachusetts, and that he should govern the town of Boston, and 
then the whole would not be intentionally ill-governed.' It was a sad error 
of judgment that caused him to undervalue, for a period at least, the ser- 
vices of Washington during the revolutionary war, and to think that his 
popularity, when president, might be dangerous. Still, these unfounded 
prejudices were honestly entertained, and sprang naturally from his dispo- 
sition and doctrines. During the war, he was impatient for some more 
decisive action than it was in the power of the commander-in-chief, for a 
long time, to bring about ; and when the new constitution went into opera- 
tion, its leaning towards aristocracy, which was the absurd imputation of 
its enemies, and which his anti-federal bias led him more readily to believe, 
derived all its plausibility from the just, generous and universal confidence 
that was reposed in the chief magistrate. These things influenced his 
conduct in old age, when he was governor of Massachusetts, and while the 
extreme heat of political feelings would have made it impossible for a much 
less positive character to administer any public concerns, without one of 
the parties of that day being dissatisfied. But all these circumstances are 
to be disregarded, in making an estimate of his services. He, in fact, was 
born for the revolutionary epoch ; he was trained and nurtured in it, and 
all his principles and views were deeply imbued with the dislikes and par- 
tialities which were created during that long struggle. He belonged to 
the revolution ; all the power and peculiarity of his character were devel 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 651 

oped in that career ; and his share in public life, under a subsequent state 
of things, must be considered as subordinate and unimportant. His private 
habits were simple, frugal and unostentatious. Notwithstanding the aus- 
terity of his character, his aspect was mild, dignified and gentlemanly. 
He was entirely superior to pecuniary considerations, and, after having 
been so many years in the public service, must have been buried at the 
public expense, if the afflicting death of an only son had not remedied 
this honorable poverty. 

JAMES OTIS. 

James Otis, a distinguished American patriot, was born February 5, 
1724—5, at Great Marshes, in what is now called West Barnstable, Mass. 
His family was one of the most respectable in the colony, and of English 
origin. In June, 1739, he entered Cambridge college. The first two 
years of his collegiate course are said to have been given more to amuse- 
ment than to study, his natural disposition being vivacious and ardent ; but 
subsequently he was distinguished for his application and proficiency. Af- 
ter finishing his course at the university, he devoted eighteen months to the 
pursuit of various branches of literature, and then entered upon the study 
of the law in 1745, in the office of Mr. Gridley. Under that eminent law- 
yer he employed his legal novitiate, and then went to Plymouth, where he 
was first admitted to the bar. The two years, however, of his residence in 
that town, were more occupied in study than in practice, so that, when he 
removed to Boston, in 1750, he was well qualified to assume a high rank 
in his profession. This he quickly did : his practice became very exten- 
sive. On one occasion, he went, in the middle of the winter, to Halifax, 
in consequence of urgent solicitation, to defend three men accused of pira- 
cy, and procured their acquittal. Although his professional engagements 
were so numerous, he cultivated his taste for literature, and, in 1760, pub- 
lished a treatise, entitled the Rudiments of Latin Prosody, with a Disser- 
tation on Letters and the Principles of Harmony, in poetic and prosaic Com- 
position, collected from the best Writers. He also composed a similar work 
on Greek prosody, which remained in manuscript, and perished with all his 
papers. It was never printed, as he said, because ' there were no Greek 
types in the country, or, if there were, no printer knew how to set them.' 

In 1755, he married Miss Ruth Cunningham, the daughter of a respect- 
able merchant, who brought him a dowry at that time considered very 
large. Amid all the embarrassments which his affairs subsequently expe- 
rienced, in consequence of his entire devotion to the concerns of the public, 
he sacredly preserved the fortune which he received with his wife, to whom 
it returned after his death. The public career of Mr. Otis dates from the 
period when he made his famous speech against the 'writs of assistance,' 
for which an application had been made, by the officers of the customs, to 
the superior court of Massachusetts, in pursuance of an order in council, 
sent from England, to enable them to carry into effect the acts of parlia- 
ment regulating the trade of the colonies. When that order arrived, Otis 
was advocate-general, and was, consequently, requested to lend his profes- 
sional assistance in the matter ; but, deeming the writs to be illegal and 
tyrannical, he refused, and resigned his station. He was then applied to, 
to argue against the writs, which he immediately undertook to do, in con- 



652 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

junction with Mr. Thacher, and in opposition to his former preceptor, Mr. 
Gridley, the attorney-general. Of the discourse which he pronounced, 
president Adams the elder says, ' Otis was a flame of fire ; with a prompti- 
tude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of histori- 
cal events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of 
his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hur- 
ried away all before him. American independence was then and there 
born. Every man, of an immense crowded audience, appeared to me to 
go away as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance.' The 
court adjourned for consideration, and, at the close of the term, the chief-jus- 
tice, Hutchinson, delivered the opinion : ' The court has considered the subject 
of writs of assistance, and can see no foundation for such a writ ; but, as 
the practice in England is not known, it has been thought best to continue 
the question to the next term, that, in the mean time, opportunity may be 
given to know the result.' When the next term came, however, nothing 
was said about the writs ; and though it was generally understood that they 
were clandestinely granted by the court, and that the custom-house officers 
had them in their pockets, yet it is said that they were never produced or 
executed. Otis had now fully committed himself against the designs of the 
British ministry, and thenceforward bent all his energies to maintain the 
freedom of his country. At the next election of members of the legislature, 
in May, 1761, he was chosen, almost unanimously, a representative from 
Boston, and soon became the leader, in the house, of the popular party. 
For the detail of his course, during the period in which he was a represen- 
tative, we must refer our readers to the biography of him by Mr. Tudor. 
In 1765, Mr. Otis was chosen, by the Massachusetts legislature, one of the 
members of a committee appointed to meet the committees of the legisla- 
tures of other colonies at New York, in consequence of the passage of the 
stamp-act by parliament. They met in convention October 19, in the same 
year, and named three committees to prepare addresses to the king, lords 
and commons. On the last Mr. Otis was placed. In this convention, Mr. 
Otis made the acquaintance of many distinguished men, from different col- 
onies, and subsequently maintained, with several of them, a friendship and 
correspondence. 

In May, 1767, after the repeal of the stamp-act, Mr. Otis was elected 
speaker of the house of representatives ; but he was negatived by the gov- 
ernor, who entertained a peculiar animosity towards him, from his indefati- 
gable endeavors to defeat every plan of encroachment. In the summer of 
1769, the vehement temper of Mr. Otis was so much wrought upon by the 
calumnies which he discovered that the commissioners of the customs in 
Boston had transmitted to England concerning him, by which, indeed, 
they sought to have him tried for treason, that he inserted an advertise- 
ment in the Boston Gazette, denouncing them in severe terms. The next 
evening he happened to go to the British coffee-house, where one of the 
commissioners, a Mr. Robinson, was sitting with a number of officers of the 
army, navy and revenue. As soon as he entered, an altercation arose, 
which was quickly terminated by a blow from Robinson's cane. Otis im- 
mediately returned it with a weapon of the same kind, when the lights were 
extinguished, and he was obliged to defend himself, single-handed, against 
numbers. After some time the combatants were separated. Robinson re- 
treated by a back passage, and Otis was led home, wounded and bleeding. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 653 

He received a deep cut on his head ; and to this has been partly attributed 
the derangement under which he afterwards labored. Soon after this trans- 
action, he instituted an action against Robinson, and obtained an award of 
£2,000 sterling damages, which, however, he gave up on receiving a writ- 
ten apology, in which the defendant acknowledged his fault and begged 
his pardon. 

In 1770, he retired into the country on account of his health. At tho 
election in 1771, he was again chosen a representative ; but this was the 
last year that he took a part in public concerns, except occasionally to ap- 
pear at a town-meeting. He withdrew, also, almost entirely, from the 
practice of his profession. His mind became seriously affected, and con- 
tinued so, with some lucid intervals, until his death. Sometimes he was in 
a frenzied state ; at others, he exhibited rather the eccentricity of a hu- 
morist than absolute derangement. The two last years of his life were passed 
at Andover. After he had been there for some time, he was supposed to 
be completely restored, and returned to Boston. He resumed his profes- 
sional engagements, and pleaded a cause in the court of common pleas, in 
which he displayed considerable power, but less than was his wont. The 
interval of reason was not, however, of long duration, and he was induced 
to go back to Andover. Six weeks after his return, he was killed by a 
stroke of lightning, in the sixtieth year of his age, May 23, 1783. 

The chief defect of Mr. Otis' character was his irascibility. His merits 
are well summed up in the following extract from the work of Mr. Tudor, 
to* which we have before alluded : — ' In fine, he was a man of powerful 
genius and ardent temper, with wit and humor that never failed ; as an 
orator, he was bold, argumentative, impetuous and commanding, with an 
eloquence that made his own excitement irresistibly contagious : as a law- 
yer, his knowledge and ability placed him at the head of his profession ; as 
a scholar, he was rich in acquisition, and governed by a classic taste ; as a 
statesman and civilian, he was sound and just in his views ; as a patriot, he 
resisted all allurements that might weaken the cause of that country to 
which he devoted his life, and for which he sacrificed it.' It is greatly to 
be regretted that, during his derangement, he destroyed all his papers ; 
sufficient evidence, however, of his power as a writer, remains in the vari- 
ous state papers of which he was the author whilst a member of the legis- 
lature, though they were subjected to the revising pen of Samuel Adams, 
whose patient temper permitted him to undergo the labor of correcting and 
polishing, which the ardor of the other disdained. 

FISHER AMES. 

Fisher Ames, one of the most eloquent of American statesman and writers, 
was born at Dedham, in Massachusetts, April 9th, 1758, of very respect- 
able parents. Soon after the completion of his 12th year, he was admit- 
ted to Harvard college, with the reputation of uncommon talents and at- 
tainments. Diligence, regularity and success marked his collegiate course 
of four years. After receiving his degree, in 1774, the narrow circum- 
stances of his widowed mother compelled him to postpone, for several years, 
the accomplishment of his original purpose of studying the law. In the 
interval, he acted as an assistant teacher in a public school, and continued 
to cultivate classical literature, to the signal improvement of his taste and 



654 AMEBIC AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

fancy. At length, in 1781, he commenced the practice of the law, with 
the stock of knowledge which he had acquired in the office of a member of 
the profession, in Boston. Opportunity soon occurred for the display of 
his superior qualifications, both as a speaker and essay writer. The fame 
which followed his early efforts conduced to place him in the Massachu- 
setts convention for ratifying the constitution, in 1788. From this sphere, 
in which he made a deep impression by some of his speeches, particularly 
that on biennial elections, he passed to the house of representatives in the 
state legislature. Here, he soon became so eminent as an orator and man 
of business, that the voters of the Suffolk district elected him their first 
representative in the congress of the U. States. He had not been long in 
that assembly before his friends and admirers were satisfied that they had 
not overrated his abilities. He won there the palm of eloquence, besides 
proving himself equal to the discussion of the deepest subjects of politics 
and finance, and the execution of the most arduous committee labors. He 
remained in congress during eight years, the whole of Washington's admin- 
istration, which he constantly and zealously defended. 'His speech on the 
British treaty,' says his distinguished biographer, doctor Kirkland, 'was 
the era of his political life. For many months, he had been sinking un- 
der weakness, and, though he had attended the long and interesting de- 
bate on the question which involved the constitution and the peace of the 
U. States, it was feared he would be unable to speak. But when the 
time came for taking a vote so big with consequences, his emotions would 
not suffer him to be silent. His appearance, his situation, the magnitucfe 
of his subject, the force and the pathos of his eloquence, gave this speech 
an extraordinary power over the feelings of the dignified and numerous 
assembly who heard it. When he had finished, a member in opposition 
moved to postpone the decision of the question, that they might not vote 
under the influence of a sensibility which their calm judgment might con- 
demn.' On the retirement of Washington, Mr. A. returned to his residence 
at Deadham, where he occupied himself with the management of his farm 
and the practice of the law. The latter he relinquished in a few years, 
owing to the decline of his health ; but he felt too deep an interest in the 
welfare of his country to withdraw his mind and pen from politics. He 
published a considerable number of essays, relating chiefly on the contest 
between Great Britain and revolutionary France, as it might affect Amer- 
ican liberty and prosperity. No writer evinced more ardor for the suc- 
cess of Britain, or more horror of the character and tendencies of the 
French despotism. In 1804, Mr. A. was chosen president of Harvard 
college, — an honor which he declined. When Washington died, Mr. A., 
then a member of council of the commonwealth, was appointed to pro- 
nounce his funeral eulogy before the legislature of Massachusetts. The 
injury which his constitution sustained in 1795 was never fully repaired. 
From that period his health declined, until, at length, after an extreme 
debility for two years, death ended his sufferings. He expired July 4th, 
1808 ; and, when the intelligence of this event was received, a public 
meeting of citizens was held, in order to testify the general respect for 
his character. His remains were carried to Boston, where they were in- 
terred with honors such as had not been before paid to those of any pri- 
vate citizen. In 1809, his works were issued in a large octavo volume, 
with prefatory notices of his life and character, from the pen of the rever- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 656 

end doctor Kirkland, president of Harvard college, who had enjoyed his 
personal friendship and intimacy. The volume is fraught with profound 
remarks, various historical lore, and eloquent declamation. Although the 
political interest of most of the topics is gone, there remains much to cap- 
tivate and reward attention in the richness of fancy, warmth of feeling, 
beauty of language, and felicity of copious illustration, which distinguish 
almost every page. Fisher Ames left seven children and a wife, to whom 
he was tenderly attached. In person, he exceeded a little the middle stat- 
ure, was well-proportioned and perfectly erect. His features and counten- 
ance were fine, and his manners easy and affable. Of his delivery as an 
orator, his biographer states, that he did not systematically study the exte- 
rior graces of speaking, but his attitude was firm, his gesticulation natural 
and forcible, his voice clear and varied, and his whole manner earnest and 
expressive. According to the same authority, all the other efforts of his 
mind were probably surpassed by his powers of conversation. 

COLONEL AARON BURR. 

Colonel Aaron Burr was born on the 6th of February 1756, at 
Newark, in New Jersey. His father, the Rev. Aaron Burr, was the 
first president of the College of New Jersey, which was opened at New- 
ark, but was subsequently removed to Princeton ; his mother was the 
daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, so distinguished as a metaphy- 
sician and divine, and who succeeded his son-in-law in the presidency of 
the College. The former died in 1757, and the latter in the following 
year, leaving only two children, Aaron and a daughter, afterwards the 
wife of Judge Tappan Reeve, of Conneticut. Colonel Burr inherited 
from his father a considerable property. He was graduated at Princeton 
when only 16 years old. When in his 20th year he joined the American 
army, after the battle of Bunker's Hill, in the neighborhood of Boston. 
Here he volunteered to accompany General Arnold in the expedition 
against Quebec. This officer led the detachment under his command 
into Canada, by way of the Kennebec, and through the wilderness 
between the St. Lawrence and the settlements in the regions now consti- 
tuting the state of Maine. On his arrival at Chaudi£re pond, Burr was 
sent with a communication to General Montgomery, who was advancing 
from the state of New York with the forces under his immediate orders ; 
and who was so much pleased with the young messenger as to appoint 
him to be one of his aids-de-camp. In this capacity Burr was present at 
the battle of Quebec, and near the person of the General when he was 
killed. On his return from Canada, in May, 1776, he proceeded to the 
city of New York, on being 'notified verbally, that it would be agreeable 
to the commander-in-chief ' that he should do so. But it would seem that 
Colonel (then already Major) Burr, for some reason or other, failed to 
make a favorable impression personally on General Washington. He, in 
consequence, became, in his turn, dissatisfied, and even inclined to quit 
the service ; when through the instrumentality of Governor Hancock, 
he obtained the appointment of aid-de-camp to General Putnam, — an 
appointment which he gladly accepted. 

In July 1777, he was promoted to the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel ; 
but was obliged, in March 1779, to resign his commission in the army, on 



656 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

account of the impaired state of his health. He had, on various occa- 
sions, during the war, highly distinguished himself by his bravery, 
vigilance, and skill, and had been repeatedly selected by Washington to 
execute his commands on important emergencies, although that great man 
and admirable judge of character, had formed but a low estimate of his 
principles and morals. On retiring from the army, and after an interval 
of repose required for the restoration of his health, Colonel Burr applied 
himself to the study of the law, as well to provide himself with an ade- 
quate field for distinction among his countrymen in his future life, as to 
repair the pecuniary losses which he had incurred, during the period of 
his military service, by the liberality and extravagance of his expenditure. 
He commenced the practice of his profession at Albany, in the month of 
April, 1782, and married in July following. As soon as the British troops 
had evacuated the city of New York, at the conclusion of the war, in 
November, 1783, he removed thither, where he speedily acquired an exten- 
sive and lucrative practice. He was a member of the Legislature during 
the sessions of 1784 and 1785 ; but as that body met in the city where he 
resided, and as he took part in its deliberations only on a few of the most 
important questions which came before it for its decision, his professional 
avocations suffered scarcely any interruption ; and it was only after the 
existing constitution of the Union went into operation that he became 
prominent as a party politician. In 1789, he was appointed attorney- 
general of the state. In January, 1791, he was elected a senator of the 
United States ; and he took his seat in that body in the autumn of that 
year. He was appointed, in October, 1792, to be a judge of the supreme 
court of the state of New York, but declined the appointment ; preferring 
to hold his position in the United States Senate, as one of the most promi- 
nent leaders of the party (the democratic) to which he belonged. At the 
presidential election which took place in the autumn of 1800, an equal 
number of votes were found to have been given for the two highest candi- 
dates on the list, Mr. Jefferson and Colonel Burr ; and it, in consequence, 
devolved on the members of the House of Representatives, voting by states, 
to decide which of these gentlemen should hold the office of president, and 
which of them that of vice-president. Notwithstanding that, prior to the 
choice of electors, Mr. Jefferson was alone intended, by the party that 
nominated him, as their candidate for the presidency ', it was not until after 
36 ballotings that the contest was decided in his favor. From this time 
forth, as from the circumstances of the case might naturally have been 
expected, Colonel Burr lost the confidence of the majority of his former 
political friends ; and the attempts which he made to ingratiate himself 
with those to whom he had been heretofore opposed were only partially 
successful. In 1804, he was a candidate for the office of governor of 
New York, but failed of being elected. He was supported by a portion 
of both the political parties ; by a minority of the democrats, and a ma- 
jority of the federalists. Of the latter party, General Hamilton had been 
one of those who most earnestly opposed him ; and a duel took place, on 
the 11th of July, between these distinguished men, growing out of their 
rivalship and adverse relation to each other. Burr was the challenger, 
conceiving himself to have been injuriously spoken of at the period of the 
preceding election by Hamilton, who was mortally wounded in the encoun- 
ter. Colonel Burr continued at his post in the Senate of the United 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 657 

States till within two days of the expiration of his term of service as vice- 
president ; the last public duty of any importance performed by him hav- 
ing been to preside at the trial of Judge Chase, who was impeached by 
the House of Representatives for ' high crimes and misdemeanors.' It 
was not very long afterwards that he formed the scheme of his singular, 
and even yet not satisfactorily explained, western expedition, which led to 
his arrest, and trials at Richmond, in Virginia, in August and September, 
1807, for treason first, and then for a misdemeanor. He was acquitted 
or both these charges. In June, 1808, he embarked from New York for 
England ; induced to take this step, in a certain degree, by the personal 
and political prejudices that had been excited against him, by the death of 
Hamilton, and by the equivocal course he had pursued in the western 
country, but, in a degree also, by an expectation of being able to obtain 
encouragement and assistance from some of the European governments, 
for attempting the emancipation of the Spanish American colonies from the 
oppressive domination of the mother country, — a project which he had long 
contemplated. His efforts in this respect were, however, entirely unsuc- 
cessful ; and he returned to the United States in June, 1812, after an 
absence abroad of 4 years. He opened an office in the city of New York, 
and practiced the law there, but without attracting the attention of the 
public to any considerable extent. In 1816, General Toledo, then in the 
city of New York, and whose object in visiting the United States was ' not 
only to obtain the means of continuing the war (of Mexico against Spain), 
but to seek the person best capable of employing them,' invited him to 
' assume the management ' of the ' political and military affairs ' of the 
Mexican republic. Colonel Burr declined this invitation. But again, in 
1819, he received a commission from the government of Venezuela, author- 
izing him to raise troops for the sea and land service of that republic, and 
pledging itself to pay all debts of his contracting in the exercise of the 
authority granted him. Colonel Burr died on the 14th of September, 
1836, in the 81st year of his age, on Staten Island, where he had passed 
the summer for the benefit of the pure air. Agreeably to his own request,, 
his body was conveyed to Princeton, to be there buried. 

ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 

Alexander Hamilton was born in 1757, in the island of Nevis. His 
father was a native of England, and his mother of the island. At the 
age of 16, he became a student of Columbia college, his mother having 
emigrated to New York. He had not been in that institution more than a 
year, before he gave a brilliant manifestation of the powers of his mind 
in the discussion concerning the rights of the colonies. In support of 
these he published several essays, which were marked by such vigor and 
maturity of style, strength of argument, and wisdom and compass of views, 
that Mr. Jay, at that time in the meridian of life, was supposed, at first, to 
be the author. When it had become necessary to unsheath the sword, the 
ardent spirit of young Hamilton would no longer allow him to remain in 
academic retirement ; and before the age of 19, he entered the American 
army, with the rank of captain of artillery. In this capacity, he soon 
attracted the attention of the commander-in-chief, who appointed him his 
aid-de-camp, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. This occurred in 1777, 
42* 



658 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

when he was not more than 20 years of age. From this time, he contin- 
ued the inseparable companion of Washington during the war, and was 
always consulted by him, and frequently by other eminent public functiona- 
ries, on the most important occasions. He acted as his first aid-de-camp at 
the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, and, at the siege 
of Yorktown, he led, at his own request, the detachment that carried by 
assault one of the enemy's outworks, Oct. 14, 1781. In this affair, he 
displayed the most brilliant valor. After the war, colonel Hamilton then 
about 24, commenced the study of the law, as he had at that time a wife 
and family depending upon him for support. He was soon admitted to 
the bar. In 1782, he was chosen a member of congress from the state of 
New York, where he quickly acquired the greatest influence and distinction, 
and was always a member and sometimes chairman of those committees to 
which were confided such subjects as were deemed of vital interest to the 
nation. The reports which he prepared are remarkable for the correct- 
ness and power which characterize every effort of his pen. At the end of 
the session, he returned to the practice of his profession in the city of 
New York, and became eminent at the bar. In 1786, he was chosen a 
member of the legislature of his state, and was mainly instrumental in 
preventing a serious collision between Vermont and New York, in conse- 
quence of a dispute concerning territorial jurisdiction. He was elected a 
delegate of New York to the convention which was to meet at Philadelphia, 
in order to form a constitution for the United States. As the doors of the 
convention were closed during its sittings, and its records have never been 
given to the world, it is not possible to state the precise part which he acted 
in that body. It is well ascertained, however, that the country is, at least, 
as much indebted to him for the excellencies of the constitution, as to any 
other member of the illustrious assembly. Hamilton and Madison were 
the chief oracles and artificers. After the adoption of the constitution by 
the convention, he associated himself with Mr. Madison and Mr. Jay, for 
the purpose of disposing the public to receive it with favor. The essays 
which they wrote with that design, addressed to the people of New York, 
during the years 1787 and 1788, are well known under the name of the 
Federalist, and contributed powerfully to produce the effect for which they 
were composed. The larger portion of them was written by Hamilton. 
In 1788, he was a member of the state convention of New York, which met 
to deliberate on the adoption of the federal constitution, and it was chiefly 
in consequence of his efforts that it was accepted. On the organization of 
the federal government, in 1789, he was appointed to the office of secretary 
of the treasury. This was a situation which required the exercise of all 
the great powers of his mind ; for the public credit was, at that time, in 
the lowest state of depression ; and, as no statistical account of the country 
had ever been attempted, its fiscal resources were wholly unknown. But 
before Hamilton retired from the post, which he did after filling it during 
somewhat more than five years, he had raised the public credit to a height 
altogether unprecedented in the history of the country, and, by the admi- 
rable system of finance which he established, had acquired the reputation 
of one of the greatest financiers of the age. His official reports to congress 
are considered as masterpieces, the principles which he advocated in them 
still continue to exercise a great influence in the revenue department of the 
American government. Whilst secretary of the treasury, he was, ex officio, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 659 

one of the cabinet counselors of president Washington; and such was the 
confidence reposed by that great man in his integrity and ability, that 
he rarely ventured upon any executive act of moment without his concur- 
rence. ^ He was one of the principal advisers of the proclamation of 
neutrality issued by Washington in 1793, in consequence of an attempt made 
by the minister of France to cause the United States to take part with his 
country in the war then waging between it and England. This measure 
he defended in a series of essays, under the signature of Pacificus, which 
were successful in giving it popularity. In 1795, Hamilton resigned his 
office, and retired to private life, in order to be better able to support a 
numerous family by the practice of his profession. In 1798, however, 
when an invasion was apprehended from the French, and a provisional 
army had been called into the field, his public services were again required. 
President Adams had offered the chief command of the provisional army 
to Washington, who consented to accept it on condition that Hamilton 
should be chosen second in command, with the title of inspector-general. 
This was accordingly done ; and, in a short time, he succeeded in bringing 
the organization and discipline of the army to a high degree of excellence. 
On the death of Washington, in 1799, he succeeded, of course, to the 
chief command. The title of lieutenant-general, however, to which he 
was then entitled, was, from some unexplained cause, never conferred on 
him. When the army was disbanded, after the cessation of hostilities 
between the United States and France, general Hamilton returned a«-ain 
to the bar, and continued to practice, with increased reputation and suc- 
cess, until 1804. In June of that year, he received a note from colonel 
Burr, — between whom and himself a political had become a personal enmity, 
— in which he was required, in offensive language, to acknowledge or 
disavow certain expressions derogatory to the latter. The tone of the note 
was such as to cause him to refuse to do either, and a challenge was the 
consequence. July 11, the parties met at Hoboken, and on the first fire 
Hamilton fell mortally wounded, on the same spot where, a short time 
previously, his eldest son had been killed in a duel. He lingered until the 
afternoon of the following day, when he expired. The sensation which this 
occurrence produced throughout the United States, had never been exceeded 
on this continent. Men of all political parties felt that the nation was 
deprived of its greatest ornament. His transcendent abilities were uni- 
versally acknowledged ; every citizen was ready to express confidence in his 
spirit of honor and his capacity for public service. Of all the coadjutors 
and advisers of Washington, Hamilton was doubtless the one in whose 
judgment and sagacity he reposed the greatest confidence, whether in the 
military or civil career ; and, of all the American statesmen, he displayed 
the most comprehensive understanding and the most varied ability, whether 
applied to subjects practical or speculative. A collection of his works was 
issued in New York, in three octavo volumes, some years after his death. 
His style is nervous, lucid and elevated ; he excels in reasoning, founded 
on general principles and historical experience. General Hamilton was 
regarded as the head of the federalists in the party divisions of the 
American republic. He was accused of having preferred, in the conven- 
tion that framed the federal constitution, a government mor? akin to the 
monarchical ; he weakened the federal party by denouncing president 
Adams, whose administration he disapproved, and whose fitness for office 



660 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

he questioned. But his general course, and his confidential correspon- 
dence, show that he earnestly desired to preserve the constitution, when it 
was adopted, and that his motives were patriotic in his proceedings towards 
Mr. Adams. Certain it is that no man labored more faithfully, skillfully 
and efficiently, in organizing and putting into operation the federal gov- 
ernment. 

PATRICK HENRY. 

Patrick Henry, the second son of John and Sarah Henry, and one of 
nine children, was born May 29, 1736, in the county of Hanover and col- 
ony of Virginia. Until ten years of age, Patrick Henry was sent to a 
school in the neighborhood, where he learned to read and write, and made 
some small progress in arithmetic. He was then taken home, and, under 
the direction of his father, who had opened a grammar school in his own 
house, he acquired a superficial knowledge of the Latin language. At 
the same time, he made a considerable proficiency in the mathematics, the 
only branch of education for which, it seems, he discovered, in his youth, 
the slightest predilection. He was passionately addicted to the sports of 
the field, and could not brook the confinement and toil which education 
required. His father, unable to sustain the expense of his large and increas- 
ing family, found it necessary to qualify his sons, at a very early age, to 
support themselves. With this view, Patrick was placed, at the age of 
fifteen, behind the counter of a trader in the country. In the next year, 
his father purchased a small adventure of goods for his two sons, William 
and Patrick, and 'set them up in trade.' William's habits of idleness were 
such, that the chief management of their concerns devolved upon the 
younger brother, and that management was most wretched. One year put 
an end to this experiment, and Patrick was engaged, for the two or three 
following years, in settling the accounts of the firm as well as he could. 
At the early age of eighteen, he married a Miss Shelton, the daughter of 
a respectable farmer in the neighborhood ; and, by the joint assistance of 
their parents, the young couple were settled on a small farm, where, with 
one or two slaves, Mr. Henry had to dig the earth for subsistence. His 
want of agricultural skill, and his unconquerable aversion to every species 
of systematic labor, caused him, after a trial of two years, to abandon this 
pursuit. His next step seems to have been dictated by absolute despair ; 
for, selling off his little possessions at a sacrifice for cash, he entered a sec- 
ond time into the unauspicious business of merchandise. But the same 
want of method, the same facility of temper, soon became apparent. He 
resumed his violin, his flute, his books, his inspection of human nature, and 
not unfrequently shut up his shop to indulge himself in the favorite sports 
of his youth. His reading, however, began to assume a more serious char- 
acter. He studied geography, read the charters and history of the colony, 
and became fond of historical works generally, particularly those of Greece 
and Rome, and, from the tenacity of his memory and the strength of his 
judgment, soon made himself master of their contents. Livy was his 
favorite ; and, having procured a translation, he made it a rule to read it 
through, once, at least, in every year, during the earlier part of his life. 
The second mercantile experiment in a few years left him a bankrupt ; 
every remnant of his property was gone, and his friends tfere unable to 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 661 

assist him any further. As a last effort, he determined to make trial of 
the law. No one expected him to succeed ; his unfortunate habits were by 
no means suited to so laborious a profession, and the situation of his affairs 
forbade an extensive course of reading. After a six weeks' preparation, 
he obtained a license to practice the law, being at this time of the age of 
four and twenty. He was, at the time of his admission to practice, not 
only unable to draw a declaration or a plea, but incapable, it is said, of the 
most common and simple business of his profession, even the mode of order- 
ing a suit, giving a notice, or making a motion in court. For three years, 
the wants and distresses of his family were extreme. The profits of his 
practice could not have supplied them even with the necessaries of life ; 
and he seems to have spent the greatest part of his time, both during his 
study of the law and the practice of the first two or three years, with his 
father-in-law, Mr. Shelton, who then kept a tavern at Hanover court-house. 
Whenever Mr. Shelton was from home, Mr. Henry supplied his place in 
the tavern. The controversy between the clergy on the one hand, and the 
legislature and people of the colony on the other, touching the stipend 
claimed by the former, which had created a great excitement in Virginia, 
was the occasion on which his genius first broke forth. The display which 
he made in the parsons' cause, as it was popularly called, placed him, at 
once, at the head of his profession, in that quarter of the colony in which 
he practiced. In the year 1764, he removed to the county of Louisa, and 
resided at a place called the Roundabout. In the autumn of the same 
year, a contest having occurred, in the house of burgesses, in the case of 
Mr. James Littlepage, the returned member of the county of Hanover, who 
was charged with bribery and corruption, the parties were heard by counsel, 
before the committee of privileges and elections, and Henry was on this 
occasion employed by Mr. Dandridge, the rival candidate. Henry distin- 
guished himself by a brilliant display on the subject of the rights of suffrage. 
Such a burst of eloquence, from a man so very plain and humble in his 
appearance, struck the committee with amazement ; a deep silence took 
place during the speech, and not a sound but from his lips was to be heard 
in the room. 

In 1765, he was elected member of the house of burgesses, with express 
reference to an opposition to the British stamp-act. After having waited 
in vain for some step to be taken by another, and when the session was 
within three days of its expected close, he introduced his celebrated reso- 
lutions on the stamp-act. After his death, there was found among his 
papers one sealed, and thus indorsed : — ' Enclosed are the resolutions of 
the Virginia assembly, in 1765, concerning the stamp-act. Let my exec- 
utors open this paper.' Within was found a copy of the resolutions in his 
own hand-writing. On the back of the paper containing the resolutions, 
is the following indorsement, also in his hand-writing : — ' The within reso- 
lutions passed the house of burgesses in May, 1765. They formed the 
first opposition to the stamp-act, and the scheme of taxing America by the 
British parliament. All the colonies, either through fear, or want of oppor- 
tunity to form an opposition, or from influence of some kind or other, had 
remained silent. I had been for the first time elected a burgess a few days 
lefore, was young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms of the house, 
and the members that composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to 
opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person 



662 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

was likely to step forth, I determined to venture, and alone, unadvised, and 
unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old law book, wrote the within. Upon 
offering them to the house, violent debates ensued. Many threats were 
uttered, and much abuse cast on me, by the party for submission. After 
a long and warm contest, the resolutions passed by a very small majority, 
perhaps of one or two only. The alarm spread throughout America with 
astonishing quickness, and the ministerial party were overwhelmed. The 
great point of resistance to British taxation was universally established in 
the colonies. This brought on the war, which finally separated the two 
countries, and gave independence to ours. Whether this will prove a bless- 
ing or a curse, will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings 
which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will 
be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be 
miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation. Reader, 
whoever thou art, remember this ; and in thy sphere, practice virtue thyself, 
and encourage it in others. P. Henry. 

It was in the midst of the debate above-mentioned, that he exclaimed, 
' Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the 
Third — ' Treason !' cried the speaker — ' Treason, treason !' echoed from 
every part of the house. Henry faltered not for an instant ; but taking a 
loftier attitude, and fixing on the speaker an eye of fire, he finished his 
sentence with the firmest emphasis — ' may profit by their example. If 
this be treason, make the most of it.' From this period, Mr. Henry became 
the idol of the people of Virginia ; nor was his name confined to his native 
state. His influence was felt throughout the continent, and he was every 
where regarded as one of the great champions of colonial liberty. In the 
year 1769, he was admitted to the bar of the general court. He wanted 
that learning, whose place no genius can supply to the lawyer ; and he 
wanted those habits of steady and persevering application, without which 
that learning is not to be acquired. But on questions before a jury, his 
knowledge of human nature, and the rapidity as well as justness of his 
inferences, from the flitting expressions of the countenance, as to what 
was passing in the hearts of his hearers, availed him fully. The defense 
of criminal cases was his great professional forte. The house of burgesses 
of Virginia, which had led the opposition to the stamp-act, kept their high 
ground during the whole of the ensuing contest. 

Mr. Henry having removed again from Louisa to his native county, in 
the year 1767 or 1768, continued a member of that house till the close of 
the revolution ; and there could be no want of boldness in any body of 
which he was a member. He was one of the standing committee of cor- 
respondence and inquiry concerning the pretensions of the British, which 
was appointed by the house, March 12, 1773. He was also of the number 
of delegates sent by Virginia to the first general congress of the colonies, 
which assembled in Philadelphia, September 4, 1774. When the congress 
rose, he returned home, and entered the legislature of Virginia again, de- 
termined upon prosecuting the work of national independence. In this 
career, he became, by his zeal and efficiency, obnoxious to the royal gover- 
nor, and to all who were disposed to maintain the royal cause, or who 
dreaded the resort to force. 

When intelligence was received of the battles of Lexington and Concord 
in Massachusetts, Henry summoned volunteers to meet him, in order to 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. G63 

compel the governor of Virginia (lord Dunmore) to restore a quantity of 
powder which the latter had caused to be taken from the public magazine 
at Williamsburg. This was the first military movement in Virginia. The 
governor issued a proclamation, calling upon the people to resist it ; but 
Henry, at the head of a considerable corps, obliged his lordship to consent 
to the payment of a pecuniary compensation for the powder withdrawn. 
The volunteers returned in triumph to their homes. As soon, however, as 
all seemed again quiet, the governor sent forth, though without any effect, 
a violent manifesto against ' a certain Patrick Henry, and a number of de- 
luded followers,' etc. 

Henry took a leading party in all the subsequent measures which ended 
in the prostration of the royal authority, and the erection of an indepen- 
dent government in Virginia. The colonial convention of 1775 elected 
him the colonel of the first regiment, and the commander of f all the forces 
raised and to be raised for the defense of the colony.' He soon resigned 
this command, from a belief that he could serve the cause of his country 
more effectually in the public councils than in the field. Immediately up- 
on his resignation he was elected a delegate to the convention, and, not 
long after, the first governor of the commonwealth — a post in which he 
proved signally serviceable, by sustaining the public spirit during the revo- 
lutionary struggle, providing recruits and supplies for the continental army, 
and crushing the intrigues of the tories who infested Virginia. His ad- 
ministration was prolonged by reflections until 1779, when he retired from 
the office, being no longer eligible without intermission, according to the 
constitution. As a member of the legislature, to which he at once return- 
ed, he continued to serve the great cause until the end of the war, when 
he was again elected governor of Virginia. The state of his affairs obliged 
him to resign the station in the autumn of 1786. In December of that 
year, he was appointed by the legislature one of the deputies to the con- 
vention, held at Philadelphia, for the purpose of revising the federal con- 
stitution. This appointment he declined, it being necessary for him to re- 
sume the practice of the law, in order to make some provision for his fami- 
ly. During the six following years, he regularly attended the courts, and 
his great reputation obtained for him lucrative business. His next ap- 
pearance in political life was as a member of the convention, which was to 
decide the fate of the federal constitution in Virginia. Some of the 
features of that instrument inspired him with fears for the liberties of the 
country. All his great powers of eloquence and his personal influence 
were exerted to procure the rejection of it. The amendments proposed by 
Virginia originated in the objections so vehemently and plausibly urged by 
him and his associates. He became, nevertheless, a convert to the excel- 
lence of the system, and an earnest federalist, in the twofold acceptation 
of the term. In the spring of 1791, he bade a final adieu to public life, 
and, in 1794, to the bar, at which he had gained some brilliant triumphs, 
which are commemorated by his distinguished biographer William Wirt 
(Life of P. Henry, Philadelphia, 1817). In 1796, the post of governor 
of the state was once more tendered to him and refused. In the following 
year, his health began to decline, and continued to sink gradually until the 
moment of his death, which took place on the 6th of June. Mr. Henry, 
by his two marriages, was the father of fifteen children. By his first wife, 
he had six, of whom two only survived him ; by his last, he had six sons 



664 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and three daughters, all of whom, together with their mother, were living 
at his death. He had been fortunate during the latter part of his life ; 
and, chiefly by the means of judicious purchases of lands, left his family, 
large as it was, not only independent, but rich. In his habits of living he 
was remarkably temperate and frugal. He seldom drank any thing but 
water ; and his table was furnished in the most simple manner. His mo- 
rals were strict. As a husband, a father, a master, he had no superior. 
He was kind and hospitable to the stranger, and most friendly and accom- 
modating to his neighbors. He was nearly six feet high ; spare, and what 
may be called raw-boned, with a slight stoop of the shoulders ; his com- 
plexion was dark, sun-burned, and sallow, without any appearance of blocd 
in his cheeks ; his countenance grave, thoughtful and penetrating, and 
strongly marked with the lineaments of deep reflection : the earnestness of 
his manner, united with an habitual contraction or knitting of his brows, 
and those lines of thought with which his face was profusely furrowed, 
gave to his countenance, at some times, the appearance of severity. Hen- 
ry was gifted with a strong and musical voice, and a most expressive coun- 
tenance, and he acquired particular skill in the use of them. His style of 
speaking, to judge from the representations of his hearers, was altogether 
more successful than that of any of his cotemporaries. He could be ve- 
hement, insinuating, humorous and sarcastic by turns, and always with the 
utmost effect. He was a natural orator, of the highest order, combining 
imagination, acuteness, dexterity and ingenuity, with the most forcible ac- 
tion and extraordinary powers of face and utterance. As a statesman, his 
principal merits were sagacity and boldness. His name is brilliantly and 
lastingly connected with the history of his country's emancipation. 

JOHN HANCOCK. 

John Hancock, was born at Quincy, near Boston, and was the son and 
grandson of an eminent clergyman, but, having early lost his father, was 
indebted for his liberal education to his uncle, a merchant of great wealth 
and respectability, who sent him to Harvard university, where he was gra- 
duated in 1754. He was then placed in the counting-house of his bene- 
factor, and not long afterwards visited England, where he was present at 
the coronation of George III, as little prescient as the monarch himself of 
the part which he was destined to act in relation to the English government. 
On the sudden demise of his uncle, in 1764, he succeeded to his large 
fortune and extensive business ; both of which he managed with great judg- 
ment and munificence. As a member of the provincial legislature, he ex 
erted himself with zeal and resolution against the royal governor and the 
British ministry, and became so obnoxious to them, in consequence, that in 
the proclamation issued by general Gage, after the battle of Lexington, 
and a few days before that of Bunker hill, offering pardon to the rebels, he 
and Samuel Adams were especially excepted, their offenses being ' of too 
flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign 
punishment.' This circumstance gave additional celebrity to these two 
patriots, between whom, however, an unfortunate dissention took place 
which produced a temporary schism in the party which they headed, an^ 
a long personal estrangement between themselves. In fact, they differed 
so widely in their modes of living and general dispositions, that their con 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 665 

currence in political measures may be considered one of the strongest 
proofs of their patriotism. Hancock was a magnificent liver, lavishly 
bountiful, and splendidly hospitable ; Samuel Adams had neither the means 
nor the inclination for pursuing a similar course. He was studiously simple 
and frugal, and was of an austere, unbending character. 

Hancock was president of the provincial congress of Massachusetts, 
until he was sent as a delegate from the province to the general congress 
at Philadelphia, in 1775. Soon after his arrival there, he was chosen to 
succeed Peyton Randolph as president of that assembly, and was the first 
to affix his signature to the declaration of independence. He continued 
to fill the chair until the year 1779, when he was compelled by disease to 
retire from congress. He was then elected governor of Massachusetts, 
and was annually chosen from 1780 to 1785. After an interval of two 
years, during which Mr. Bowdoin occupied the post, he was reelected, and 
continued in the office until his death, Oct. 8, 1793, at the age of 56 years. 
In the interval, he acted as president of the convention of the state for 
the adoption of the federal constitution, for which he finally voted. (An 
able sketch of his character is contained in Tudor's Lifo of Otis.) The 
talents of Hancock were rather useful than brilliant. He seldom spoke, 
but his knowledge of business, and facility in despatching it, together with 
his keen insight into the characters of men, rendered him peculiarly fit for 
public life. As the president of a deliberative assembly, he excelled. 
His voice was sonorous, his apprehension of questions quick ; he was well 
acquainted with parliamentary forms, and inspired respect and confidence 
by his attention, impartiality and dignity. In his private life, he was emi- 
nent for his hospitality and beneficence. He was a complete gentleman of 
the old school, both in his appearance and manners ; dressing richly, ac- 
cording to the fashion of the day, keeping a handsome equipage, and being 
distinguished for politeness and affability in social intercourse. When 
Washington consulted the legislature of Massachusetts upon the propriety 
of bombarding Boston, Hancock advised its being done immediately, if it 
would benefit the cause, although nearly his whole property consisted in 
houses and real estate in that town. 

ETHAN ALLEN 

Ethan Allen, a brigadier-general in the American revolutionary army, 
was born in Salisbury, Connecticut, but was educated principally in Ver- 
mont, to which state his parents emigrated whilst he was yet young. His 
education was of a limited character. In the disturbances which agitated 
Vermont, he took an active part against the royal authority, in favor of the 
Gf-reen mountain boys, the name by which the settlers in that territory were 
designated. 

In 1775, soon after the battle of Lexington, in compliance with the re- 
quest of the legislature of Connecticut, Allen collected a body of about 
230 Green mountain boys, and marched against the fortresses of Ticonder- 
oga and Crown Point, for the purpose of taking them by assault. At Cas- 
tleton, he was joined by colonel Arnold, who had received directions from 
the Massachusetts committee of safety to raise a corps of men for the same 
purpose, but, failing to accomplish that object, he determined to proceed 
with the small force of colonel Allen. They arrived at the lake opposite 



666 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to Ticonderoga, on the evening of May 9, and, having with great difficulty 
procured boats, landed 83 men on the other shore during the night. The 
day beginning to dawn, however, Allen was obliged to attack the fort before 
his rear could cross the lake, having previously animated his soldiers, by a 
harangue, which he concluded with saying, ' I now propose to advance 
before you, and in person to conduct you through the wicket-gate ; but, in- 
asmuch as it is a desperate attempt, I do not urge on any one contrary to 
his will. You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your fire-locks.' They 
all immediately poised their fire locks. He then advanced at the head of 
the centre file to the wicket-gate, where a sentry snapped his fusee at him, 
and retreated through the covered way, followed by Allen, who formed his 
men upon the parade. The apartments of the commanding officer having 
been pointed out to him by a sentry who asked quarter, he instantly re- 
paired thither, and, holding his sword over captain de Laplace, whom he 
found undressed demanded, the surrender of the fort. The latter asking 
him by what authority, ' I demand it,' said Allen, ' in the name of the 
great Jehovah, and of the continental congress.' De Laplace was con- 
strained to comply with the summons, and the fort, with its stores and gar- 
rison, was given up. On the same day, also, Allen obtained possession of 
Crown Point, and soon after captured a sloop-of-war, the only armed 
vessel on lake Champlain, and thus accquired the entire command of the 
lake. 

In the following autumn, he was twice despatched into Canada, to en- 
gage the inhabitants to lend their support to the American cause. In the 
last of these expeditions, he formed a plan, in concert with colonel Brown, 
to reduce Montreal. September 10, 1775, Allen accordingly crossed the 
river, at the head of 110 men,' but was attacked, before Brown could join 
him, by the British troops, consisting of 500 men, and, after a most obsti- 
nate resistance, was taken prisoner. The events of his captivity he himself 
has recorded in a narrative compiled by him after his release, in the most 
singular style, but apparently with great fidelity. For some time he was 
kept in arms, and treated with much severity. He was sent to England 
as a prisoner, with an assurance, that, on his arrival there, he would meet 
with the halter. During the passage, extreme cruelty was exercised to- 
wards him and his fellow-prisoners. They were all, to the number of 34, 
thrust, hand-cuffed, into a small place in the vessel, enclosed with white- 
oak plank, not more than 20 feet wide by 22 long. After about a month's 
confinement in Pendennis castle, near Falmouth, he was put on board a 
frigate, January 8, 1776, and carried to Halifax. Thence, after an im- 
prisonment of five months, he was removed to New York. On the passage 
from Halifax to the latter place, Allen was treated with great kindness by 
captain Smith, the commander of the vessel, and evinced his gratitude by 
refusing to join in a conspiracy to kill the British captain and seize the 
frigate. His refusal prevented the execution of the plan. He remained 
at New York for a year and a half, sometimes in confinement, and some- 
times at large, on parole. On May 6, 177? Allen was exchanged for 
colonel Campbell, and immediately afterwards repaired to the head-quar- 
ters of General Washington, by whom he was received with much respect. 
As his health was impaired he returned to Vermont, after having made an 
offer of his services to the commander-in-chief, in case of his recovery. His 
arrival in Vermont was celebrated by the discharge of cannon ; and he was 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 667 

appointed to the command of the state militia, as a mark of esteem for his 
patriotism and military talents. A fruitless attempt was made by the Brit- 
ish to bribe him to lend his support to a union of Vermont with Canada. 
He died suddenly at his estate in Colchester, February 13, 1789. 

General Allen was a man of strong and enterprising, but haughty and 
restless mind. Although his education had been circumscribed, he was 
daring in his pretensions to knowledge, and bold and peremptory in his as- 
sertions. Besides the narrative of his captivity, Avhich we have noticed, 
and a number of pamphlets in the controversy with New York, he published 
a ' Vindication of the Opposition of the Inhabitants of Vermont to the Gov- 
ernment of New York, and their right to form an independent State,' 1779, 
and a work, entitled, ' Allen's Theology, or the Oracles of Reason,' the 
first formal publication in the United States openly directed against the 
Christian religion. Allen was a confirmed infidel. He adopted some of 
the most fantastical and absurd notions imaginable, believing, with Pytha- 
goras, that the soul of man, after death, would live again in beasts, birds, 
fishes, etc. He often told his friends, that he himself would live again un- 
der the appearance of a large white horse. However, there is an anecdote 
extant, which proves that he professed to entertain those ideas more from 
an affectation of singularity, than from conviction. Whilst sitting in his 
library, conversing with a physician by the name of Elliot, Allen was in- 
formed that his daughter was dying, and desired to speak with him. He 
immediately repaired to her chamber, followed by Dr. Elliot. His wife 
was distinguished for her piety, and had instructed her daughter in the 
principles of Christianity. As soon as her father stood at her bedside, she 
said to him, ' I am about to die ; shall I believe in the principles you havo 
taught me, or shall I believe in what my mother has taught me ?' He be- 
came greatly agitated ; his chin quivered ; his whole frame shook ; and, 
after waiting a few moments, he replied, ' Believe what your mother has 
taught you.' 

BENEDICT ARNOLD. 

Benedict Arnold was one of the most distinguished generals in 
the American army during the earlier part of the contest of the colo- 
nies with Great Britain, and subsequently infamous as a traitor to his 
country, was born in Connecticut, of obscure parentage, and received an 
education suitable to an humble condition. The occupations of his youth 
were not fitted to prepare him for the functions which he was called upon 
to exercise in the sequel. At first a dealer in horses, he sustained losses 
in his trade. Eager for renown, greedy of money, the troubles of his 
country inspired him with the hope of acquiring fame and fortune by the 
profession of arms : accordingly, on the breaking out of the revolutionary 
war, he embraced the cause of his countrymen with enthusiasm, and took 
the command of a company of volunteers at New Haven. He soon won a 
high military reputation. Washington, encouraged by secret advices that 
the Canadians were inclined to make part of the Union, projected the sur- 
prise of Quebec. This hazardous undertaking required leaders at once 
active, vigilant, bold, and inflexibly patient. He committed it to Mont- 
gomery and colonel Arnold, as the most capable. He exhorted them, with 
extreme earnestness, to treat the Canadians as friends, as fellow-citizens, 



668 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and to punish severely the least irregularities of the soldiery. Arnold 
began his march in the month of September. He conducted his small 
force through deserts which man had never before penetrated. The river 
of Kennebeck had overflowed its banks; he crossed it by swimming, or on 
rafts. Unknown streams presented a new obstacle : he diverted their 
course. The snow fell in abundance ; a few hours of sun during the day 
were insufficient to thaw the ice formed in the long and severe nights of 
the northern autumn; but nothing could arrest his progress. He was 
always in the van with the pioneers, who cut a passage through this wild 
country, and, at the end of each march, had arrived before the enemy 
knew of his approach. He thus put in practice a maxim which he was 
fond of repeating: 'In war, expedition is equivalent to strength.' The 
last division, conducted by a man less resolute and persevering, returned ; 
while he, at the head of the two first, sustained the courage of the soldiers, 
who were exhausted by fatigue, hunger and every species of suffering. 
After two months of toil, all impediments were overcome, and he encamped 
before the fortress, but with a band so much enfeebled, that he was obliged 
to await the arrival of Montgomery, who approached by another route. 
Montgomery died gloriously in an assault, December 31, 1775. Arnold 
was severely wounded in the leg, and forced to convert the siege into a 
blockade. He was not, however, to be daunted by any reverse. From 
the bed to which his wound confined him, he infused into the little army, 
the command of which had now devolved upon him, his own spirit of 
determination and confidence. The enterprise failed: the courage and 
intelligence which he exhibited throughout, placed him, nevertheless, in 
the first class of American officers. He served with better fortune, and 
still greater distinction, in the subsequent campaigns, and bore a consid- 
erable part in that in which Burgoyne and his army were made prisoners. 
He fought with his usual intrepidity in the engagement which immediately 
preceded the capitulation. The first to throw himself into the intrench- 
ments of the enemy, he was animating his men by his example, when a 
ball shattered the leg already wounded at the siege of Quebec. As he 
was borne from the ranks to his tent, he still issued orders for the continu- 
ance of the assault. The boldness of Arnold was so great, that he was 
accused of a disposition to entangle himself rashly in perilous situations ; 
Dut it could not be denied, that his rapid discernment supplied him, in the 
midst of danger, with the surest expedients, and that success always justi- 
fied his daring. The admiration of his fellow-citizens kept pace with his 
services. His love of glory was accompanied with an equally strong love 
of pleasure and dissipation, and he was very unscrupulous about the mode 
of obtaining the means of gratifying it. His ill-gotten wealth he squan- 
dered in frivolous expenses, or mere ostentation. Montreal, the second 
city of Canada, was, under his command, a scene of injustice and rapaci- 
ty, and the Canadians soon abandoned the design of joining the confedera- 
tion. The attempt on Canada was abandoned, and, the wounds of Arnold 
being not yet healed, he could be invested only with some stationary com- 
mand. Washington, though he detested his vices, did not wish to leave 
his talents idle. The English having evacuated Philadelphia, he directed 
Arnold to take possession of that city with some troops of the Pennsylva- 
nia line, — a delicate charge for a man so prone to extend his powers, and 
define them according to his interests. It was not long before he dis- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 669 

played in this city a magnificence as foreign to the habits of the country, 
as it was unseasonable in the midst of the calamities of war. He even 
lodged in his house the French envoy and all his suite on their arrival. 
From this time, too, he began to profess an extraordinary attachment to 
the French, and great zeal for an alliance with them. To relieve himself 
from the difficulties into which his extravagance had plunged him, he 
resorted to the same oppression and extortion which had rendered his 
authority odious to the Canadians. Under pretense of the wants of the 
army, he forbade the shopkeepers to sell or buy ; he then put their goods 
at the disposal of his agents, and caused them afterwards to be resold with 
a profit. He prostituted his authority to enrich his accomplices, and 
squabbled with them about the division of the prey. The citizens applied 
for redress to the courts of justice. But, with his military authority as 
his shield, he set at defiance both justice and the laws. At length, how- 
ever, a representation of the grievances which the state was suffering, was 
made to congress by the president of the executive council of Pennsylva- 
nia, a man of firm and upright character, who had endeavored in vain to 
repress the overweening and predatory spirit of Arnold, and a committee 
was appointed to inquire into the subject. Arnold replied to the charges 
with arrogance. Some members of congress were of opinion that he 
should be suspended from his military functions until the investigation of 
his public conduct was brought to an issue ; but the accusation had become 
an affair of party, and he had influence enough to cause this proposition to 
be set aside. Congress at length resolved to lay the complaints against 
him before the commander-in-chief. 

As soon as Arnold saw that the resolutions of congress would be of this 
tenor, he resigned the command which he held in Philadelphia. He was 
tried before a court martial, and condemned, January 20, 1779, to be 
reprimanded by the commander-in-chief. Congress ratified the sentence, 
and Washington, having caused the culprit to appear before him, per- 
formed the task with the considerate delicacy which he thought due to so 
distinguished an officer. Arnold, however, quitted the army, and, thence- 
forth, nourished an implacable hatred towards the cause which he had so 
brilliantly defended. The embarrassment of his affairs was at this time 
such, that private aid would not suffice to extricate him. He had, some 
time before, formed a partnership with some owners of privateers, who 
paid his share of the expenses of equipment, and expected to be compen- 
sated for their advances by his countenance and pix>tection ; but the 
chances were adverse, and, instead of profits to be divided, there were 
losses to be borne. Arnold, now without credit or authority, was no 
longer regarded by the owners as any thing more than an ordinary 
partner. They exacted his proportion of the loss, and their knowledge of 
his difficulties only served to render them more urgent in their suit. In 
this extremity he tried a last resort. 

Congress, at the commencement of the revolution, committed an error 
which proved of great detriment to the finances. It entrusted some 
officers with agencies which had no immediate connection with the business 
of command or military service. Arnold, the least proper for such trusts, 
was charged with considerable ones, and had large claims for moneys and 
stores furnished in the expedition to Canada. The commissioners to whom 
they were referred for settlement, reduced them very considerably. He 



670 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

appealed from their decision to congress, who pronounced that the com- 
missioners had shown more lenity than rigor in the liquidation of his 
accounts. Disappointed in all his expectations, Arnold at last determined 
to betray his country, and to make his treason in a high degree useful to 
England, that it might procure him a full pardon for his share in the 
revolt of the colonies. He wished to be regarded as a subject returned to 
his allegiance, and worthy of the honorable rewards due to faithful and 
virtuous citizens. As a first step, the British commandsrs were to be 
made acquainted with his discontent, but in so guarded a manner as to 
leave a retreat open in case the offers which might be made to him should 
not prove satisfactory. Particular circumstances facilitated the communi- 
cations between them. 

As soon as the English commander was apprized of the disposition of 
Arnold, he despatched emissaries charged with such offers as were most 
likely to determine a man whose hesitation was only about the means and 
conditions. Some of Arnold's proceedings, about this period, warrant the 
supposition, that he at first meant to tamper with his brother officers, but 
relinquished this design on more mature reflection. He took good care 
that nothing of his real intentions should be divined by the subaltern 
English agents ; but there was, at New York, a man whom he thought he 
could trust without risk. This was Charles Beverley Robinson, an 
American by birth, and a colonel in the British army, whose property all 
lay within the United States. His mansion, situated on the Hudson, was 
included in the American lines, and three miles lower than the forts upon 
the opposite bank. The commanding officers of West Point, having found 
it deserted, had made it their quarters. Arnold wrote to this officer, that 
the ingratitude of his country, and other considerations to be afterwards 
disclosed, had produced a change in his political sentiments ; that he 
aspired to merit, thenceforward, the favor of the king ; that he could 
render signal services ; and wished to enter into a correspondence on the 
subject with Sir Henry Clinton. This overture was well received, and, a 
direct communication with the English general being established, it was 
agreed that Arnold should dissemble, with the utmost care, his discontent ; 
that he should make every effort to obtain a command from general 
Washington ; that, as soon as he succeeded, he should consult with Sir 
Henry Clinton as to his future movements, and be guided by the instruc- 
tions which would be given by him. From this time, he entirely altered 
his manner and language. He affected to have forgotten the affront of 
the reprimand, and pretended to feel a more lively attachment than ever 
to the cause of independence. 

The country through which the Hudson flows was the principal theatre 
of the war. A station in this quarter would, he thought, best answer his 
purpose. He was well acquainted with the localities. He examined, 
with minute attention, in what spot, by what operations, he could most 
beneficially second the enterprises of the British, and which was the most 
important position to betray into their hands. New York was, at this 
time, in the hands of the British, who had assembled there the greatest 
part of their troops. The fortress of West Point, a military station of 
very great importance, is distant twenty leagues from this city. Arnold 
aimed at the chief command of this post, with a viow of betraying it into 
the hands of the British, with the garrisons, and the arms and immense 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 671 

stores which were deposited there ; for Fort Clinton contained, besides the 
ammunition necessary for its own defense, the stock of powder of the 
whole army. The command of the fort had been entrusted to general 
Howe, an officer of tried courage, but of limited capacity, who could be 
employed elsewhere without inconvenience to the service. The wound3 
of Arnold did not as yet allow him to mount on horseback ; they did not 
disqualify him, however, for conducting the defense of a citadel. He had 
early secured the patronage of some of the leading men of the State of 
New York, and Washington was prevailed upon to consign West Point to 
him. Being a traitor to his own country, he was apprehensive lest those 
to whom he was about to sell himself, might prove treacherous to him. 
He felt anxious to receive the price of his ignominious bargain at the 
moment of its ratification ; but he could extort nothing more than a promise 
of 30,000 pounds sterling, and the assurance that he should be maintained 
in the British army in the rank of brigadier-general, which he already 
held. About a month previous (July 10, 1780,) the first division of the 
French army arrived at Newport, in the State of Rhode Island. The 
situation of the English became every day more and more critical. Sir 
Henry Clinton had relinquished his projected expedition. He urged 
Arnold to fulfill his engagements, and supposed the thing easy for a 
general who was master of the forts and the river ; but there were, in fact, 
numerous obstacles in the way, and of these the presence of the com- 
mander-in-chief was the most serious. Arnold knew his vigilance and 
activity. He insisted, therefore, with Clinton on the necessity of delibera- 
tion, adding, however, that all should be in readiness to improve the first 
favorable opportunity. A young officer of foreign extraction served in the 
British Army. He was endowed with all the qualities which render a 
man useful to his country, and dear to society. This was John Andre, 
adjutant-general of the British army. General Sir Henry Clinton had 
taken him as his aid-de-camp, and did not disdain him as a counselor. 
To him Clinton committed the business of negotiating with Arnold. A 
correspondence ensued between Arnold and Andre, under the name3 of 
Gf-ustavus and Anderson. Mercantile relations were feigned, to disguise 
the real object, and an American, whose dwelling stood between the lines 
that separated the two armies, served as a common messenger. At this 
period the rumor began to spread of a second division of the French army 
having sailed, and that Washington only awaited its arrival to begin the 
siege of New York. The marshal de Castries, who then administered the 
department of the marine with so much reputation, had, in fact, advised 
the French envoy of the approaching departure of a second expedition. 
Clinton caused Arnold to be told that it was time to act; that a day must 
be fixed for the surrender of the forts ; and that, if time were given to the 
allies to effect a junction, it might no longer be in the power of Arnold 
himself to fulfill his engagements. He asked, also, plans of the forts, and 
the instructions necessary for the safe guidance of the British troops when 
they were sent to take possession of West Point. Arnold replied to these 
new importunities in the language concerted with Andre : ' Our master 
goes away the 17th of this month. He will be absent five or six days. 
Let us avail ourselves of this interval to arrange our business. Come 
immediately and meet me at the lines, and we will settle definitively the 
risks and profits of the copartnership. All will be ready; but this inter- 



672 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

view is indispensable, and must precede the sailing of our ship.' It was 
thus that Arnold apprized Clinton of the approaching departure of the 
commander-in-chief. Washington had, in fact, given a rendezvous to 
count de Rochambeau, general of the French land forces, and to the 
chevalier de Ternay, commander of the squadron. They were to meet at 
Hartford, in Connecticut, to confer about the operations of this and the 
ensuing campaigns. But Arnold was not correctly advised as to the 
period of Washington's departure, and the mistake led to important conse- 
quences. He had, in other letters, solicited an interview with Andre, and 
he now exacted it as a condition indispensable for the prosecution of the 
enterprise. Hitherto, everything had succeded beyond his hopes. There 
had been a total absence of those mysterious rumors, and yague surmises, 
which accompany, and seem to portend, a great conspiracy. Never had 
so momentous a plot been more felicitously brought so near to its execu- 
tion. This profound secrecy was owing to the precaution of Arnold, in not 
having unbosomed himself to any of his own countrymen, and in admitting 
only Andre and Robinson as correspondents. He took credit for this 
policy, and his urgency for an interview with Andre arose chiefly from his 
resolution to confide to the hands of this officer alone the maps and par- 
ticular information which Clinton demanded. 

The 17th of September, the day specified for the departure of Wash- 
ington, passed, and he was still at West Point. Arnold advertised Clinton 
of the delay, and explained his mistake by mentioning a circumstance 
which had not been before noted. The 17th fell on a Sunday, — a day 
which the Americans consecrated entirely to the duties of religion, and on 
which most of them abstained even from journeys, which, elsewhere, would 
be thought indispensable. Clinton admitted this explanation the more 
readily as he knew that Washington respected the scruples of others, and 
was himself very religious. To obviate untoward accidents, it was agreed 
that Andre should leave New York only on the 19th of September, and 
reach the American forts about the 20th. He accordingly embarked in 
the night on board the Vulture sloop-of-war. Clinton sent with him 
Beverly Robinson, the colonel through whom Arnold had made his first 
overture. He expected that the prudence of this officer would moderate 
the ardor of Andre. Moreover, Arnold occupied Robinson's house, and 
the private affairs, which he, as a refugee, had to adjust with congress, 
furnished a plausible pretense for his approaching the American lines and 
posts. September 20, they arrived almost opposite to fort Montgomery, 
situated on the same side as West Point, five miles lower down. They 
cast anchor in sight of the nearest American redoubts, but beyond the 
reach of some small cannon, the only artillery of those redoubts. The 
Vulture got aground at low water. The movement on board, and some 
signals which she made, alarmed the vigilance of colonel Livingston, who 
commanded at Verplanck's Point. He ascertained, on reconnoitering, that 
the sloop might be sunk by one or two pieces of heavy cannon ; and as 
those of the forts which he commanded were of too small a calibre, he 
requested larger from Arnold. The general refused them, to the great 
surprise of Livingston. But tacit obedience is the life of discipline, and 
he acquiesced in some idle excuse. Two days elapsed after the Sunday, 
and still Washington had, apparently, made no preparations for departure. 
Arnold was himself uneasy at this disappointment ; but the apprehension 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 673 

of exciting suspicion by too frequent communications prevented him fr:>m 
making it known to Clinton. The English general was informed of it 
through another channel. He knew the unprincipled character of Arnold, 
and could comprehend the probability of a snare masked by a counterfeit 
scheme of treason. He was the more disquieted as Andre and Robinson 
were already far on their way ; and there was equal inconvenience in 
leaving them ignorant, or advising them of their danger. If Arnold were 
sincere in his defection, his return to New York would disconcert all 
Arnold's measures, and expose him to serious risks. If he deceived the 
British, all the risks were for Andre and Robinson. They had not, as yet, 
been able to communicate with the shore, but, persuaded that Washington 
must have set out for Hartford, they put in execution a stratagem, arranged 
beforehand with Arnold, to facilitate the rendezvous. Robinson wrote to 
the American general, Putnam, as if to transact with him business relating 
to his property, and proposed an interview. In this letter was enclosed 
another to general Arnold, wherein Robinson solicited a conference with 
him, in case Putnam should be absent. The packet, being directed to 
Arnold, would be opened only by him ; but if, perchance, it fell into other 
hands, the whole could be read without exciting suspicion of a plot. This 
letter was despatched to the shore by a flag of truce as soon as the sloop 
had cast anchor. It happened to be on the very day fixed by Washington 
for his departure. He had never meant to set out earlier, and had neither 
sanctioned nor contradicted the various rumors current on the subject. 
He left his quarters in the morning, and, on reaching the bank, found 
Arnold there with his barge, ready to transport him to the other side. In 
crossing, Washington remarked the sloop with the English flag, and took a 
spy-glass to observe her more narrowly. Some moments after, he gave to 
an officer near him, in a low voice, according to his usual mariner, an order 
probably of no consequence, which Arnold was unable to overhear. 
Arnold was guilty, and whatever he could not immediately penetrate, 
alarmed his fears. He supposed that the general could not remain igno- 
rant of the circumstance of the flag of truce, and, doubtful even whether 
he might not be already acquainted with it, he thought it well to show him 
the two letters which he had received, asking him, at the same time, what 
course he ought to pursue. Washington, in the presence of several per- 
sons, dissuaded him from seeing Robinson, and directed him to give for 
answer to this officer, that his private business appertained exclusively to 
the jurisdiction of the civil authority. They touched the shore just as this 
conversation ceased. The commander-in-chief, whose presence kept 
Arnold in the greatest perplexity, landed, and pursued his jouimey to 
Hartford. Thus was the main obstacle removed, and the plot could 
proceed. The opinion uttered by Washington, in such positive terms, 
concerning the conference with Robinson, — the order heard by several 
persons present, — became, however, a law for Arnold, with respect to his 
ostensible conduct. It was, in this way, the first obstacle that thwarted 
the measures concerted between him and Andre. They could not meet 
publicly under the auspices of a flag of truce, and, though Andre had used 
this means to reach the lines, they were obliged to arrange a secret 
interview. 

On the morning after the departure of Washington, Arnold sought out 
a man called Joshua Smithy well known to be devoted to the English, 
43* 



674 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

although he resided within the American posts. He made him the bearer 
of two passports to be carried on board the Vulture, one for Andre, under 
the fictitious name of Anderson; the other for Charles Beverley Robinson, 
who had not the same reason for practicing disguise. He charged him 
with a letter also, in which he urged them to repair to him on shore. 
Smith waited until nightfall, and then proceeded to the English sloop in a 
boat which Arnold had provided for him. Andre and Robinson expected 
that Arnold would himself visit them, and they were surprised when his 
emissary, Smith, appeared before them alone. Robinson declared that he 
would not go on shore, and used every effort to deter his companion ; but 
the young man, full of impatience and ardor, saw only the chances of 
success, would listen to no remonstrance, and could not brook the idea, 
either of returning to New York without having executed his mission, or 
of exposing the main enterprise to miscarriage, by a caution which his 
rivals would infallibly stigmatise as cowardice. He put on a gray surtout, 
to hide his uniform, and accompanied Smith on shore. Arnold was 
waiting to receive him at the water's edge. They discoursed there for 
some time; but, as they were liable to be surprised, Arnold led him 
towards the house of Smith, when he immediately laid before him plans 
of the forts, a memoir, composed (for a better use) by the chief engineer, 
Duportail, on the means of attacking and defending them, and minute 
instructions with respect to the measures to be taken by the British for 
the occupation of them, when he (Arnold) should have done his part in 
opening the way. They presumed that Washington had already reached 
Hartford, and they were right; for he was there, at the same hour, in 
consultation with the French commander. 

Arnold and Andre, calculating anxiously the probable length of Wash- 
ington's absence, supposed he would return in three or four days, that is, 
on the 25th or 26th of September, and one or other of these days was fixed 
for the execution of the plot. It was settled that Andre should go back 
in all haste to New York ; that the English troops, which were already 
embarked, under pretense of a distant expedition, should be held ready to 
ascend the river, and sail at the first signal ; that to facilitate the reduction 
of West point, Arnold should march out of the forts all the troops destined 
for the defense, and entangle them in gorges and ravines, where he would 
pretend to await the English assailants, while these were to debark on 
another side, and enter by passes left unguarded ; and, at all events, the 
garrison and troops were to be so distributed, that, if they did not surrender 
at the first summons, they must be immediately cut in pieces. He inform- 
ed Andre that the chain which was stretched across the river from West 
point to Constitution island, forming, when perfect, an effectual bar to the 
passage of the river, was now no longer an impediment. He had detach- 
ed a link, ostensibly to have it mended ; the smiths would not return it for 
some days ; and the two ends of the chain were held together by a fasten- 
ing too weak to bear even a slight concussion. The English would know 
at what moment they were to advance, by the kindling of fires, in the 
night, under the directions of Arnold, on the adjacent eminences. A sin- 
gle cannon fired from their ships, to be followed by a similar discharge 
from the shore, would proclaim that they had perceived the signals. Oth- 
er tokens agreed upon were to furnish, successively, information of the 
several distances of the British forces in their approach. When they had 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 675 

arrived within three miles of the fortress, two English officers, in American 
uniform, were to ride full gallop to Arnold's quarters, to learn how matters 
stood and to hasten with the intelligence to the British naval commander. 
Then only was Arnold to put in motion that portion of the garrison which 
remained in the works, and station it at posts which would not be attacked. 
They agreed upon the countersign to be given on the 24th and 25th. Ar- 
nold delivered to the Englishman drafts of all the works, and of the 
passes leading to them, several memoirs, written with his own hand, and 
full returns of the garrison and the forces of each division of the army. 
He had never before allowed a single paper to go out of his hands, which 
might expose him to detection. But he now saw no danger in confiding 
these to Andre, who was to reembark directly on board the sloop, and 
make sail for New York. Andre returned alone to the beach, whence a 
boat was to convey him to the Vulture. But this arrangement was defeated 
by an obstacle wholly unexpected. At an early hour, Livingston, still dis- 
turbed at the proximity of the sloop, had, of his own authority, caused a 
four-pounder to be dragged from his redoubt to a point of land from which 
the shot could reach the vessel. She was aground, and had already sus- 
tained some damage from the piece of the American officer, when she be- 
gan to float again at the rising of the tide. Robinson took advantage of 
this circumstance to weigh anchor, and remove some miles lower down, 
beyond the reach of similar attack. This change of station attracted the 
notice of the master and rowers of the boat in which Andre expected to 
regain the sloop. They were Americans. The movements which they 
had witnessed for the two last days were unusual ; and although men of 
their description, accustomed to ferry all persons indifferently from one 
side of the river to the other, did not affect to be of any party, they were 
unwilling to commit themselves. When Andre proposed to them to con- 
vey- him to the sloop, they told him that it was too far, and peremptorily 
refused to go. He went back immediately to Arnold, and urged him to 
exert his authority in so serious a predicament. But the latter, perplexed 
at his unlooked-for-appearance, and already harassed with various disap- 
pointments, durst not attempt to compel the men, and told him he must 
submit to return by land ; to lay aside his uniform altogether, and assume 
another dress. Andre changed his coat for one which Smith provided. 
Arnold now wished to withdraw the papers which he had entrusted to him ; 
he thought it hazardous to send them by land. But Andre was very de- 
sirous of showing to Clinton with what punctuality he had executed his 
mission. These papers were a trophy of which he would not, therefore, 
allow himself to be dispossessed. He observed to Arnold, that danger of 
any kind could now no longer be in question, except so far as to show that 
they both despised it ; and added, that he would keep the papers, which 
brought him into greater peril than Arnold, and, to allay his fears, would 
secrete them in his boots. Arnold submitted, and, leaving Andre in 
Smith's house, returned to his quarters, from which he had been absent 
since the day before. The Patrol, spread through the whole neighborhood, 
made it imprudent for Andre to begin his journey before twilight. He 
was accompanied by Smith : each had a passport from Arnold, 'to go to 
the lines of White plains, or lower, if the bearer thought proper ; he being 
on public business.' They were accosted, at Compond, by an American 
officer of militia, who told them that it was too late for them to reach, that 



676 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

evening, any other quarters. In order not to awaken his suspicions, they 
resolved to pass the night there. The next day, 23d, they crossed the 
Hudson to King's ferry, pushing forward when they were not observed, 
and slakening their pace to conceal their eagerness, wherever they were 
likely to be seen. By means of their passports, they traversed all the 
American posts without molestation. They arrived, uninterrupted, a little 
beyond Pine's bridge, a village situated on the Croton : they had not, how- 
ever, crossed the lines, although they could descry the ground occupied by 
the English videttes. Smith, looking all around, and perceiving no one, 
said to Andre, *You are safe — good bye,' and retook, at full speed, the 
road by which they had come. Andre, on his part, believing himself out 
of danger, and all further precaution superfluous, put spurs to his horse. 
He had proceeded four leagues onward with the same good fortune ; he 
could see the Hudson once more, and was about entering Tarrytown, the 
border village, when a man, armed with a gun, sprung suddenly from the 
thickets, and seizing the reins of his bridle, exclaimed, 'Where are you 
bound V At the same moment, two others ran up, who were armed in 
like manner, and formed, with the first part of the patrol of volunteer 
militia that guarded the lines. They were not in uniform, and Andre, 
preoccupied by the idea that he was no longer on enemy's ground, thought 
that they must be of his own party. It did not, therefore, occur to him to 
show him his passport, which was sufficient to deceive Americans, and could 
not alter his destination, if those who arested him were of the English side. 
Instead of answering their question, he asked them, in his turn, where 
they belonged to. They replied, 'To below,' — words referring to the 
course of the river, and implying that they were of the English party. 
'And so do I,' said Andre, confirmed in his mistake by this stratagem. 'I 
am,' continued he, in a tone of command, 'an English officer on urgent busi- 
ness, and I do not wish to be longer detained.' 'You belong to our ene- 
mies,' was the rejoinder, 'and we arrest you.' Andre, struck with aston- 
ishment at this unexpected language, presented his passport ; but this paper, 
after the confession he had just made, only served to render his case more 
suspicious. He offered them gold, his horse, and promised them large re- 
wards, and permanent provision from the English government, if they 
would let him escape. These young men, whom such offers did but ani- 
mate the more in their duty, replied, that they wanted nothing. They 
drew off his boots, and detected the fatal papers. They no longer hesita- 
ted to carry him before colonel Jameson, who commanded the out-posts. 
When questioned by that officer he still called himself Anderson, the name 
mentioned in his passport, and evinced no discomposure ; he had recovered 
all of his presence of mind, and, forgetful of his own danger, thought only 
of Arnold's, and of the means of extricating him. To apprise him of it 
safely, he begged Jameson to inform the commanding officer of West Point 
that Anderson, the bearer of his passport, was detained. Jameson thought 
it more simple to order him to be conducted to Arnold. He was already 
on the way, and the thread of the conspiracy was about to be resumed in 
the interview of the accomplices, when the American colonel, recollecting 
that the papers found upon the prisoner were in the hand-writing of Arnold 
himself, and adverting to the several extraordinary features of the business, 
sent, in all haste, after the pretended Anderson, and had him conveyed, 
under guard, to Old Salem. He despatched, at the same time, an express 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 677 

to Washington, charged with a letter containing a circumstantial account 
of this affair, and with the drafts and other papers taken from the prisoner. 
But the commander-in-chief, who set out on the same day, the 23d of 
September, to return to his army, had pursued a different route from that 
by which he went to Hartford, and the messenger was compelled to retrace 
his steps without having seen him. This delay proved the salvation of 
Arnold. 

Jameson was a gallant soldier, but a man of an irresolute temper, and 
no great sagacity ; moreover, treachery on the part of Arnold appeared 
impossible to one of an ingenuous and honorable character. He began to 
view his first suspicions as an outrage to an officer distinguished, as Arnold 
was, by so many noble exploits, and, wishing to reconcile the deference 
due to him with the performance of his own duty, he wrote him, that An- 
derson, the bearer of his passport, had been arrested on the 23d. Arnold 
did not receive this intimation until the morning of the 25th. It was on a 
Monday ; and the same day, or the one following, had been selected for 
the consummation of the plot. Until that moment, he had believed success 
infallible. The exhilaration which this belief produced was even remark- 
ed, and he ascribed it to his expectation of the speedy arrival of his gen- 
eral, ' for whom he had pleasant news.' He was busy with the appropriate 
arrangements for the reception of a body of more welcome visitors, when 
he received the letter of Jameson. Those who were present on the occa- 
sion recollected, afterwards, that he could not, at first, conceal his dismay 
and extreme agitation ; but that, recovering himself quickly, he said, in a 
loud voice, that he would write an answer ; and, dismissing all about him, 
withdrew, to reflect on the course which it was best to adopt. The entrance 
of two American officers, however, interrupted his musings. They were 
sent by the commander-in-chief, and informed Arnold, that he had arrived 
that morning at Fishkill, a few leagues from West Point ; that he was to 
have set out a few hours after them, and could not be far distant. Thus 
did the most alarming circumstances rapidly succeed each other. The 
traitor had no resource but a precipitate flight. Suppressing his emotion, 
he told the two officers that he wished to go and meet the general alone, 
and begged them not to follow him. He then entered the apartment of 
his wife, exclaiming — 'All is discovered : — Andre is a prisoner: — The 
commander-in-chief will know every thing : — The discharge of cannon, 
which you hear, is a salute, and announces that he is not far off: — Burn 
all my papers : — I fly to New York.' He embraced her, as well as their 
infant child, whom she carried in her arms, and, solely intent on his escape, 
left her, without waiting for her reply, mounted the horse of one of the 
two officers, and rushed towards the Hudson, which was not far from his 
house. He had taken the precaution to have always ready a barge well- 
manned : he threw himself headlong into it, and caused the boatmen to 
make for the English sloop, with all possible dispatch. The barge, bearing 
a flag of truce, was still visible from the heights when Washington arrived. 
The two officers related to him what they had witnessed. Arnold had 
absconded. His wife, in the agonies of despair, seemed to fear for her 
infant, and maintained an obstinate silence. No one knew how to explain 
these extraordinary incidents. The commander-in-chief repaired, without 
delay, to the fort of West Point, where, however, he could learn nothing 
of a decisive import. But some orders, issued by Arnold the day before, 



678 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

redoubled his suspicions : he returned to the quarters of the general, and 
at this instant Jameson's messenger presented himself, and delivered the 
packet with which he was charged. Washington seemed, for a few min 
utes, as it were, overwhelmed by the discovery of a crime which ruined the 
fame of an American general, and wounded the honor of the American 
army. Those who were near him anxiously interrogated his looks in silence, 
which he broke by saying, — ' I thought that an officer of courage and abil- 
ity, who had often shed his blood for his country, was entitled to confidence, 
and I gave him mine. I am convinced now, and for the rest of my life, 
that we should never trust those who are wanting in probity, whatever 
abilities they may possess. Arnold has betrayed us.' Meanwhile, the 
precautions required by the occasion were every where taken. General 
Heath, a faithful and vigilant officer, was substituted for Arnold at West 
Point ; the commanders of the other posts were admonished to be on their 
guard. Greene, who had been invested with the command of the army 
during the absence of Washington, recalled within the forts the garrisons 
which the traitor had dispersed, and marched a strong division near to the 
lines. Hamilton lost not an instant in repairing to King's Ferry, the last 
American post on the side of New York. He had the mortification to 
learn, that a very short time before his arrival, Arnold's barge had glided 
by with the swiftness of an arrow, and was then getting along side the 
Vulture, some miles lower down, opposite Teller's Point, — an anchorage 
situated at the head of the great basin of the Hudson, which is called 
Tappan bay. Livingston had remarked the barge that carried the fugi- 
tive, and, his suspicions being roused by the strange movements of the two 
or three days previous, would have stopped it, had not the sailors of his 
spy-boats been ashore when it passed. Messengers were sent to all the 
states of the Union, and to the French general, to inform them of this 
event. The express which bore the news to congress traveled with such 
rapidity, that he reached Philadelphia on the same day that the discovery 
was made in the camp. The magistrates were immediately directed to 
enter the house of Arnold, and to seize and examine his papers. They 
found nothing there relating to the conspiracy ; but he had left memoranda 
which furnished ample proof that he was guilty of the extortions and pecu- 
lations of which he had been accused two years before. 

Jameson caused his unknown prisoner to be strictly guarded. The lat- 
ter at first suppressed his true name, from consideration for Arnold ; but, 
the day after his capture, supposing that the American general had had 
time to make his escape, he said to Jameson, — ' My name is not Anderson ; 
I am major Andre.' The death of Andre, though ignominious, was hap- 
piness in comparison with the life of Arnold. Upon his establishment 
in the army of Great Britain, he found it necessary to make some exertions 
to secure the attachment of his new friends. With the hope of alluring 
many of the discontented to his standard, he published an address to the 
inhabitants of America, in which he endeavored to justify his conduct. 
He had encountered the dangers of the field, he said, from apprehension 
that the rights of his country were in danger. He had acquiesced in the 
declaration of independence, though he thought it precipitate. But the 
rejection of the overtures made by Great Britain, in 1778, and the French 
alliance, had opened his eyes to the ambitious views of those who would 
sacrifice the happiness of their country to their own aggrandizement, and 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 679 

had made him a confirmed loyalist. He artfully mingled assertions, that 
the principal members of congress held the people in sovereign contempt. 
This was followed, in about a fortnight, by a proclamation, addressed ' to 
the officers and soldiers of the continental army, who have the real inter- 
est of their country at heart, and who are determined to be no longer the 
tools and dupes of congress and of France. To induce the American offi- 
cers and soldiers to desert the cause which they had embraced, he repre- 
sented that the corps of cavalry and infantry, which he was authorized to 
raise, would be upon the same footing with the other troops in the British 
service ; that he should with pleasure advance those whose valor he had 
witnessed : and that the private men, who joined him, should receive a 
bounty of three guineas each, besides payment at the full value for horses, 
arms, and accoutrements. His object was the peace, liberty and safety of 
America. These proclamations did not produce the effect designed, and 
in all the hardships, sufferings and irritations of the war, Arnold remains 
the solitary instance of an American officer who abandoned the side first 
embraced in the contest, and turned his sword upon his former companions 
in arms. He was soon despatched, by Sir Henry Clinton, to make a diver- 
sion in Virginia. With about 1700 men, he arrived in the Chesapeake in 
January 1781, and, being supported by such a naval force as was suited 
to the nature of the service, he committed extensive ravages on the rivers, 
and along the unprotected coasts. It is said, that, while on this expedi- 
tion, Arnold inquired of an American captain, whom he had taken prisoner, 
what the Americans would do with him, if he should fall into their hands. 
The officer replied, that they would cut off his lame leg, and bury it with 
the honors of war, and hang the remainder of his body in gibbets. 

After his recall from Virginia, he conducted an expedition against New 
London in his native state of Connecticut. He took fort Trumbull, Sep. 6, 
with inconsiderable loss. On the other side of the harbor, lieutenant-colo- 
nel Earyre, who commanded another detachment, made an assault on fort 
Griswold, and, with the greatest difficulty, entered the works. An officer 
of the conquering troops asked who commanded. ' I did, ' answered colo- 
nel Ledyard, ' but you do now,' and presented him his sword, which was 
immediately plunged into his own bosom. A merciless slaughter now com- 
menced of the brave garrison, who had ceased to resist, and the greater 
part were either killed or wounded. After burning the town, and the 
stores which were in it, Arnold returned to New York in eight days. He 
survived the war but to drag on, in perpetual banishment from his native 
country, a dishonorable life amid a nation that imputed to him the loss of 
one of the brightest ornaments of its army — the lamented Andre. He 
transmitted to his children a name of hateful celebrity. He obtained only 
a part of the debasing stipend of an abortive treason. His complaints 
soon caused it to be known, that all the promises by which he had been in- 
veigled were not fulfilled. But baffled treason appears always to be over- 
paid, and the felon is the only one who thinks he experiences injustice. 
He enjoyed, however, the rank of brigadier-general ; but the officers of 
the British army manifested a strong repugnance to serve with him. He 
possessed their esteem while he fought against them ; they loaded him 
with contempt when treason brought him over to their side. He resided 
principally in England after the conclusion of the war, was in Nova Scotia, 
and afterwards to the West Indies, where he was taken prisoner by the 



680 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

French, from whom he escaped, and, returning to England, died in Glou- 
cester place, London, June 14, 1801. 

HORATIO GATES. 

Horatio Gates was born in England, in 1728. He early embraced the 
career of arms, and rose to the rank of major by the force of merit alone. 
At the capture of Martinico, he was to aid general Monkton, and, after 
the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, was stationed at Halifax in Nova Scotia 
Seven years afterwards, he was again called into active life, by the break- 
ing out of a new war, and was with Braddock when that unfortunate com- 
mander was defeated, in 1755. In consequence of a severe wound which 
he received in the battle, he was for some time debarred from active ser- 
vice ; and, at the conclusion of the peace, he repaired to his native country. 
He soon, however, returned, and purchased an estate in Virginia, on which 
he resided until the commencement of the revolutionary war in 1775, when 
he was appointed adjutant-general by congress, with the rank of brigadier. 
In July, 1775, he accompanied the commander-in-chief to Massachusetts, 
where he continued until June in the following year, when he received the 
chief command of the army which had just retreated from Canada. This 
gave great umbrage to general Schuyler, who had hitherto superintended 
the forts and garrisons of New York, and now expressed his determination 
to resign, unless the injury were redressed. Congress, in consequence, 
endeavored to reconcile the pretensions of the two generals, by assigning 
to them authorities in some measure independent of each other. Schuyler 
was directed to provide and equip a naval armament, in order to obtain 
and preserve the command of the lakes and rivers which maintained the 
communications between Canada and the maritime and Hudson country, 
and Gates was enjoined to cooperate in this service as far as laid in his 
power. But they were only able to equip about 15 vessels, half of which 
were little better than boats, which were placed under the command of 
Arnold, who was opposed by a much superior force under Carleton. The 
first step of Gates occasioned some surprise and much clamor. The Amer- 
ican forces had retreated to Crown Point, where such ravages were made 
among them by the small-pox, that Gates abandoned that fortress, and con- 
centrated his army at Ticonderoga. This movement, which opened to the 
enemy the whole navigation of lake Champlain, was greatly condemned by 
Washington and all the field-officers. The unexpected retreat of general 
Carleton relieved them from the necessity of defending Ticonderoga. Af- 
ter this retreat, Gates marched with a considerable detachment to the as- 
sistance of general Washington, and continued with him, during his opera- 
tions in the middle colonies, until the spring of 1777, when he resumed his 
command on the northern frontier. Here he was shortly afterwards 
superseded by Schuyler. But in August following, when Burgoyne had 
obtained possession of Ticonderoga, defeated St. Clair, occupied fort Ann 
and Skeensborough, and had arrived at fort St. Edward, on the upper 
branches of the Hudson, Gates was reinstated in the command. At fort 
St. Edward, Burgoyne remained for some time, in order to collect neces- 
saries, and then, passing the Hudson, encamped at Saratoga. Gates 
immediately put himself in motion with an equal force, and, Sep. 19, an 
almost general engagement took place without any decisive result. Oct. 8, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 681 

another action occurred, in which the British were totally defeated, and, 
on the 16th, Bugoyne surrendered with his whole army. This was, per- 
haps, the most important achievement of the whole war, or the one which 
had the greatest effect in giving it a favorable result. 

About this time, when the popularity of general Gates was at its highest 
point, intrigues were commenced for elevating him to the station occupied 
by Washington, which were as shameful as they were unsuccessful. How 
far he himself was engaged in them, or whether he was concerned in them 
at all, it is not in our power to state ; nor should we wish to enter into any 
details respecting it. 

In June, 1780, Gates received the chief command of the southern dis- 
tricts. In this quarter, the affairs of the colonies were in a very bad 
condition. Charleston had been taken, and general Lincoln captured. 
When Gates assumed the command of the southern army, it scarcely 
amounted to 1500 men, badly supplied in every respect. After collecting 
all the troops he could, and equipping them as well as he was able, he ad- 
vanced against the enemy, whom he met, August 16, under Cornwallis, 
at Camden, where the Americans were totally defeated. About fifty days 
after this disaster, general Greene was sent to supersede Gates, whose 
conduct was subjected to the investigation of a special court. After a 
long and tedious inquiry, he was finally acquitted, and reinstated in his 
command in 1782 ; but, in the interim, the war had been brought to a glo- 
rious termination by the capture of Cornwallis. When peace was made, 
he retired to his Virginia estate, and, in 1790, removed to New York, 
having first emancipated all his slaves, and provided for such of them as 
could not provide for themselves. On his arrival at New York, he was 
presented with the freedom of the city, and, in the year 1800, was chosen 
a member of the state legislature, in consequence of the critical balance 
of parties at that time, but resigned the seat as soon as the purpose for 
which he accepted it was gained. He died April 10, 1806, in the 78th 
year of his age. 

General Gates possessed a handsome person, rather inclined to corpulency 
in the middle of his life ; was courteous in his manners, and kind and gen- 
erous in his disposition. He was a classical scholar and a sincere Christian. 

THADDEUS KOSCIUSKO. 

Thaddeus Kosciusko, the last generalissimo of the republic of Poland, 
one of the noblest characters of his age, was descended from an ancient 
and noble, though not rich family, in Lithuania, aad was born in 1756. He 
was educated in the military school at Warsaw. The prince Adam Czar- 
toriski, perceiving his talents and industry, made him second lieutenant in 
the corps of cadets, and sent him, at his own expense, to France, where he 
studied drawing and the military art. After his return, he was made cap- 
tain. But the consequences of an unhappy passion for the daughter of 
Sosnowski, marshal of Lithuania (who was afterwards married to the prince 
Jos. Lubomirski), obliged him to leave Poland. Solitary studies, particu- 
larly in history and mathematics, and an elevated character, prepared him 
for the struggle for freedom, in which he engaged under Washington, who 
made him his aid. He distinguished himself particularly at the siege of 
Ninety-Six, and was very highly esteemed by the army and the commander 



682 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

in-chief. He and Lafayette were the only foreigners admitted into the 
Cincinnati. Kosciusko received the rank of general, and, in 1786, re- 
turned to Poland. When the Polish array was formed (1789), the diet 
appointed him a major-general. He declared himself for the constitution 
of May 3, 1791, and served under prince Joseph Poniatowski. In the 
campaign of 1792, he distinguished himself against the Russians at Ziele- 
neck and Dubienka. At the latter place, under cover of some works which 
he had thrown up in the course of 21 hours, he repulsed, with 1000 men, 
three successive attacks of 18,000 Russians, who prevailed only after the 
loss of 4,000 men. Kosciusko retired without having suffered severely. 
When king Stanislaus submitted to Catharine, he, with sixteen other officers, 
left the army, and was, therefore, obliged to retire from Poland. He went 
to Leipsic ; and the legislative assembly of France, at this time, gave him 
the rights of a French citizen. The Poles becoming impatient under the 
oppression of Russia, some of Kosciusko's friends in Warsaw determined 
to make an effort for the liberation of their country. They chose Koscius- 
ko as their general, and made him accpiainted with their plans. He im- 
parted them to the counts Ignatius, Potocki and Kolontai in Dresden, who 
thought the enterprise injudicious. Kosciusko, however, went to the front- 
ier, and sent general Zajonczeck and general Dzialynski into the Russian 
provinces of Poland, to prepare everything in silence. But when the Pol- 
ish army was merged, in part, in the Russian, and the remainder reduced 
to 15,000 men, the insurrection broke out before the time fixed on. In 
Posen, Madalinski forcibly opposed the dissolution of his regiment. All 
now flew to arms ; the Russian garrison was expelled from Cracow. Just 
at this moment, Kosciusko entered the city. The citizens now formed the 
act of confederation of Cracow (March 24, 1794), and Kosciusko, at 
their head, called upon the Poles to restore the constitution of May 3. 
Kosciusko then advanced to meet the Russian forces. Without artillery, 
at the head of only 4,000 men, part of whom were armed only with scythes 
and pikes, he defeated 12,000 Russians at Raclawice (April 4, 1794.) 
His army was now increased to 9,000 men, and he formed a junction with 
general Grochowski. 

In the mean time, the Russian garrisons of Warsaw and Wilna had been 
put to death, or made prisoners. Kosciusko checked the outbreak of pop- 
ular fury, sent troops against Volhynia, and organized the government at 
Warsaw. He marched out of the city, with 13,000 men, to oppose 17,000 
Russians and Prussians, attacked them at Szezekocini, June 6, but was de- 
feated after an obstinate conflict. He retreated to his entrenched camp 
before Warsaw. The Prussians took Cracow. Disturbances broke out, in 
conseqence, in Warsaw, June 28. The people murdered a part of the 
prisoners, and hung some Poles who were connected with the Russians. 
But Kosciusko punished the guilty, and restored order. The king of Prus- 
sia now formed a junction with the Russians, and besieged Warsaw with 
60,000 men. Kosciusko, however, kept up the courage of his countrymen. 
After two months of bloody fighting, he repelled, with 10,000 men, a gen- 
eral assault. All Great Poland now rose, under Dombrowski, against the 
Prussians. This circumstance, together with the loss of a body of artillery, 
compelled the king of Prussia to raise the siege of Warsaw. Thus this 
bold general, with an army of 20,000 regular troops and 40,000 armed 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

peasants, maintained himself against four hostile armies, amounting together 
to 150,000 men. 

His great power consisted in the confidence which his fellow-citizens 
reposed in him. The nephew of the king, once his general, served under 
him. Kosciusko had unlimited power in the republic, but he displayed 
the integrity of Washington, and the activity of Csesar. He attended to 
procuring supplies, superintended the raising and payment of money, and 
prevented plundering and fraud, and was equally active in the council and 
the field. His days and nights, all his powers, were devoted to his country. 
He secured the administration of justice, abolished bondage, and finally re- 
stored to the nation, May 29, in the supreme national council which he es- 
tablished, the great power which had been delegated to him. Catharine 
at length decided the contest by an overwhelming superiority of numbers. 
Suwaroff defeated the Poles under Sierakowski at Brzec, in Volhynia, Sep- 
tember 18th and 19th. Repnin penetrated through Lithuania, and formed 
a union with Suwaroff; general Fersen was to support them with 12,000 
men. To prevent this, Kosciusko marched from Warsaw with 21,000 men. 
Poninski was to have supported him with his division ; but the Russians 
intercepted the messenger. The united Russian armies under Fersen at- 
tacked the Poles, who were not more than one-third as strong as the Rus- 
sians, October 10, at Macziewice (about 50 miles from Warsaw) ; they 
were three times repulsed, but, on the fourth attack, they broke through 
the Polish lines. Kosciusko fell from his horse covered with wounds, ex- 
claiming ' Finis Polonioz] and was made prisoner by the enemy. In 
losing him, his country lost all. Suwaroff stormed Praga November 4 ; 
Warsaw capitulated on the 9th ; Madalinski left Great Poland ; an Austrian 
army appeared before Lublin. But the noble efforts of the conquered had 
awakened the regard of Europe towards the unhappy country, and the 
dearest hopes of the nation — the restoration of their monarchy, with a free 
constitution — found a powerful support in public opinion. Catharine caused 
the hero and his noble colleagues, who were prisoners of war, to be thrown 
into a state prison. Paul I gave them their liberty, and distinguished Kos- 
ciusko by marks of his esteem. He presented his own sword to the gen- 
eral, who declined it with Jhese words — ' I no longer need a sword, since I 
have no longer a country.' To the day of his death, he never again wore 
a sword. Paul then presented him with 1,500 peasants, and his friend 
Niemcewicz, the poet, with 1,000. When on the Russian frontier, Kos- 
ciusko declined this present by a letter. He and his friend now went by 
the way of France and London, where Kosciusko was treated with dis- 
tinction, to America (1797). 

His fortune was very small. On his return to his natire country after 
the war of the revolution, he had received a pension from America, and he 
now found there such a reception as he deserved. In 1798, he went to 
France. His countrymen in the Italian army presented to him the sabre 
of John Sobieski, which had been found (1799) at Loretto. Napoleon 
afterwards formed the plan of restoring Poland to its place among the na- 
tions, anvl thus, at the same time, injuring Russia, and extending his own 
power over the east of Europe. But Kosciusko would take no part in this 
struggle, which was conducted by Dombrowski, in 1807-8, being prevent- 
ed less by ill health than by having given his word to Paul I never to 
serve against the Russians. To Napoleon's proposals he answered, that 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 685 

* he would exert himself in the cause of Poland, when he saw the country 
possessed of its ancient territories, and having a free constitution.' Fouche 
tried every means to carry him to Poland. An appeal to the Poles, which 
appeared under his name in the Moniteur of November 1, 1806, he de- 
clared to be spurious. 

Having purchased an estate in the neighborhood of Fontainebleau, he 
lived there in retirement until 1814. April 9, 1814, he wrote to the em- 
peror Alexander, to ask of him an amnesty for the Poles in foreign lands, 
and to request him to become king of Poland, and to give to the country 
a free constitution, like that of England. In 1815, he traveled with lord 
Stuart to Italy, and, in 1816, he settled at Soleure. In 1817, he abolished 
slavery on his estate of Siecnowicze, in Poland. He afterwards lived in 
retirement, enjoying the society of a few friends. Agriculture was his fa- 
vorite occupation. A fall with his horse from a precipice, not far from 
Vevay, occasioned his death, October 16, 1817, at Soleure. He was 
never married. In 1818, prince Jablonowski, at the expense of the em- 
peror Alexander, removed his body, which, at the request of the senate, 
the emperor allowed to be deposited in the tomb of the kings at Cracow. 
A monument was also erected to his memory, and the women went into 
mourning for his loss. 

NATHANIEL GREENE. 

Nathaniel Greene, a major-general in the American army, was born, 
May 22, 1742, near the town of Warwick in Rhode Island. His father 
was an anchor smith, and, at the same time, a Quaker preacher, whose 
ignorance, combined with the fanaticism of the times, made him pay little 
attention to the worldly learning of his children, though he was very care- 
ful of their moral and religious instruction. The fondness for knowledge, 
however, of young Greene was such, that he devoted all the time he could 
spare to its acquisition, and employed all his trifling gains in procuring 
books. His propensity for the life of a soldier was early evinced by his 
predilection for works on military subjects. He made considerable profi- 
ciency in the exact sciences ; and, after he had attained his twentieth 
year, he added a tolerable stock of legal knowledge to his other acquisi- 
tions. In the year 1770, he was elected a member of the state legisla- 
ture, and, in 1774, enrolled himself as a private in a company called the 
Kentish Guards. After the battle of Lexington, the state of Rhode 
Island raised what was termed an army of observation, in order to assist 
the forces collected in Massachusetts, for the purpose of confining the 
British within the limits of Boston, and chose Greene its commander, with 
the title of major-general. His elevation from the ranks to the head of 
three regiments, may give some idea of the estimation in which his mili- 
tary talents were held. June 6, 1775, he assumed his command before 
the lines of Boston; and, not long afterwards, General Washington ar- 
rived, to take the command in chief of the American forces. Between 
these two distinguished men an intimacy soon commenced, which was 
never interrupted. Greene accepted a commission from congress of briga- 
dier-general, although, under the state, he held that of major-general; 
preferring the former, as it promised a larger sphere of action, and the 
pleasure of serving under the immediate command of Washington. When 



686 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the American army had followed the enemy to New York, after the evacu- 
ation of Boston, they encamped, partly in New York and partly on Long 
Island. The division posted upon the island was under the orders of 
Greene ; but, at the time of its unfortunate affair with the enemy, he was 
suffering under severe - sickness, and General Sullivan was in command. 
When he had sufficiently recovered his health, he joined the retreating 
army, having previously been promoted to the rank of major-general, and 
was appointed to command the troops in New Jersey destined to watch the 
movements of a strong detachment of the British, which had been left in 
Staten Island. December 26, 1776, when Washington surprised the Eng- 
lish at Trenton, Greene commanded the left wing of the American forces, 
which was the first that reached the town, and, having seized the enemy's 
artillery, cut off their retreat to Princeton. Next summer, Sir William 
Howe having embarked with a large force at New York, for the purpose 
of landing on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, and thence marching 
to Philadelphia, Washington hastened to oppose him; and, September 11, 
the battle of the Brandywine took place, in which the Americans were 
defeated. In this affair, Greene commanded the vanguard, together with 
Sullivan, and it became his duty to cover the retreat, in which he fully 
succeeded. After General Howe had obtained possession of Philadelphia, 
the British army, in consequence of this victory, encamped at Germantown, 
where an attack was made upon it by Washington, October 4, 1777, in 
which Greene commanded the left wing. The disastrous issue of this at- 
tempt is well known; but it has been asserted, that the left wing was the 
only part of the American army which had the good fortune to effect tho 
service allotted it that day. The next service upon which General Greene 
was engaged, was that of endeavoring to prevent lord Cornwallis from col- 
lecting supplies, for which he had been detached into the Jerseys, with 
3000 men ; but, before Greene could bring him to an action, he had 
received reinforcements, which gave him so great a superiority, that the 
American general was recalled by the commander-in-chief. In March of 
the following year, Greene, at the solicitation of Washington, accepted the 
appointment of quarter-master-general, on two conditions ; that he should 
retain his right of command in time of action, and that he should have 
the choice of two assistants. At the battle of Monmouth, in the ensuing 
month of June, he led the right wing of the second line, and mainly con- 
tributed to the partial success of the Americans. After this, he continued 
engaged in discharging the duties of his station until August, when he 
was sent to join Sullivan, who, with the forces under his command, aided 
by the French fleet under D'Estaing, was preparing to make an attempt 
upon Newport in Rhode Island, then in possession of the enemy. The 
command of the left wing of the troops was assigned to Greene. The 
enterprise, however, failed, in consequence of some misunderstanding be- 
tween Sullivan and D'Estaign ; and the consequent retreat of the Ameri- 
can army was covered by Greene, who repulsed an attack of the enemy 
with half their number. When General Washington, alarmed for the 
safety of the garrisons on the North river, repaired to West Point, he left 
Greene in command of the army in New Jersey. The latter had not been 
long in that command, before he was attacked, near Springfield, by a force 
much superior to his, under Sir Henry Clinton ; but the enemy were 
repulsed, though they burned the village. This affair happened June 23. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 687 

October 6, he was appointed to succeed the traitor Arnold in the command 
at West Point. In this station, however, he continued only until the 14th 
of the same month, when he was chosen by General Washington to take 
the place of General Gates, in the chief direction of the southern army. 
From this moment, when he was placed in a situation where he could 
exercise his genius without control, dates the most brilliant portion of 
Greene's career. The ability, prudence and firmness which he here dis- 
played, have caused him to be ranked, in the scale of our revolutionary 
generals, second only to Washington. December 2, 1780, Greene arrived 
at the encampment of the American forces at Charlotte, and, on the 4th, 
assumed the command. After the battle of the Cowpens, gained by Mor- 
gan, January 17, 1781, he effected a junction with the victorious General, 
having previously been engaged in recruiting his army, which had been 
greatly thinned by death and desertion ; but the numbers of Cornwallis 
were still so superior, that he was obliged to retreat into Virginia, which 
he did with a degree of skill that has been the theme of the highest 
eulogy. He, soon afterwards, however, returned to North Carolina, with 
an accession of force, and, March 15, encountered Cornwallis at Guilford 
court-house, where he was defeated ; but the loss of the enemy was 
greater than his, and no advantages accrued to them from the victory. 
On the contrary, Cornwallis, a few days afterwards, commenced a retro- 
grade movement towards Wilmington, leaving many of his wounded behind 
him, and was followed for some time by Greene. Desisting, however, 
from the pursuit, the latter marched into South Carolina, and a battle took 
place, April 25, between him and lord Rawdon, near Camden, in which he 
was again unsuccessful, though again the enemy were prevented by him 
from improving their victory, and, not long after, were obliged to retire. 
May 22, having previously reduced a number of the forts and garrisons in 
South Carolina, he commenced the siege of Ninety-Six, but in June the 
approach of lord Raw don compelled him to raise it, and retreat to the 
extremity of the state. Expressing a determination ' to recover South 
Carolina, or die in the attempt,' he again advanced, when the British 
forces were divided, and lord Rawdon was pursued, in his turn, to his en 
campment at Orangeburg, where he was offered battle by his adversary, 
which was refused. September 8, Greene obtained a victory over the 
British forces under Colonel Stewart, at Eutaw Springs, which completely 
prostrated the power of the enemy in South Carolina. Greene was pre- 
sented by congress with a British standard and a gold medal, as a testi- 
mony of their sense of his services on this occasion. This was the last 
action in which Greene was engaged. During the rest of the war, how- 
ever, he continued in his command, struggling with the greatest difficulties, 
in ' onsequence of the want of all kinds of supplies, and the mutinous dis- 
position of some of his troops. When peace released him from his duties, 
he returned to Rhode Island ; and his journey thither, almost at every 
step, was marked by some private or public testimonial of gratitude and 
regard. On his arrival at Princeton, where congress was then sitting, 
that body unanimously resolved, that ' two pieces of field ordnance, taken 
from the British army at Cowpens, Augusta, or Eutaw,' should be pre- 
sented to him by the commander-in-chief. In October, 1785, Greene 
repaired, with his family, to Georgia, some valuable grants of lands near 
Savannah having been mado to him by that state. He died June 19, 



688 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

1786, in his 44th year, in consequence of an inflammation of the brain, 
contracted by exposure to the rays of an intense sun. General Greene 
possessed, in a great degree, not only the common quality of physical 
courage, but that fortitude and unbending firmness of mind, which are 
given to few, and which enabled him to bear up against the most cruel 
reverses, and struggle perseveringly with, and finally surmount, the most 
formidable difficulties. He was ever collected in the most trying situa- 
tions, and prudence and judgment were distinguishing traits in his charac- 
ter. In his disposition, he was mild and benevolent ; but when it was 
necessary, he was resolutely severe. No officer of the revolutionary army 
possessed a higher place in the confidence and affection of Washington, 
and, probably, none would have been so well calculated to succeed him, if 
death had deprived his country of his services during the revolutionary 
struggle. 

FREDERIC WILLIAM AUGUSTUS STEUBEN. 

Baron von Frederic William Augustus Steuben ; a distinguished 
Prussian officer, who attached himself to the American cause in the revo- 
lution of 1776. He had been aid-de-camp to Frederic the Great, and had 
attained the rank of lieutenant-general in his army. Sacrificing his 
honors and emoluments in Europe, Steuben came to America in 1777, and 
tendered his services to congress, as a volunteer in their army,* without 
claiming any rank or compensation. He received the thanks of that body, 
and joined the main army under the commander-in-chief at Valley Forge. 
Baron Steuben soon rendered himself particularly useful to the Americans, 
by disciplining the forces. On the recommendation of general Washington, 
congress, in May 1778, appointed the baron inspector-generabof the army, 
with the rank of major-general. His efforts in this capacity were contin- 
ued with remarkable diligence, until he had placed the troops in a situation 
to withstand the enemy. In the estimates of the war office, 5000 extra 
muskets were generally allowed for the waste and destruction in the army ; 
but such was the exact order under the superintendence of Steuben, that 
in his inspection return, but three muskets were deficient, and those ac- 
counted for. A complete scheme of exercise and discipline, which he 
composed, was adopted in the army by the direction of congress. He 
possessed the right of command in the line, and at one period was at the 
head of a separate detachment in Virginia. At the battle of Monmouth 
he was engaged as a volunteer. When reviewing the troops, it was his 
constant custom to reward the disciplined soldier with praise, and to pass 
severe censure upon the negligent. Numerous anecdotes are related illus 
trative of the generosity, purity and kindness of his disposition. After 
the treacherous defection of Arnold, the baron held his name in the utmost 
abhorrence. One day, he was inspecting a regiment of light horse, when 
that name struck his ear. The man was ordered to the front, and pre- 
sented an excellent appearance. Steuben told him that he was too 
respectable to bear the name of a traitor ; and at his request the soldier 
adopted that of the baron, whose bounty he afterwards experienced, and 
brought up a son by the same name. 

At the siege of Yorktown, baron Steuben was in the trenches at the head 
of a division, where he received the first offer of lord Cornwallis to capit- 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 689 

ulate. The marquis de Lafayette appeared to relieve him in the morning ; 
but, adhering to the European etiquette, the baron would not quit his post 
until the surrender was completed or hostilities recommenced. The matter 
being referred to general Washington, the baron was suffered to remain in 
the trenches till the enemy's flag was struck. After the capture of Corn- 
wallis, when the superior American officers were paying every attention to 
their captives, Steuben sold his favorite horse in order to raise money to 
give an entertainment to the British officers, as the other major-generals 
had previously done. His watch he had previously disposed of to relieve 
the wants of a sick friend. On another occasion, when he desired to 
reciprocate the invitations of the French officers, he ordered his people to 
sell his silver spoons and forks saying it was anti-republican to make use 
of such things, and adding, that the gentlemen should have one good dinner 
if he ate his meals with a wooden spoon for ever after. Steuben continued 
in the army till the close of the war, perfecting its discipline. The silence 
and dexterity of his movements surprised the French allies. He possessed 
the particular esteem of general Washington, who took every proper oppor- 
tunity to recommend him to congress ; from which body he received several 
sums of money, that were chiefly expended in acts of charity, or in reward- 
ing the good conduct of the soldiers. 

Upon the disbandment of the continental army at Newburgh, many 
affectionate bonds, formed amidst the danger and hardships of a long and 
arduous service, were to be broken asunder for ever. At this season of 
distress, the benevolent Steuben exerted himself to alleviate the forlorn 
condition of many. He gave his last dollar to a wounded black, to procure 
him a passage home. Peace being established, the baron retired to a farm 
in the vicinity of New York, where, in the society of his friends, and the 
amusements of books and chess, he passed his time as comfortably as his 
exhausted purse would allow. The state of New Jersey had given him a 
small farm, and that of New York 16,000 acres of land in the country of 
Oneida. The exertions of colonel Hamilton and general Washington sub- 
sequently procured him an annuity of $2500, from the general govern- 
ment. He built a log house, and cleared 60 acres of his tract of land, a 
portion of which he partitioned out, on easy terms, to twenty or thirty 
tenants, and distributed nearly a tenth among his aid-de-camps and servants. 
In this situation he lived contentedly, until the year 1795, when an apo- 
plectic attack put an end to his life, in his sixty-fifth year. An abstract 
of his system of military manoeuvres was published in 1779. The year 
preceding his death, he published a letter on the established militia and 
military arrangements. 

BARON DB KALB. 

Baron De Kalb, a major-general in the American army, was born in 
Germany, about the year 1717. When young, he entered into the service 
of France, in which he continued for 42 years, and obtained the rank of 
brigadier-general. In 1757, during the war between England and France, 
he was sent, by the French government, to the American colonies, in order 
to learn the points in which they were most vulnerable, and how far the 
seeds of discontent might be sown in them towards the mother country. 
He was seized, while in the performance of this commission, as a suspected 
44* 



690 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

person, but escaped detection. He then went to Canada, where he remain- 
ed until its conquest by the British, after which he returned to France. 
In 1777, during the war of the revolution, he came a second time to the 
U. States, and offered his services to congress. They were accepted, and 
he was soon after made a major-general. At first he was placed in the 
northern army, but when the danger which threatened Charleston from 
the formidable expedition under sir Henry Clinton, in 1778, rendered it 
necessary to reinforce the American troops in the south, a detachment was 
sent to them, consisting of the Maryland and Delaware lines, which were 
put under his command. Before he could arrive, however, at the scene 
of action, general Lincoln had been made prisoner, and the direction of 
the whole southern army in consequence devolved upon the baron, until 
the appointment of general Gates. August 15th, Gates was defeated 
near Camden by lord Rawdon, and in the battle, baron de Kalb, who com- 
manded the right wing, fell, covered with wounds, while gallantly fighting 
on foot. A tomb was erected to his memory, by order of congress, in the 
cemetery of Camden. 

RICHARD MONTGOMERY. 

Richard Montgomery, a major-general in the army of the U. States, 
was born in 1737, in the north of Ireland. He embraced the profession 
of arms, and served under Wolfe, at Quebec, in 1759 ; but, on his return 
to England, he left his regiment, although his prospects for promotion were 
fair. He then removed to America, for which country he entertained a 
deep affection ; he purchased an estate in New York, about 100 miles from 
the city, and married a daughter of judge Livingston. His feelings in fa- 
vor of America were so well known, that, on the commencement of the 
revolutionary struggle, he was entrusted with the command of the conti- 
nental forces in the northern department, in conjunction with general 
Schuyler. The latter, however, fell sick, and the chief command in con- 
sequence, devolved upon Montgomery, who, after various successes (the 
reduction of fort Chamblee, the capture of St. John's, and of Montreal), 
proceeded to the siege of Quebec. This he commenced Dec. 1, 1775, 
after having formed a junction with colonel Arnold, at Point-aux-Trem- 
bles ; but, as his artillery was not of sufficient calibre to make the requi- 
site impression, he determined upon attempting the capture of the place 
by storm. He made all his arrangemeuts, and advanced, at the head of 
the New York troops, along the St. Lawrence. He assisted, with his own 
hands, in pulling up the pickets that obstructed his approach to the second 
barrier, which he was resolved to force, when the only gun fired from 
the battery of the enemy killed him and his two aid-de-camps. The three 
fell at the same time, and rolled upon the ice formed on the river. The 
next day his body was brought into Quebec, and buried without any mark 
of distinction. Congress directed a monument, with an inscription, to be 
erected to his memory, and placed in front of St. Paul's church, in New 
York, and, July 8, 1818, his remains were brought from Quebec, in con 
sequence of a resolve of the state of New York, and interred near tht 
monument. General Montgomery was gifted with fine abilities, and had 
received an excellent education. His military talents, especially, were 
great ; his measures were taken with judgment, and executed with vigor 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 691 

The sorrow for his loss was heightened by the esteem which his amiable 
character had gained him. At the period of his death, he was only 38 
years of age. 

GILBERT MOTIER LAFAYETTE. 

Gilbert Motier Lafayette, (formerly marquis de,) was born at 
Chavagnac, near Brioude, in Auvergne, Sept. 6, 1757, was educated in 
the college of Louis le Grand, in Paris, placed at court as an officer in one 
of the guards of honor, and, at the age of 17, was married to the grand- 
daughter of the duke de Noailles. It was under these circumstances that 
the young marquis de Lafayette entered upon a career so little to be 
expected of a youth of vast fortune, of high rank, of powerful connections, 
at the most brilliant and fascinating court in the world. He left France 
secretly for America, in 1777, and arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, 
April 25, being then 19 years old. The state of this country, it is well 
known, was at that time most gloomy : a feeble army, without clothing or 
arms, was with difficulty kept together before a victorious enemy; the 
government was without resources or credit, and the American agents in 
Paris were actually obliged to confess that they could not furnish the 
young nobleman with a conveyance. ' Then,' said he, ' I will fit out a 
vessel myself;' and he did so. The sensation produced in this country, by 
his arrival, was very great : it encouraged the almost disheartened people 
to hope for succor and sympathy from one of the most powerful nations in 
Europe. Immediately on his arrival, Lafayette received the oiFer of a 
command in the continental army, but declined it, raised and equipped a 
body of men at his own expense, and then entered the service as a 
volunteer without pay. He lived in the family of the commander-in-chief, 
and won his full affection and confidence. He was appointed major- 
general in July, and, in September, was wounded at Brandywine. He 
was employed in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island in 1778, and, after 
receiving the thanks of his country for his important services, embarked 
at Boston, in January, 1779, for France, where it was thought that he 
could assist the cause more effectually for a time. The treaty concluded 
between France and America, about the same period, was, by his personal 
exertions, made effective in our favor, and he returned to America with 
the intelligence that a French force would soon be sent to this country. 
Immediately on his arrival, he entered the service, and received the 
command of a body of infantry of about 2000 men, which he clothed and 
equipped, in part, at his own expense. His forced march to Virginia, in 
December, 1780, raising 2000 guineas at Baltimore, on his own credit, to 
supply the wants of his troops ; his rescue of Richmond ; his long trial of 
generalship with Cornwallis, who boasted that ' the boy could not escape 
him ;' the siege of Yorktown, and the storming of the redoubt, are proofs 
of his devotion to the cause of American independence. Desirous of 
serving that cause at home, he again returned to France for that purpose. 
Congress, which had already acknowledged his merits on former occasions, 
now passed new resolutions, Nov. 23, 1781, in which, besides tne usual 
marks of approbation, they desired the American ministers to confer with 
him in their negotiations. In France, a brilliant reputation had preceded 
him, and he was received with the highest marks of public admiration. 



692 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Still he urged upon his government the necessity of negotiating with a 
powerful force in America, and succeeded in obtaining orders to this 
effect. On his arrival in Cadiz, he found 49 ships with 20,000 men, 
ready to follow him to America, had not peace rendered it unnecessary. 
A letter from him communicated the first intelligence of that event to 
congress. The importance of his services in France may be seen by 
consulting his letters in the Correspondence of the American Revolution, 
(Boston, 1831.) He received pressing invitations, however, to revisit the 
country. Washington in particular, urged it strongly ; and, for the third 
time, Lafayette landed in the United States, Aug. 4, 1784. After 
passing a few days at Mount Vernon, he visited Baltimore, Philadelphia, 
New York, Boston, etc., and was everywhere received with the greatest 
enthusiasm and delight. Previous to his return to France, congress 
appointed a deputation, consisting of one member from each state, 'to 
take leave of him on behalf of the country, and assure him that these 
United States regard him with particular affection, and will not cease to 
feel an interest in whatever may concern his honor and prosperity.' 
After his return, he was engaged in endeavoring to mitigate the condition 
of the Protestants in France, and to effect the abolition of slavery. In the 
assembly of the notables, in 1787, he proposed the suppression of lettres de 
cachet, and of the state-prisons, the emancipation of the Protestants, and the 
convocation of the representatives of the nation. When asked by the count 
D' Artois, since Charles X, if he demanded the states-general — ' Yes,' was 
his reply, ' and something better.' Being elected a member of the states- 
general, which took the name of national assembly (1789), he proposed a 
declaration of rights, and the decree providing for the responsibility of the 
officers of the crown. Two days after the attack on the Bastile, he was 
appointed (July 15) commander-in-chief of the national guards of Paris. 
The court and national assembly were still at Versailles, and the populace 
of Paris, irritated at this, had already adopted, in sign of opposition, a 
blue and red cockade (being the colors of the city of Paris). July 26, 
Lafayette added to this cockade the white of the royal arms, declaring at 
the same time that the tri-color should go round the world. On the march 
of the populace to Versailles (October 5 and 6), the national guards 
clamored to be led thither. Lafayette refused to comply with their demand, 
until, having received orders in the afternoon, he set off, and arrived at 
10 o'clock, after having been on horseback from before daylight. He 
requested that the interior posts of the chateau might be committed to him ; 
but this request was refused, and the outer posts only were entrusted to 
the national guards. This was the night on which the assassins murdered 
two of the queen's guards, and were proceeding to further acts of violence, 
when Lafayette, at the head of the national troops, put an end to the 
disorder, and saved the lives of the royal family. In the morning he 
accompanied them to Paris." On the establishment of the Jacobin club at 
Paris, he organized, with Bailly, then mayor of Paris, the opposing club of 
Feuillans. Jan. 20, 1790, he supported the motion for the abolition of 
titles of nobility, from which period he renounced his own, and has never 
since resumed it. The constitution of a representative monarchy, which 
was the object of his wishes, was now proposed, and July 13, 1790, was 
appointed for its acceptance by the king and the nation, and, in the name 
of 4,000,000 national guards, Lafayette swore fidelity to the constitution. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 693 

Declining the dangerous power of constable of France, or generalissimo of 
the national guards of the kingdom, after having organized the national 
militia, and defended the king from the popular violence, he resigned all 
command, and retired to his estates. The first coalition against France 
(1792) soon called him from his retirement. Being appointed one of the 
three major-generals in the command of the French armies, he established 
discipline, and defeated the enemy at Philippeville, Maubeuge and 
Florennes, when his career of success was interrupted by the domestic 
factions of his country. Lafayette openly denounced the terrible Jacobins, 
in his letter of June 16, in which he declared that the enemies of the 
revolution, under the mask of popular leaders, were endeavoring to stifle 
liberty under the excesses of licentiousness. June 20, he appeared at the 
bar of the assembly, to vindicate his conduct, and demand the punishment 
of the guilty authors of the violence. But the Mountain had already 
overthrown the constitution, and nothing could be effected. Lafayette 
then offered to conduct the king and his family to Compiegne. This 
proffer being declined, he returned to the army, which he endeavored to 
rally round the constitution. June 30, he was burnt in effigy at the 
Palais-Royal, and Aug. 5, was accused of treason before the assembly. 
Still he declared himself openly against the proceedings of August 10 ; 
but, finding himself unsupported by his soldiers, he determined to leave 
the country, and take refuge in some neutral ground. Some persons have 
charged general Lafayette with a want of firmness at this period ; but it is 
without a full understanding of the situation of things. Conscious that 
a price was set on his head at home, knowing that his troops would not 
support him against the principles which were triumphing in the clubs and 
the assembly, and sensible that, even if he were able to protract the 
contest with the victorious faction, the frontiers would be exposed to the 
invasions of the emigrants and their foreign allies, with whom he would 
have felt it treason against the nation to have negotiated, he had no 
alternative. Having been captured by an Austrian patrol, he was 
delivered to the Prussians, by whom he was again transferred to Austria. 
He was carried, with great secrecy, to Olmutz, where he was subjected to 
every privation and suffering, and cut oft from all communication with his 
friends, who were not even able to discover the place of his confinement 
until late in 1794. An unsuccessful attempt was made to deliver him 
from prison by Dr. Bollman, a German, and colonel Huger, of Charleston, 
S. C. His wife and daughters, however, succeeded in obtaining admission 
to him, and remained with him nearly two years, till his release. 
Washington had written directly to the emperor of Austria on his behalf, 
without effect ; but, after the memorable campaign of Bonaparte in Italy, 
the French government required that the prisoners at Olmutz should be 
released, which was done Aug. 25, 1797, after a negotiation that lasted 
three months. Refusing to take any part in the revolutions of the 18th 
Fructidor, or of the 18th Brumaire, he returned to his estate at La Grange, 
and, declining the dignity of senator, offered him by Bonaparte, he gave 
his vote against the consulate for life, and, taking no further part in public 
affairs, devoted himself to agricultural pursuits. On the restoration of the 
Bourbons, in 1814, he perceived that their principles of government were 
not such as France required, and he did not therefore leave his retirement, 
The 20th of March, 1815, again saw Napoleon on the imperial throne, and 



694 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

endeavoring to conciliate the nation by the profession of liberal principles 
Lafayette refused, though urged, through the medium of Joseph, to see 
him, protested against the acte additionnel of April 22, declined the 
peerage offered him by the emperor, but accepted the place of representa- 
tive, to which the votes of his fellow-citizens called him. He first met 
Napoleon at the opening of the chambers : the emperor received him with 
great marks of kindness, to which, however, he did not respond ; but, 
although he would take no part in the projects of Napoleon, he gave his 
vote for all necessary supplies, on the ground that France was invaded, 
and that it was the duty of all Frenchmen to defend their country. June 
21, Napoleon returned from Waterloo, and it was understood that it was 
determined to dissolve the house of representatives, and establish a dicta- 
torship. Two of his counselors informed Lafayette that in two hours the 
representative body would cease to exist. Immediately on the opening of 
the session, he ascended the tribune, and addressed the house as follows : 
' When, for the first time after an interval of many years, I raise a voice 
which all the old friends of liberty will still recognize, it is to speak of the 
dangers of the country, which you only can save. This, then, is the 
moment for us to rally round the old tri-colored standard, the standard of 
'89, of liberty, of equality, of public order, which we have now to defend 
against foreign violence, and domestic usurpation.' He then moved that 
the house declare itself in permanent session, and all attempts to dissolve 
it high treason ; that whoever should make such an attempt, should be 
considered a traitor, etc. In the evening, Napoleon sent Lucien to the 
house, to make one more effort in his favor. Lucien, in a strain of 
impassioned eloquence, conjured the house not to compromise the honor of 
the French nation by inconstancy to the emperor. At these words, 
Lafayette rose in his place, and, addressing himself directly to the orator, 
exclaimed, ' Who dares accuse the French nation of inconstancy to the 
emperor ? Through the sands of Egypt, and the wastes of Russia, over 50 
fields of battle, this nation has followed him devotedly ; and it is for this 
that we now mourn the blood of three millions of Frenchmen.' 

This appeal had such an effect on the assembly, that Lucien resumed 
his seat without finishing his discourse. A deputation of five members 
from each house was then appointed to deliberate in committee with the 
council of ministers. Of this deputation, general Lafayette was a mem- 
ber, and he moved that a committee should be sent to the emperor to de- 
mand his abdication. The arch-chancellor refused to put the motion ; but 
the emperor sent in his abdication the next morning (June 22). A pro- 
visional government was formed, and Lafayette was sent to demand a sus- 
pension of hostilities of the allies, which was refused. On his return, he 
found Paris in possession of the enemy; and, a few days after (July 8), 
the doors of the representatives' chamber were closed, and guarded by 
Prussian troops. Lafayette conducted a number of the members to the 
house of Lanjuinais, the president, where they drew up a protest against 
this act of violence, and quietly separated. Lafayette now retired once 
more to La Grange, where he remained till 1818, when he was chosen 
member of the chamber of deputies. Here he continued to support his 
constitutional principles, by opposing the laws of exception, the establish- 
ment cf the censorship of the press, the suspension of personal liberty, etc , 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 695 

and by advocating the cause of public instruction, the organization of a na- 
tional militia, and the inviolability of the charter. 

In August, 1824, he landed at New York, on a visit to the United States, 
upon the invitation of the president, and was received, in every part of 
the country, with the warmest expressions of delight and enthusiasm. He 
was proclaimed, by the popular voice, ' the guest of the nation,' and his 
presence was everywhere the signal for festivals and rejoicings. He pass- 
ed through the 24 states of the Union in a sort of triumphal procession, in 
which all parties joined to forget their dissensions, in which the veterans 
of the war renewed their youth, and the young were carried back to the 
doings and sufferings of their fathers. Having celebrated, at Bunker hill, 
the anniversary of the first conflict of the revolution, and, at Yorktown, that 
of its closing scene, in which he himself had borne so conspicuous a part, 
and taken leave of the four ex-presidents of the United States, he received 
the farewell of the president in the name of the nation, and sailed from 
the capital in a frigate named, in compliment to him, the Brandy wine, 
September 7, 1825, and arrived at Havre, where the citizens, having 
peaceably assembled to make some demonstration of their respect for his 
character, were dispersed by the gendarmerie. In December preceding, 
the congress of the United States made him a grant of $200,000, and a 
township of land, ' in consideration of his important services and expendit- 
ures during the American revolution.' The grant of money was in the 
shape of stock, bearing interest at six per cent., and redeemable December 
31, 1834. In August, 1827, he attended the obsequies of Manuel, over 
whose body he pronounced a eulogy. In November, the chamber of depu- 
ties was dissolved. Lafayette was again returned a member by the new 
elections. Shortly before the revolution of 1830, he traveled to Lyons, 
etc., and was enthusiastically received — a striking contrast to the conduct 
of the ministers towards him, and an alarming symptom to the despotic gov- 
ernment. During the revolution of July, 1830, he was appointed general- 
in-chief of the national guards of Paris, and, though not personally engaged 
in the fight, his activity and name were of the greatest service. To the 
Americans, Lafayette, the intimate friend of Washington, had appeared, in 
his late visit, almost like a great historical character returning from beyond 
the grave. In the eyes of the French, he was a man of the early days of 
their revolution — a man, moreover, who never changed side or principle. 
His uncle viating consistency is acknowledged by all, even by those who do 
not allow him the possession of first rate talents. When the national 
guards were established throughout France, after the termination of the 
struggle, he was appointed their commander-in-chief, and his activity in 
this post was admirable. August 17, he was made marshal of France. 
His influence with the government seems to have been, for some time, great, 
but whether his principles were too decidedly republican to please the new 
authorities (a few days after the adoption of the new charter, he declared 
himself against hereditary peerage, and repeatedly called himself a pupil 
of the American school), or whether he was considered as the rallying 
point of the republican party, or whatever may have been the reason, he sent 
in his resignation in December, 1830, which was accepted, and count Lo- 
bau appointed chief of the national guards of Paris. Lafayette declared 
from the tribune, that he had acted thus in consequence of the distrust 
which the power accompanying his situation seemed to excite in some peo- 



696 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

pie. On the same occasion, he also expressed his disappprobation of the 
new law of election. Shortly before his resignation, he exerted himself 
most praiseworthily to maintain order during the trial of the ex-ministers. 
The Poles made him first grenadier of the Polish national guards. He died 
at Paris, May 18, 1834. Regnault-Warin's Memoires sur le General La- 
fayette (Paris, 1824), contains many facts relative to his political life in 
France. His secretary, M. Levasseur, published an account of his tour in 
the United States (Paris, 1825), which has been translated in America. 

ISRAEL PUTNAM. 

Israel Putnam, a distinguished soldier in the French and English 
wars, and subsequently in that of the revolution, was born of English 
parents, at Salem, in the then province of Massachusetts, Jan. 7th, 1718. 
Being intended for a farmer, he received only a common education. He 
had a strong mind, vigorous constitution, great bodily strength, enterprise 
and activity, excelled in athletic exercises, and, while a stripling, was 
ambitious of performing the full labor of manhood. He married very 
young, and removed, in 1739, to Pomfret, in Connecticut, where he had 
purchased a tract of land. During his residence there, his flocks and 
those of his neighbors being terribly thinned by a monstrous she wolf, 
Putnam with a few associates, traced the ferocious animal to a deep cavern 
in a rock. Into this he crept alone, with a torch in one hand and a mus- 
ket in the other, and, at the utmost personal risk, destroyed the creature, 
When the war of 1755 broke out between France and England, he was 
appointed, at the age of thirty-seven, commander of a company, enlisted 
the necessary number of recruits from the young men in his vicinity, 
and joined the army then commencing the campaign near Crown Point. 
His services as a partisan officer were unremitting and great, and caused 
him to be promoted, in 1757, to the rank of major, by the legislature of 
Connecticut. In 1758, he fell into the Indian ambuscade, and was taken 
prisoner, when returning to Fort Edward from an expedition to watch the 
enemy's movements near Ticonderoga. The Indians were about to burn 
him to death, having already tied him to a tree and set fire to a circle of 
combustibles around him, when he was rescued by the interposition of 
their leader, Molang, a famous French partisan officer. He was then 
carried to Ticonderoga, where he underwent an examination before the 
Marquis De Montcalm, who ordered him to Montreal. There he found 
several fellow prisoners, among whom was colonel Peter Schuyler, who 
immediately visited, and found him almost destitute of clothing and dread- 
fully wounded and bruised. The colonel supplied him with money and, 
having clothed himself in a decent garb, he was immediately treated with 
the respect due his rank. An exchange of prisoners procured Putnam 
his liberty. He resumed his military duties, and, having been previously 
appointed a lieutenant-colonel, rendered especial service at the siege of 
Montreal by the British, in 1760. In 1762, after war had been declared 
between England and Spain, he accompanied the expedition, under Lord 
Albemarle, against the Havana. In 1764, having been appointed colo- 
nel, he marched, at the head of a regiment, with general Bradstreet, 
against the savages of the western frontier. On his return from this 
expedition, which resulted in a treaty between the contending parties, he 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 697 

betook himself, once more, to a country life, filled several offices in his 
nativ« town, to represent it in the general assembly. In 1770, he went, 
with general Lyman and some others, to explore a grant of land on 
the Mississippi. General Lyman died there ; but Putnam returned 
after having made some improvements on his tract. When hostilities 
commenced between England and the colonies (April 18th, 1775,) 
Putnam received the intelligence as he was plowing in the middle of a 
field ; he left his plow there, unyoked his team, and, without changing his 
clothes, set off for the scene of action. Finding the British shut up and 
closely invested with a sufficient force in Boston, he returned to Connecti- 
cut, levied a regiment under colonial authority, and marched to Cambridge. 
His colony now appointed him a major-general on the provincial staff, and 
congress soon after confirmed to him the same rank on the continental. 
About this time the British offered him the rank of a major-general in his 
majesty's army, with a pecuniary remuneration for his treason ; but the 
temptation could not influence him. In the several preparatory operations 
for the battle of Bunker's hill, he took an active part. After the com- 
mencement of the retreat at the battle of Bunker's hill, Putnam arrived 
on the field with a reinforcement, and performed everything to be expected 
from a brave and experienced officer ; the enemy pursued the retreating 
Americans to Winter hill, but Putnam halted there, and drove them back, 
under cover of their ships. On the evacuation of Boston, March 17th 
1776, the greater part of the forces were dispatched to New York, and 
Putnam was, some time after, sent thither to take upon him the command. 
After the disastrous action on Long Island, and general Washington's 
masterly retreat from thence, Putnam was nominated to the command of 
the right grand division of the army. He served some time in the vicinity 
of New York and was sent to the western side of the Hudson, and 
shortly after, to suprintend the fortifications of Philadelphia. After the 
battles of Trenton and Princeton, he was posted at Princeton, where he 
continued till the ensuing spring, with a very inferior force, guarding a 
considerable extent of frontier, curtailing and harrassing the enemy, 
without sustaining the least disaster. During his stay at Princeton, by 
attacking the foraging parties of the enemy and assemblages of the dis- 
affected who infested his vicinity, he captured nearly a thousand pris- 
oners. 

In the spring of 1777, he was appointed to the command of a separate 
army in the highlands of New York. There was no regular enemy in this 
neighborhood, but the country around was filled with tories, and a species 
of banditti, called coiv-boys, who committed shocking depredations. Many 
of the tories clandestinely traversed the country, with messages from one 
British army to another, and even on recruiting expeditions for the royal 
service. One of them, a lieutenant in the new tory levies, was detected 
in the American camp, and reclaimed by governor Tryon, his commander, 
with threats of vengeance in case of his punishment. He received this 
laconic answer from general Putnam: 'Sir: Nathan Palmer, a lieutenant in 
your king's service, was taken in my camp as a spy ; he was tried as a 
spy ; he was condemned as a spy ; and you may rest assured, Sir, he shall 
be hanged as a spy. . . P. S. Afternoon. He is hanged.' After the cap- 
ture of Fort Montgomery, Putnam selected West Point as the best 
calculated site for a fortress to protect the river. The reputation it 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

afterwards attained, evinced the judiciousness of this selection. After 
the battle of Monmouth, Putnam was posted, for the winter, at Reading 
in Connecticut, that he might protect the country adjoining to the Sound, 
and the garrison at West Point. While he was on a visit to one of his 
outposts governor Tryon advanced upon him with 1500 men. Putnam 
had with him but 150 men and two field-pieces, with which he kept the 
enemy at bay some time. At length, seeing the enemy preparing to 
charge, he ordered his men to retire to a swamp, while he plunged down 
a precipice so steep as to have artificial steps, nearly one hundred in 
number, for the use of foot passengers. The enemy's dragoons stopped 
short, afraid to venture, although within a sword's length of him. While 
they went round the brow of the hill to gain the valley, he raised a force 
sufficiently strong to pursue Tryon on his retreat. In the campaign of 
1779, he commanded the Maryland line, stationed near West Point. In 
the autumn of this year, the American army retired into winter quarters, 
at Morristown, and Putnam accompanied his family into Connecticut for 
a few weeks. At the commencement of his journey from thence to 
Morristown, while on the road between Pomfret and Hartford, he was 
seized with an extraordinary numbness of his right hand and foot, which 
crept gradually upon him, until his right side became, in a considerable 
degree, paralyzed. This severe affliction produced a transient depression 
of his mind ; but he conquered his dejection, and resumed his naturally 
cheerful temper. He was still able to walk and ride moderately, and 
the faculties of his mind were unimpaired. In this situation he 
lived to see his country enjoying that independence of which he had 
been so able a champion, and died at Brookline, in Connecticut, May 
29th 1790, aged seventy-two years. 

STEPHEN DECATUR. 

Stephen Decatur, a celebrated American naval officer, was born Jan- 
uary 5, 1779, on the eastern shore of Maryland, whither his parents had 
retired while the British were in Philadelphia. He entered the American 
navy in March, 1798, and was soon promoted to the rank of first lieuten- 
ant. While at Syracuse, attached to the squadron of commodore Preble, 
he was first informed of the fate of the American frigate Philadelphia, 
which, in pursuing a Tripolitan corsair, ran on a rock about four and a half 
miles from Tripoli, and was taken by the Tripolitans, and towed into the 
harbor. Lieutenant Decatur conceived the project of attempting her re- 
capture or destruction. He selected, for this purpose, a ketch, and 
manned her with 70 volunteers. February 16, 1804, at 7 o'clock at 
night, he entered the harbor of Tripoli, boarded the frigate, though she 
had all her guns mounted and charged, and was lying within half-gun 
shot of the bashaw's castle and of his principal battery. Two Tripolitan 
cruisers were lying within two cables' length, on the starboard quarter 
and several gun-boats within half-gun-shot on the starboard bow, and all 
the batteries upon the shore were opened upon the assailants. Decatur 
set fire to the frigate, and continued alongside until her destruction was 
certain. For this exploit, the American congress voted him thanks and a 
sword, and the president immediately sent him a captaincy. The next 
spring, it being resolved to make an attack upon Tripoli, commodore Preble 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 699 

equipped six gun-boats and two bombards, formed them into two divisions, 
and gave the command of one of them to captain Decatur. The enemy's 
gun-boats were moored along the mouth of the harbor, under the bat- 
teries, and within musket-shot. Captain Decatur determined to board the 
enemy's eastern division, consisting of nine. He boarded in his own boat, 
and carried two of the enemy's boats in succession. When he boarded 
the second boat, he immediately attacked her commander, who was his 
superior in size and strength, and, his sword being broken, he seized the 
Turk, when a violent scuffle ensued. The Turk threw him, and drew a 
dirk for the purpose of stabbing him, when Decatur, having a small pistol 
in his right pocket, took hold of it, and, turning it as well as he could, so 
as to take effect upon his antagonist, cocked it, fired through his pocket, 
and killed him. When Commodore Preble was superseded in the com- 
mand of the squadron, he gave the frigate Constitution to Decatur, who 
was afterwards removed to the Congress, and returned home in her 
when peace was concluded with Tripoli. He succeeded commodore Bar- 
ron in the command of the Chesapeake, after the attack made upon her 
by the British man-of-war Leopard. He was afterwards transferred to the 
frigate United States. In the war between Great Britain and the United 
States, while commanding the frigate United States, he fell in, Oct. 25, 
1812, with the Macedonian, mounting 49 carriage-guns, one of the finest 
of the British vessels of her class, and captured her after an engagement 
of an hour and a half. When captain Carden, the commander of the 
Macedonian, tendered him his sword, he observed that he could not think 
of taking the sword of an officer who had defended his ship so gallantly, 
but should be happy to take him by the hand. In a letter written five 
days after the capture, he says, " I need not tell you that I have done 
every thing in my power to soothe and console captain Carden ; for, really, 
one half the pleasure of this little victory is destroyed in witnessing the 
mortification of a brave man, who deserved success quite as much as we 
did who obtained it." In January, 1814, commodore Decatur, in the 
United States, with his prize the Macedonian, then equipped as an Amer- 
ican frigate, was blockaded at New London by a British squadron greatly 
superior in force. A challenge which he sent to the commander of the 
British squadron, sir Thomas Hardy, offering to meet two of the British 
frigates with his two ships, was declined. In January, 1815, he attempt- 
ed to set sail from New York, which was blockaded by four British ships ; 
but the frigate under his command, the President, was injured in passing 
the bar, and was captured by the whole squadron, after having maintained 
a running fight of two hours and a half with one of the frigates, the Endy- 
mion, which was dismantled and silenced. After the conclusion of peace, 
he was restored to his country, in 1815. The conduct of the Barbary 
powers, and of Algiers in particular, having been insulting to the United 
States, on the ratification of peace with Great Britain, war was declared 
against Algiers, and a squadron was fitted out, under the command of 
commodore Decatur, for the purpose of obtaining redress. In the spring 
of 1815, he set sail, and, June 17, off cape de Gatt, captured an Algerine 
frigate, after a running fight of 25 minutes, in which the famous admiral 
Rais Hammida, who had long been the terror of the Mediterranean sea, 
fell. The American squadron arrived at Algiers June 28. In less than 
48 hours, Decatur terrified the regency into his own terms, which were, 



700 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

mainly, that no tribute should ever be required, by Algiers, from the 
United States of America ; that all Americans in slavery should be given 
up without ransom ; that compensation should be made for American 
property seized ; that all citizens of the United States, taken in war, 
should be treated as prisoners of war are by other nations, and not as 
slaves, but held subject to an exchange without ransom. After concluding 
this treaty, he proceeded to Tunis, where he obtained indemnity for the 
outrages exercised or permitted by the bashaw. Thence he went to 
Tripoli, Avhere he made a similar demand with like success, and procured 
the release of 10 captives, Danes and Neapolitans. He arrived at the 
United States Nov. 12, 1815, was subsequently appointed one of the 
board of navy commissioners, and was residing at Washington, in that 
capacity, when he was killed in a duel with commodore Barron, March 22, 
1820, occasioned by his animadversions on the conduct of the latter. 
Courage, sagacity, energy, self-possession, and a high sense of honor, were 
the characteristic traits of Decatur. From his boyhood, he was remark- 
able for the qualities which presage eminence in naval warfare. He 
enjoyed the sea as his element. He possessed an active, muscular frame, 
a quick and penetrating eye, and a bold, adventurous and ambitious spirit. 

COMMODORE ISAAC HULL. 

Commodore Isaac Hull, was born in Connecticut, March 9th 1775. 
His father was an officer in the American army during the whole of the 
revolutionary war, and was detained for a long time a prisoner in the Jersey 
prison-ship. Commodore Hull's passion for the sea was very early displayed, 
and became stronger as he grew up. With the hope of diverting his atten- 
tion to other pursuits, he was sent by his friends to his uncle, General 
William Hull, at Boston, where he went to school. The object desired, 
however, not having been accomplished, they consented to his making a 
voyage. This proved a disastrous one ; the vessel in which he sailed being 
wrecked on the coast of Ireland. He nevertheless returned home fortified 
in his resolution of leading the life of a seaman, which his family no longer 
opposed. At the age of 19, he already commanded a ship to London. 
On the passage of a bill by Congress for the increase of the navy, he 
made application for a lieutenantcy in the U. S. service, and devoted him- 
self assiduously, while awaiting the decision of the government in his case, 
to the studies necessary for the naval profession. He was commissioned 
as a lieutenant on the 9th of March 1798, the day on which he completed 
his 23d year. He was ordered to the frigate Constitution, then preparing 
for sea at Boston. For a period of about four years, he was occupied in 
cruising on the West India station, for the protection of American mer- 
chantmen going to or returning from the Windward Islands. In 1808, he 
distinguished himself by cutting out of the harbor of Port Platte, in the 
island of Hayti, the French letter of marque, the Sandwich ; an enterprise 
executed with great gallantry and spirit, and without any loss to the assail- 
ants. On the return of the Constitution to Boston, Lieutenant Hull was 
directed to superintend the repairs of the ship ; but before this service was 
completed, he was ordered to proceed as first lieutenant of the frigate 
Adams to the Mediterranean. He subsequently commanded the schooner 
Enterprise of 12 guns, and rendered in her effectual aid to Captain Rodgers 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 701 

in the John Adams, in capturing a large corsair before the harbor of Tripoli. 
The next vessel that he was appointed to command was the Argus of 16 
guns, which was in 1804 ; in which year, also, he was promoted to the rank 
of a master-commandant. He was made a captain in 1806. In the 
Argus, he cruised for some time off the coast of Morocco to watch the 
movements of corsairs in the ports of that state ; and after rejoining Com- 
modore Preble's squadron off Tripoli, he was ordered to the Bay of Naples, 
and charged with the protection of American property in the event of the 
French gaining possession of that city. The next office intrusted to him 
was the conveying, on board of his vessel, of General Eaton and his offi- 
cers to Alexandria, in Egypt. He at length returned to the United States, 
after an absence of four years and three months, and was immediately 
ordered to superintend the construction of gun-boats, in pursuance of the 
system adopted during the administration of President Jefferson. He 
was successively appointed to the command of the Norfolk Navy-Yard, 
and gun-boats on that station ; to the command of the frigate Chesapeake ; 
to that of the Constitution, in which vessel he conveyed to France, Mr. 
Barlow, the American minister to Napoleon ; and to that of the navy -yard 
and gun-boats in the harbor of New York. At the commencement of the 
war of 1812, Captain Hull was appointed once more to command the Con- 
stitution frigate. He sailed in her from Annapolis on the 12th of July ; 
and in the course of a few days an opportunity was afforded him of exhib- 
iting a specimen of skillful seamanship and naval manoeuvring, of so extra- 
ordinary a nature as to excite the admiration even of the enemy. After 
a chase of nearly three days, and as many nights, he succeeded in effecting 
his escape from a British squadron consisting of the Africa 64 gun-ship, 4 
frigates and a brig. On the 19th of the following month, he had the good 
fortune to encounter the Guerriere, one of the frigates of this squadron, 
single-handed. There is, perhaps, no instance on record of a greater exe- 
cution having been performed by an equal force, and in an equal time, in 
naval warfare, than was done by the Constitution on the present occasion. 
Although there was an interval of about two hours between the firing of 
the first and the last shot, the battle was really won in a fourth part of 
that time. Of the Americans 14 only, of the British 79, were killed or 
wounded ; and while the Constitution was so little injured as to be ready to 
engage another frigate immediately afterwards, had she been called upon 
to do so, the Guerriere was completely dismasted, and reduced to a mere 
wreck. On his return into port, Captain Hull gave up the command of 
the Constitution, ' with a feeling,' to use the words of Mr. Cooper, ' that 
was highly creditable to him, in order to allow others an equal chance to 
distinguish themselves ; there being unfortunately many more captains than 
vessels in the navy at that trying moment.' He was then appointed to the 
command of the navy-yard at Boston, and about a year afterwards was 
transferred to that at Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, where he remained 
until he was selected to be one of the first Navy Commissioners. After 
holding this office for a few months only, he accepted once more the com- 
mand of the Boston station, and remained there eight years. At the expi- 
ration of this time, he was sent, in the frigate United States, to command 
the American squadron in the Pacific Ocean. Returning home in three or 
four years, he was ordered to the command of the Washington Navy- Yard. 
There he spent seven years, and, having obtained leave of absence, went 



702 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to Europe with his family, and continued abroad two years. Upon his return, 
he was employed on various courts-martial, and other duties, for about 12 
months. He was then appointed to the command of the line-of-battle-ship 
Ohio, and of the Mediterranean squadron ; which cruise lasted nearly three 
years. Commodore Hull, finding his health to have become seriously impaired 
by the unremitted and arduous duties which he had been called upon to per- 
form, asked for, and had granted to him, an unconditional leave of absence 
from the naval service. He established himself in the city of Philadelphia 
in the month of October 1842. And he died here on the 13th of February 
1843. He was ever exemplary in the performance of his private, as of 
his public duties ; and the modesty, amiability, and courtesy, of his inter- 
course with others, as strikingly characterized him as did his self-possession 
and intrepidity in danger. 

OLIVER HAZARD PERRY. 

Oliver Hazard Perry, a distinguished American naval officer, was 
born at Newport, Rhode Island, in August, 1785. His father was an 
officer in the United States navy, and he was early destined to follow his 
father's profession. In 1798, he entered the service as a midshipman on 
board the sloop of war General Greene, then commanded by his father; 
and, when that vessel went out of commission, he was transferred to a 
squadron destined to the Mediterranean. He served during the Tripolitan 
war, and, though debarred, by his extreme youth, from an opportunity of 
distinguishing himself, he acquired, by his conduct, the regard and favor 
of his superior officers, and the friendship and esteem of his associates. 
Continuing sedulously attentive to his profession, he rose with sure and 
regular steps. In 1810, he was attached, as lieutenant-commandant, to 
the squadron of commodore Rodgers, at New London, and employed in 
cruising in the sound, to enforce the embargo act. In the following spring, 
he had the misfortune to be wrecked on Watch Hill reef, opposite Ston- 
ington, in consequence of having become enveloped in a thick mist, which 
prevented all possibility of ascertaining his course. By his intrepidity 
and coolness, however, he succeeded, in a great measure, in saving the 
guns and property, and got off all his crew. He was examined before a 
court of inquiry, at his own request, in relation to the loss, and not merely 
acquitted of all blame, but highly applauded for his conduct. He also 
received a very complimentary letter, on the occasion, from the secretary 
of the navy, Mr. Hamilton. Soon after this event, he returned to New- 
port, where he married the daughter of doctor Mason. 

In the beginning of 1812, he was promoted to the rank of master and 
commander, and ordered to the command of the flotilla of gun-boats 
stationed at the harbor of New York. After remaining there a year, he 
grew tired of the irksome and inglorious nature of this service, and 
solicited to be removed to another of a more active kind. His request was 
complied with ; and, as he had mentioned the lakes, he was ordered to 
repair to Sacket's Harbor, lake Ontario, with a body of mariners, to 
reinforce commodore Chauncey. Such was his popularity amongst the 
sailors under his command, that, as soon as the order was known, almost 
all of them volunteered to accompany him. The rivers being completely 
frozen at the time, he was obliged, at the head of a large number of chosen 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 703 

seamen, to perform the journey by land, which he safely accomplished. 
Not long after his arrival at Sacket's Harbor, commodore Chauncey de- 
tached him to take command of the squadron on lake Erie, and superintend 
the building of additional vessels. He immediately applied to increase his 
armament, and, with extraordinary exertions, two brigs, of twenty guns 
each were soon launched at Erie, the American port on the lake. When 
he found himself in a condition to cope with the British force on the same 
waters, although the latter were still superior in men and guns, he sought 
the contest, and, on the morning of the 10th of September, 1813, he 
achieved the victory which has given his name a permanent place in the 
history of his country. The details of this famous action, the manner in 
which it was brought to a fortunate issue by the intrepidity of the com- 
mander, in exposing himself in a small boat, for the purpose of shifting 
his flag from a vessel no longer tenable to one in which he could continue 
the fight, and in which he did continue it until the enemy's pennant was 
lowered, are matters of history familier to all. The merit of Perry 
is greatly enhanced by the reflection, that, whilst no victory was 
ever more decidedly the result of the skill and valor of the commander, 
this was the first action of any kind he had ever seen. The moderation 
and courtesy which he displayed towards the enemy, after the termination 
of the contest, were worthy of the gallantry by which it was gained, and 
caused the British commander, who had lost the battle by no fault of his, 
to say that ' the conduct of Perry towards the captive officers and men, 
was sufficient of itself to immortalize him.' In testimony of his merit, 
Perry was promoted to the rank of captain, received the thanks of con- 
gress and a medal, and the like marks of honor from the senate of Penn- 
sylvania. 

After the evacuation of Maiden by the enemy, Perry acted as a volunteer 
aid to general Harrison, in his pursuit of the British, and was present at 
the battle of Moraviantown, October 5. At the time of the invasion of 
Maryland and Virginia, he commanded a body of seamen and mariners on 
the Potomac. He was afterwards appointed to command the Java frigate, 
built at Baltimore, and, on the conclusion of peace with England, sailed, 
in 1815, in the squadron under commodore Decatur, despatched to the 
Mediterranean to settle affairs between the United States and Algiers. 
While in that sea, some difference arose between him and Mr. Heath, com- 
mandant of marines on board his ship. This produced a courtmartial, by 
which both were subjected to a private reprimand from commodore Chaun- 
cey ; but the affair did not terminate until a hostile meeting had taken 
place. The duel was fought in New Jersey, opposite to New York, in 
the summer of 1818. Neither party was injured, Heath having missed 
his aim, and Perry having fired in the air. In June, 1819, commodore 
Perry sailed from Chesapeake in the United States ship John Adams, for 
the West Indies and a cruise, with sealed orders, and was subsequently 
joined by other vessels, the whole under his command. His term of ser- 
vice, however, was near its end. In August, 1820, he was attacked by 
the yellow fever, and, after a few days' illness, expired on the twenty- third 
of the same month, just as the vessel in which he was entered Port Spain, 
Trinidad. He was buried the next day with due honor ; and in his own 
country every tribute of respect was paid to his memory. Congress made 
a liberal provision for the maintenance and education of his family. 



704 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



JOHN MARSHALL. 

John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, was born in Fau- 
quier county, Virginia, on the 24th of September 1755. He was the son 
of Colonel Thomas Marshall, a planter of a moderate fortune, who after- 
wards served with distinction in the American army, during the war of 
the Revolution ; and he was the eldest of 15 children. Colonel Marshall 
had removed with his family to a place called ' The Hollow ' in the moun- 
tains east of the Blue Ridge, and, from the want of schools in that neigh- 
borhood, became of necessity the first instructor of his son. Being a man 
of vigorous intellect, though of a comparatively limited education, he suc- 
ceeded in efficiently training the opening faculties of tbe latter, and imbu- 
ing him with a taste for literature. At the age of 14, young Marshall 
was placed under the charge of a Mr. Campbell, a respectable clergyman, 
at the distance of 100 miles from home, and remained with him a year ; 
and he then pursued his classical studies for another year, under the direc- 
tion of a Scottish gentleman who resided in his father's family, and had 
lately become the pastor of the parish to which he belonged. This was all 
the formal instruction which he received at this period of his life, as he 
was never at any college. On the breaking out of the revolutionary war, 
Mr. Marshall embraced with ardor the cause of his country, and was en- 
gaged in the action at the Great Bridge, where Lord Dunmore was defeated 
by the provincial militia. He was appointed a lieutenant in the continental 
army in July 1776, and promoted to the rank of a captain in May 1777. 
He was present at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, 
and continued to serve with distinction until the time of enlistment of the 
troops with which he served had expired, when he returned to Virginia. 
An interval of 9 or 10 months was now occupied by him in prosecuting 
the study of the law, which he had already previously entered upon. Hav- 
ing been admitted to the bar, he again joined the army in October 1780, 
and served under the orders of Baron Steuben, in the defense of Virginia 
from the invasion of a British force commanded by General Arnold. But 
before the renewed invasion of the State in the following year, there being 
more officers than was required by the Virginia line, he resigned his com- 
mission ; and, on the reopening of the courts of law after the surrender of 
Lord Cornwallis, he commenced the practice of his profession, in which he 
rose rapidly to distinction. In the course of the year 1782, Mr. Marshall 
was chosen first a member of the Legislature, and then of the Executive 
Council. On his resignation of the last-mentioned office in 1784, he was, 
though residing at the time in Richmond, elected a member of the Legisla- 
ture from his native county of Fauquier ; and in 1787, he representee"' 
the county of Henrico in the same body. We next find him, as one of th« 
delegates to the convention of Virginia which met in June 1788 for th« 
ratification of the constitution of the United States, ably defending agains 
its adversaries the provisions of this instrument, — especially those relatin 
to the powers of taxation, over the militia, and of the judiciary, granted b 7 
it to the general government. He was elected a member of the Legislatun 
from the city of Richmond in 1789, 1790 and 1791. He declined a reelec 
tion in 1792, and from this period until 1795, was occupied uninterruptedl) 
in the practice of his profession. His friends were, however, unwilling in £ 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 705 

season of great political excitement, — it was just after the conclusion of 
'Jay's treaty,' — that he should remain abstracted from any participation 
in public affairs ; and they, accordingly, elected him once more to the Leg- 
islature ; where, if he did not succeed in preventing the adoption of resolu- 
tions approving of the votes of the senators from Virginia, against the 
ratification of the treaty, on the ground of its inexpediency, — to him at 
least it was in a great measure owing that they did not touch the constitu- 
tional objection, and that they disclaimed all intention to censure the 
motives of the President of the United States (General Washington) in 
ratifying it. The extraordinary ability displayed at this time by Mr. 
Marshall obtained for him a conspicuous position in every part of the coun- 
try, and he came to be regarded as a proper person to fill the highest 
political offices. Accordingly, he was offered successively the appointments 
of attorney-general of the United States, and minister to France, (on the 
recall of Mr. Monroe, in 1796,) both of which he declined. He continued 
in the Legislature of Virginia, where, however, he participated in the dis- 
cussions only on important questions of general policy, his attention being 
for the most part given to his professional business, which had now become 
very extensive and lucrative. On his refusal to accept of the embassy to 
France, General Pinckney was appointed in his stead. But the French 
government (the Directory) having refused to receive the latter, Mr. 
Adams, who was then the president, deemed it proper to make a last effort 
to preserve peace with France, by sending a special mission to that country. 
For this purpose, Mr. Marshall, in conjunction with General Pinckney and 
Mr. Gerry, was selected ; and in the then existing critical posture of our 
foreign relations, he did not feel himself at liberty, as before, to decline 
the appointment tendered to him. The mission was unsuccessful, the 
American envoys not having been even received as such. Their letters, 
addressed to Talleyrand, the French minister of foreign affairs, are attrib- 
uted to the pen of Mr. Marshall, and have been applauded as admirable 
specimens of diplomacy. In the summer of 1798, Mr. Marshall returned 
to the United States ; in 1799, at the urgent request of General Washing- 
ton, he became a candidate and was elected to Congress ; and in 1800, he 
was appointed secretary of war, and then secretary of state. During 
the short period that he was in Congress, it is needless to say that he 
ranked among the ablest of that body, and on all constitutional questions 
above every other member. 'When he discussed them,' remarks Mr. 
Binney, in his Eulogy of Mr. Marshall, ' he exhausted them ; nothing more 
remained to be said, and the impression of his argument effaced that of 
every one else.' The speech which he delivered on the surrender of the 
person of Jonathan Robbins, on the requisition of the British minister in 
this country, under a clause of the treaty with Great Britain, upon a charge 
of murder committed on board a British frigate, — which speech is believed 
to be the only one that he ever revised, — is thus characterized by the 
same gentleman : ' It has all the merits, and nearly all the weight, of a 
judicial sentence. It is throughout inspired by the purest reason, and the 
most copious and accurate learning. It separates the executive from the 
judicial power by a line so distinct, and a discrimination so wise, that all 
can perceive and approve it. It demonstrated that the surrender was an 
act of political power which belonged to the executive ; and by excluding 
all such power from the grant of the constitution to the judiciary, it pre- 
45* 



706 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

pared a pillow of repose for that department, where the success of the 
opposite argument would have planted thorns.' It may be mentioned that, 
during his term of service in Congress, he voted for the repeal of the ob- 
noxious section of the act commonly known by the name of the ' Sedition 
Law,' and evinced his superiority to mere considerations of party, by thus 
voting in opposition to all the members with whose political opinions his 
own generally corresponded. On the 31st of January 1800, Mr. Marshall 
became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, an 
office which he filled with the highest honor to himself, and with the great- 
est advantage to his country, for upwards of 36 years. ' The decision of 
the Supreme Court of the United States,' we again quote the words of 
Mr. Binney, ' have raised the renown of the country, not less than they 
have confirmed the constitution. In all parts of the world, its judgments 
are spoken of with respect. Its adjudications of prize law are a code for 
all future time. Upon commercial law it has brought us nearly to one 
system, befitting the probity and interest of a great commercial nation. 
Over its whole path, learning and intelligence and integrity have shed their 
combined lustre.' Judge Marshall was a member of the convention which 
met in the year 1829, for revising the constitution of Virginia. He spoke 
with much power on both of the great questions which divided and agita- 
ted the parties composing that body, namely, the basis of representation 
and the tenure of judicial office ; and while he contributed, by the sound 
sense and moderation of his views in reference to the former, to produce 
a compromise between the extreme opinions entertained concerning it, he 
was in no ordinary degree instrumental in causing the tenure of good 
behavior, for the judges of the Superior Courts, to be adopted in the pro- 
posed constitution, guarded ' by a clause against the construction which 
had in one instance prevailed, that the repeal of the law establishing the 
court, and by a mere majority, should dissolve the tenure, and discharge 
the judge upon the world.' Having been for some months in feeble health, 
he visited Philadelphia that he might have the benefit of the most skillful 
medical aid, and died in that city, on the 6th of July 1835. Judge Mar- 
shall published his ' Life of Washington ' in 1805, in 5 volumes. It was 
greatly improved and compressed into 2 volumes, in a second edition which 
appeared in 1832. The first volume of the original work was published 
in a separate form in 1824-, under the title of ' The History of the Amer- 
ican Colonies.' 

JOHN PAUL JONES. 

John Paul Jones was born at" Arbingland, in Scotland, July 6th 
1747. His father was a gardener, whose name was Paul; but the son 
assumed that of Jones in subsequent life, for what reason is not known. 
Young Paul early evinced a decided predilection for the sea, and, at the 
age of 12, was bound apprentice to a respectable merchant of Whitehaven, 
in the American trade. His first voyage was to America, where his elder 
brother was established as a planter. He was then engaged for some time 
in the slave-trade, but quitted it in disgust, and returned to Scotland, in 
1768, as passenger in a vessel, the captain and mate of which died on the 
passage. Jones assumed the command, at the request of those on 
board, and brought the vessel safe into port. For this service, he was 




PAUL JONES 



708 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

appointed by the owners master and supercargo. While in command of 
tins vessel, he punished a sailor who afterwards died of a fever at the island 
of Tobago — a circumstance which gave rise to an accusation against Jones, 
of having caused his death, by the severity of the punishment upon him ; 
but this has been completely refuted. Jones was afterwards in command 
of the Betsy, of London, and remained some time in the West Indies, en- 
gaged in commercial pursuits and speculations, by which it is said he real- 
ized a handsome fortune. In 1773, he was residing in Virginia, arranging 
the affairs of his brother, who had died intestate and childless, and about 
this time took the name of Jones. In Virginia he continued to live until 
the commencement of the struggle between the colonies and mother coun- 
try. He offered his services to the former, and was appointed first of the 
Srst lieutenants, and designated to the Alfred, on board of which ship, to 
use his own language in one of his letters, 'he had the honor to hoist, 
with his own hands, the flag of freedom, the first time it was displayed on 
the Delaware.' Soon after this, we find Jones in command of the Provi- 
dence, mounting 12 four-pounders, with a complement of 70 men, cruising 
from the Bermudas to the Gut of Canso, and making 16 prizes in little 
more than six weeks. In May, 1777, he was ordered to proceed to France, 
where the American commissioners, Franklin, Deane and Lee, were direct- 
ed to invest him with the command of a fine ship, as a reward of his signal 
services. On his arrival in France, he was immediately summoned to 
Paris by the commissioners. The object of this summons was to concert a 
plan of operations for the force preparing to act against the British in the 
West Indies, and on the coast of America. This plan, which certainly did 
great honor to the projector, though untoward delays and accidents pre- 
vented its immediate success, was afterwards openly claimed by Jones as 
his own, without acknowledging the assistance or participation of the 
American commissioners or the French ministry. The Ranger was then 
placed under his orders, with discretion to cruise where he pleased, with 
this restriction, however, that he was not to return to France immediately 
after making attempts upon the coasts of England, as the French govern- 
ment had not yet declared itself openly as the ally of the U. States. 
April 10th 1778 he sailed on a cruise, during which he laid open the weak- 
ness of the British coast. With a single ship, he kept the whole coast of 
Scotland, and part of that of England, for some time, in a state of 
alarm, and made a descent at Whitehaven, where he surprised and took 
two forts, with 30 pieces of cannon, and set fire to the shipping. In this 
attack upon Whitehaven, the house of the earl of Selkirk, in whose service 
the father of Jones had been gardener, was plundered, and the family plate 
carried off. But the act was committed without his knowledge, and he af- 
terwards made the best atonement in his power. After his return to Brest 
with 200 prisoners of war, he became involved in a variety of troubles, for 
want of means to support them, pay his crew, and refit his ship. After 
many delays and vexations, Jones sailed from the road of St. Croix, Au- 
gust 14th, 1779, with a squadron of seven sail, designing to annoy the 
coasts of England and Scotland. The principal occurrence of this cruise 
was the capture of the British ship of war Serapis, after a bloody and 
desperate engagement, off Flamborough head, September 23d, 1779. 
The Serapis was a vessel much superior in force to Jones' vessel, the 
Bon Homme Richard, which sunk not long after the termination of the 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 709 

engagement. The sensation produced by this battle was unexampled, and 
raised the fame of Jones to its acme. In a letter to him, Franklin says, 
'For some days after the arrival of your express, scarce any thing was 
talked of at Paris and Versailles, but your cool conduct and persevering 
bravery during that terrible conflict. You may believe that the impression 
on my mind was not less strong than on that of the others. But I do not 
choose to say, in a letter to yourself, all I think on such an occasion.' 
His reception at Paris, whither he went on the invitation of Franklin, was 
of the most flattering kind. He was every where caressed ; the king pre- 
sented him with a gold sword, bearing the inscription, Vindicati maris 
Ludovicus XVI remuneratur strenuo vindiei, and requested permission of 
congress to invest him with the military order of merit — an honor never 
conferred on any one before who had not borne arms under the commission 
of France. In 1781, Jones sailed for the U. States, and arrived in Phil- 
adelphia February 18 of that year, after a variety of escapes and rencoun- 
ters, where he underwent a sort of examination before the board of admi- 
rality, which resulted greatly to his honor. The board gave it as their 
opinion, 'that the conduct of Paul Jones merits particular attention, and 
some distinguished mark of approbation from congress.' Congress passed 
a resolution, highly complimentary to his 'zeal, prudence and intrepidity.' 
General Washington wrote him a letter of congratulation, and he was after- 
wards voted a gold medal by congress. From Philadelphia he went to 
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to superintend the building of a ship of war, 
and, while there, drew up some admirable observations on the subject of 
the American navy. By permission of congress, he subsequently went on 
board the French fleet, where he remained until the conclusion of peace, 
which put a period to Ins naval career in the service of the U. States. 
He then went to Paris, as agent for prize-money, and, while there, joined 
in a plan to establish a fur-trade between the north-west coast of America 
and China, in conjunction with a kindred spirit, the celebrated John Led- 
yarcl. In Paris, he continued to be treated with the greatest distinction. 
He afterwards was invited into the Russian service, with the rank of rear- 
admiral, where he was disappointed in not receiving the command of the 
fleet acting against the Turks in the Black sea. He found fault with the 
conduct of the prince of Nassau, the admiral ; became restless and impa- 
tient ; was intrigued against at court, and calumniated by his enemies ; 
and had permission, from the empress Catharine, to retire from the serv- 
ice with a pension, which was never paid. He returned to Paris, where 
he gradually sunk into poverty, neglect, and ill health, until his death, 
which was occasioned by jaundice and dropsy, July 18th 1792. His last 
public act was heading a deputation of Americans, who appeared before 
the national assembly to offer their congratulations on the glorious and sal- 
utary reform of their government. This was before the flight of the king. 
Jones was a man of signal talent and courage ; he conducted all his opera- 
tions with the most daring boldness, combined with the keenest sagacity in 
calculating the chances of success and the consequences of defeat. He 
was, however, of an irritable, impetuous disposition, which rendered him 
impatient of the authority of his superiors, while he was, at the same time, 
harsh in the exercise of his own ; and he was deficient in that modesty 
which adorns great qualities and distinguished actions, while it disarms 
envy and conciliates jealousy. His early education was of a very limited 



T10 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

kind. It terminated when he went to sea, at the age of twelve, but he 
supplied its defects by subsequent study, so as to enable himself to write 
with fluency, strength and clearness, and to sustain his part respectably in 
the polished society into which he was thrown. In his letters, he incul- 
cates the necessity of knowledge for naval officers, and intimates that he 
had devoted 'midnight studies' to the attainment of that information which 
he deemed requisite in his situation. His memorials, correspondence, etc., 
are quite voluminous. He also wrote poetry, and in Paris was a great pre- 
tender tc ton, as a man of fashion, especially after his victory over the 
Serapis, which, of course, gave him great eclat amongst the ladies of the 
French capital. At this period, he is described by an English lady then 
resident of Paris, as 'a smart little man of thirty-six ; speaks but little 
French, and appears to be an extraordinary genius, a poet as well as a 
hero.' An account of his life has been written by J. H. Sherburne 
(Washington, 1828). 

GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 

General Andrew Jackson was born on the 15th of March, 1767, at 
the Waxsaw settlement, in South Carolina. His parents emigrated to this 
country, two years previously, from the north of Ireland. He lost his 
father at a very early age ; and the task of bringing him up devolved 
exclusively upon his mother. Intending him, it is said, to become a cler- 
gyman, she resolved, though restricted in her pecuniary circumstances, to 
give him a liberal education. For this purpose, she placed him at an 
academy, where he continued until his studies were interrupted by the 
advance of the British troops into the neighborhood, during the revolution- 
ary war. Young as he was (scarcely 14 years of age), in company with 
an elder brother, he joined the American army. Before long, however, 
they had the misfortune of being made prisoners by the enemy, who mal- 
treated them as rebels, and inflicted upon them injuries of which the 
brother died after having been exchanged. Andrew Jackson commenced 
the study of the law at Salisbury, in North Carolina, in the winter of 
1784, and was admitted to the bar in 1786. In 1788, he removed to 
Nashville, then a new settlement in the western district of North Carolina. 
This district having been ceded to the United States, and organized into a 
territory in 1790, he was appointed to the office of United States' attor- 
ney; and when the territory, in its turn, in 1796 became the state of Ten- 
nessee, he was a member of the convention to frame a constitution for it, 
and took a conspicuous part in the proceedings of this body. He was 
immediately afterwards chosen a representative, and in the next year a 
senator, in Congress. But his seat in the Senate he held only for a single 
session, alleging, as a reason for resigning it, his distaste for the intrigues 
of politics. On this, he was appointed by the Legislature of Tennessee to 
be a judge of the Supreme Court of that state ; an office which he accepted 
with reluctance, and from which he soon retired to his farm on the Cum- 
berland river, near Nashville. And there he continued to reside till the 
breaking out of the war with Great Britain, in 1812. During the earlier 
part of his residence in Tennessee, General Jackson had repeatedly dis- 
tinguished himself by his prowess, in the warfare carried on by the settlers 
with their Indian neighbors, and had even earned from the latter, by his 



BIOGKAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 711 

exploits, the appellations of ' Sharp Knife ' and ' Pointed Arrow.' That 
after attaining to a prominent position in civil life, he should be selected 
by his fellow- citizens to occupy a corresponding military rank among them, 
was therefore almost a matter of course. The war of 1812, accordingly, 
found him a major-general of one of the divisions of the Tennessee mili- 
tia. In the month of November of that year, he proceeded, by the direc- 
tion of the government, at the head of a body of between two and three 
thousand volunteers, who had assembled on his invitation, down the Missis- 
sippi to Natchez, for the protection of the country against an apprehended 
hostile movement on the part of the Indians. The danger having passed 
away, he was ordered by the secretary of war to disband his troops on the 
spot. This order he did not hesitate to disobey, on account, as he stated, 
of many of his men being sick, and unprovided with the means of paying 
their expenses on their way home. They returned accordingly in a body 
with their General, whose apology for the course which he pursued was 
accepted by the government. In 1-813 and 1814, General Jackson was 
employed against the Creek and Muscogee Indians, who had invaded the 
frontier settlements of Alabama and Georgia, and inflicted on the inhabi- 
tants the usual horrors of savage warfare. After a succession of bloody 
victories achieved by him over those tribes, they agreed, by a treaty con- 
cluded in August, 1814, to lay down their arms. In the month of May 
of this year, he was appointed a major-general in the service of the United 
States ; and having first seized upon the town of Pensacola, in conse- 
quence of the admission into its harbor, by the Spanish governor, of a 
British squadron to refit, he proceeded to take the command of the forces 
intended for the defense of New Orleans against the approaching attack 
of the enemy. On arriving there on the 1st of December, he took his 
measures with the utmost decision and promptness. Becoming convinced 
of the expediency of taking precautions against the treachery of some dis- 
affected individuals, he proposed to the Legislature of Louisiana, then in 
session, to suspend the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus. Impa- 
tient, however, of the time consumed in deliberating on his proposal, he 
proclaimed martial law, thus at once superseding the civil authority by the 
introduction of a rigid military police. Towards the enemy he acted with 
the same determined energy. Scarcely had the British troops effected a 
landing, when he marched against them, and by unexpectedly assailing 
them, in the night of the 22d of December, gained some advantages ; the 
most important of which was that for which this movement of the General 
was chiefly made, namely, the impression produced upon his followers of 
their own ability to perform successfully the part assigned to them, at least 
while commanded by him, as well as that communicated to the invaders, 
of the formidable character of the opposition which they were destined to 
encounter. The contest for the possession of New Orleans was brought to 
a close by the memorable battle of the 8th of January, 1815, which raised 
the reputation of the American commander to the highest pitch among his 
countrymen, and served as a satisfactory apology with many for the strong 
measures adopted by him before the landing of the enemy, as well as for 
others which he adopted immediately after the retreat of the latter. 
General Jackson's next public employment was the conduct of the war 
against the Seminole Indians, in 1818. With a force composed of Ten- 
nessee volunteers and Georgia militia, he penetrated into Florida to the 




GEN. SCOTT 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 713 

retreats of the savages and fugitive slaves who had joined them, and set 
fire to their villages. He likewise took possession, without hesitation, of 
several of the Spanish posts in that region, whence the Indians had been 
supplied with arms and ammunition, and executed two Englishmen who 
had been actively engaged in this trade. The posts were restored by the 
orders of the government ; but an attempt in the House of Representa- 
tives in Congress to inflict a censure upon General Jackson, for the irregu- 
larity of his proceedings, was defeated, after very protracted debates, by 
a considerable majority. When Florida was transferred by Spain to the 
United States, he was appointed the first governor of the new territory 
(in 1821). He resigned this office, and returned to his farm near Nash- 
ville, in the following year. In 1823, he was once more chosen to repre- 
sent the State of Tennessee in the Senate of the United States, but 
resigned his seat in that body on becoming a prominent candidate for the 
presidency. Of the electoral votes which were given in the end of the 
year 1824, he received 99, Mr. Adams 84, Mr. Crawford 41, and Mr. 
Clay 37. The election devolved, by the provisions of the constitution, on 
the members of the House of Representatives in Congress, voting by 
states, and Mr. Adams was selected to be the president. In 1828, and 
again in 1832, General Jackson was chosen to fill that high office ; in the 
former instance, by 178 of the electoral votes to 83 given in favor of Mr. 
Adams ; and, in the latter, by a majority of 170 electoral votes above his 
opponent, Mr. Clay. He survived his presidency somewhat more than 8 
years, dying at his residence, the ' Hermitage,' near Nashville, on the 8th 
of June, 1845. Though enfeebled in body, he retained his mental facul 
ties, apparently undiminished, till the day of his death. ' The violence of 
political strife,' as is remarked by a writer in the American Almanac for 
1846, ' will long confuse men's judgment of his character and abilities as 
a whole ; but will accord to him the praise of great firmness, energy, 
decision, and disinterestedness, — of remarkable military skill, and ardent 
patriotism.' 

WINFIELD SCOTT 

Winfield Scott, commander-in-chief of the American army, was born 
June 13, 1786, near Petersburg, Virginia. He is descended from a Scotch 
family, who were obliged to take refuge in America after the rebellion of 
1745. After completing his preparatory education, he spent a year or 
two at William and Mary college, and afterward studied the law, and was 
admitted to the bar in 1806. In the autumn of 1807, he emigrated to 
South Carolina, intending to practice his profession at Charleston, but meet- 
ing with difficulties in the attainment of his object, he returned to the north. 
The political events of the country were then rapidly approaching the cri- 
sis of 1812 ; a bill had passed through Congress to enlarge the army, and 
Scott having applied for a commission, was appointed, in 1808, captain in 
a regiment of light artillery, and was ordered the following year to join the 
army in Louisiana, under the command of General Wilkinson. For some 
act of insubordination toward his commander he was suspended for a year, 
but he again joined the army before the commencement of the war. Short- 
ly after that event, he received a lieutenant-colonel's commission, and was 
posted at Black Rock, on the Niagara frontier. His first active service 



714 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

was at the attack of Qeenstown heights, where he took command of the 
American force after all the superior officers were killed or wounded. 
This affair, as is well known, ended disastrously, and Scott, with the survi- 
vors of his men, became prisoners-of-war. From Queenstown he was sent 
to Quebec, and shortly after exchanged. In the following year he distin- 
guished himself at the attack on Fort George, in the descent upon York, 
and the capture of Fort Matilda, on the St. Lawrence. In March, 1814, 
he was made brigadier-general ; July 3, in the same year, he captured 
Fort Erie, and on the fifth he fought the bloody battle of Chippewa, in 
which both sides claimed the victory. On the 25th of the same month 
was fought the still more sanguinary battle of Niagara or Lundy's Lane. 
In this well-fought contest, General Scott was badly wounded, and his life 
is said to have been despaired of for some weeks. Philadelphia and Bal- 
timore having been threatened with an attack, Scott was requested to take 
command of the forces in that vicinity. On his way to the scene of his 
duties, he passed through Princeton, and the learned dignitaries of the col- 
lege in that town conferred upon the general the honorary degree of mas- 
ter of arts, a curious compliment, probably having some reference to the 
art of war. About the same time he was promoted to the rank of major- 
general, the highest grade in the army, he being at that time but twenty- 
eight years of age. On the conclusion of the peace, in 1815, he was 
tendered the post of secretary of war, but declined to accept it ; and the 
same year he paid a visit to Europe, principally for the purpose of improv- 
ing himself in his profession. About 1833 he brought the Black-Hawk 
war, in the north-western frontier, to a successful termination, and he was 
shortly after in command at the commencement of the Seminole war in 
Florida ; but this not being so successful as was anticipated, he was order- 
ed home and deprived of his command. In 1837-'38 he was stationed on 
the Niagara frontier to enforce the neutrality of the United States during 
the 'patriot war' in Canada ; and soon afterward he superintended the re- 
moval of the Cherokee Indians beyond the Mississippi. By the death of 
General Macomb, in 1841, General Scott became commander-in-chief of 
the army. The scene of his next exploits was Mexico. After some diffi- 
culty with the president and secretary of war, General Scott was permit- 
ted to lead a force to Vera Cruz. The events of that campaign are recent 
and well known. San Juan de Ulloa was captured March 27, 1847 ; the 
battle of Cerro Gordo was fought on the 18th of April ; the battle of Con- 
treras on the 19th of August ; and the battle of Churubusco on the fol- 
lowing day ; and after the storming of Molino del Rey and Chapultepec, 
the city of Mexico was captured September 14, 1847. 

ZACHARY TAYLOR. 

Zachary Taylor was born in Orange County, Virginia, in November, 
1784. He was the second son of Col. Richard Taylor, whose ancestors 
emigrated from England about two centuries ago, and settled in Eastern 
Virginia. The father, distinguished alike for patriotism and valor, served 
as colonel in the revolutionary war, and took part in many important en- 
gagements. About 1790 he left his Virginian farm, and emigrated with 
his family to Kentucky. He settled in the ' dark and bloody ground,' 
and for years encountered all the trials then incident to border life. The 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 715 

earliest impressions of young Zachary were the sudden foray of the savage 
foe, the piercing warwhoop, the answering cry of defiance, the gleam of 
the tomahawk, the crack of the rifle, the homestead saved by his father's 
daring, the neighboring cottage wrapped in flames, or its hearth-stone red 
with blood. Such scenes bound his young nerves with iron, and fired his 
fresh soul with martial ardor ; working upon his superior nature they made 
arms his delight, and heroism his destiny. Zachary was placed in school 
at an early age, and his teacher, who now resides in Preston, Connecticut, 
still loves to dwell on the studiousness of his habits, the quickness of his 
apprehension, the modesty of his demeanor, the firmness and decision of 
his character, and a general thoughtfulness, sagacity, and stability, that 
made him a leader to his mates and a pride to his master. 

After leaving school, the military spirit of young Taylor was constantly 
fanned by the popular excitement against the continual encroachments of 
England ; and soon after the murderous attack of the British ship Leopard 
upon the Chesapeake, in 1808, he entered the army as first lieutenant in 
the 7th regiment of infantry. He soon gained distinction in border skir- 
mishes with the Indians, and the declaration of war with England found 
him promoted to the rank of captain. Within sixty days after the com- 
mencement of hostilities in 1812, the imbecility of Hull lost to the country 
its Michigan territory, and fearfully jeoparded the whole northwestern 
region. It was of the utmost importance to entrust the few and feeble 
forts of that great dominion to men of established valor and discretion. 
Captain Taylor was at once invested with the command of Fort Harri- 
son, situated on the Wabash, in the very heart of the Indian country. 
The defenses of this post were in a miserable condition, and its garrison 
consisted of only fifty men, of whom thirty were disabled by sickness. 
With this little handful of soldiers, the young commander immediately 
set about repairing the fortifications. He had hardly completed his work, 
when, on the night of the 4th of September, an alarm shot from one of his 
sentinels aroused him from a bed of fever, to meet the attack of a large 
force of Miami Indians. Every man was at once ordered to his post. A 
contiguous block house was fired by the enemy, and a thick discharge of 
bullets and arrows was opened upon the fort. The darkness of the night, 
the howlings of the savages, the shrieks of the women and children, the 
fast approaching flames, and the panic of the debilitated soldiers, made 
up a scene of terror, but could not shake the determination nor the judg- 
ment of the young chieftain. He inspired his men with his own courage 
and energy. The flames were extinguished, the consumed breastworks 
were renewed, and volley answered volley for six long hours till day break 
enabled the Americans to aim with a deadly precision that soon dispersed 
their foes. This gallant repulse, at odds so unfavorable, prompted a report 
from Major General Hopkins to Governor Shelby that 'the firm and 
almost unparalleled defense of Fort Harrison had raised for Captain 
Zachary Taylor a fabric of character not to be affected by eulogy ;' and 
forthwith procured from President Madison a preferment to the rank of 
brevet major, the first brevet, it is said, ever conferred in the American 
twmy. 

Major Taylor continued actively engaged throughout the war ; but being 
without a separate command, he had no opportunity to again signalize 
himself by any remarkable achievement. After the treaty of peace, he 



718 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

remained at the West, faithfully performing his duties at different military 
posts, and preparing himself for any future call to more active service. 
In 1832, he was promoted to the rank of colonel; and soon after the 
opening of the Florida war, he was ordered to that territory. Here he 
was in constant service, and distinguished himself for his discretion and 
gallantry in circumstances of the most trying difficulty and peril. His 
entire career won for him universal esteem and confidence. 

The greatest achievement of Colonel Taylor in Florida^was his victory 
of Okee-Chobee, which was gained on the 25th of December, 1837. 
The action was very severe, and continued nearly four hours. The Indi- 
ans, under the command of Alligator and Sam Jones, numbered about 
700 warriors, and were posted in a dense hammock, with their front cov- 
ered by a small stream, almost impassable on account of quicksands, and 
with their flanks secured by swamps that prevented all access. Colonel 
Taylor's force amounted to about 500 men, a portion of whom were inex- 
perienced volunteers. By an extraordinary effort, the stream in front was 
crossed, under a most galling fire of the enemy, by our soldiers, who sunk 
to the middle in the mire. A close and desperate fight ensued, during 
which the five companies of the sixth infantry, who bore the brunt of the 
fray, lost every officer but one, and one of these companies saved only 
four privates unharmed. The enemy's line was at last broken, and their 
right flank turned. They were soon scattered in all directions, and were 
pursued until near night. The American loss was 26 killed and 112 
wounded ; that of the Indians was very large, but never definitely ascer- 
tained. Throughout the whole engagement, Colonel Taylor was passing 
on his horse from point to point within the sweep of the Indian rifles, 
emboldening and directing his men, without the least apparent regard for 
his own personal safety. This victory had a decisive influence upon the 
turn of the war ; and the government immediately testified their sense of 
its importance by conferring upon its gallant winner the rank of brigadier- 
general by brevet. 

In the following May, General Taylor succeeded General Jesup in the 
command of the Florida army, and in this capacity, during two years, he 
rendered vast services to the country by quelling the atrocities of Indian 
warfare, and restoring peace and security to the southern frontier. In 
1840, at his own request, he was relieved by Brigadier-general Armis- 
tead, and was ordered to the southwestern department. Here he re- 
mained at various head-quarters until government had occasion for his 
services in Texas. 

The project for the annexation of Texas, which was first officially 
broached in the last year of President Tyler's administration, acquired 
more and more weight and influence, until finally, in March, 1845, an act 
to that effect was passed by both Houses of Congress, and was soon after 
ratified by the Texian government. Mexico, although the independence 
of Texas had been long before de facto secured, stoutly protested against 
the annexation. The special American envoy sent to the Mexican capital 
to attempt an adjustment of this and other difficulties, was refused a 
hearing, and great preparations were carried on by the Mexican govern- 
ment for another invasion of Texas. In June, General Taylor received 
orders to advance with his troops over the Sabine, and protect all of the 
territory east of the Rio Grande, over which Texas exercised jurisdiction. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 719 

He accordingly marched into Texas, and in August concentrated his 
forces, amounting to about 3000 men, at Corpus Christi. Receiving orders 
from Washington to proceed to the Rio Grande, the general, with his 
little army, moved westward in March, 1846 ; and after considerable suf- 
fering from the heat and the want of food and water, reached the banks 
of the river opposite Matamoras on the 28th of the month. Colonel 
Twiggs, with a detachment of dragoons, in the mean time took possession 
of Point Isabel, situated on an arm of the Gulf, about 25 miles east. 
General Taylor took every means to assure the Mexicans that his purpose 
was not war, nor violence in any shape, but solely the occupation of the 
Texian territory to the Rio Grande, until the boundary should be defini- 
tively settled by the two republics. 

After encamping opposite Matamoras, the American general prepared 
with great activity for Mexican aggression, by erecting fortifications, and 
planting batteries. The Mexicans speedily evinced hostile intentions. 
General Ampudia arrived at Matamoras with 1000 cavalry and 1500 
infantry, and made overtures to our foreign soldiers to ' separate from 
the Yankee bandits, and array themselves under the tri-colored flag !' 
Such solicitations were of course spurned with contempt. The American 
general was summoned to withdraw his forces at the penalty of being 
treated as an enemy ; he replied that, while avoiding all occasion for hos- 
tilities, he should faithfully execute the will of his government. General 
Arista soon after arrived at Matamoras, and, superseding Ampudia, 
issued a proclamation to the American soldiers, begging them not to be 
the ' blind instruments of unhol} 7 ' and mad ambition, and rush on to cer- 
tain death.' He immediately threw a large body of troops over the river, 
in order to cut off all communication between General Taylor and his 
de*p6t at Point Isabel. A detachment of 61 soldiers, under Captain 
Thornton, was waylaid by a Mexican force of ten times their number, 
and after a bloody conflict and the loss of many lives, was obliged to sur- 
render. With but eight days' rations, and the country to the east fast 
filling up with the Mexican troops, the position of General Taylor became 
very critical. He at once resolved, at every hazard, to procure additional 
supplies ; and, leaving the fort under the command of Major Brown, he 
set out with a large portion of his army, on the 1st of May, for Point 
Isabel. He reached that place the next day, without molestation. Soon 
after his departure, the Mexicans opened their batteries upon Fort Brown. 
The fire was steadily returned with two long eighteen and sixteen brass six 
pounders by the garrison, which numbered ahon.t 900 men. The bom- 
bardment of the fort was kept ' m batteries in its rear, as 
~ r ~ 11 " " cans, though possessed of 

* their gallant commander, 
;s until the afternoon of 
— . witu exultation by the answering 
.„ iW i xu,yior at Palo Alto. 

On the evening of the 7th, the American general, with about 200 men 
and 250 wagons left Point Isabel for the relief of Fort Brown, and after 
advancing seven miles encamped. The next morning he resumed his 
march, and at noon met 6000 Mexican troops under Arista, with 800 cav- 
alry, and seven field pieces, in line of battle, on a plain flanked at both 
sides by small pools, and partly covered in front by thickets of chaparral 



720 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and Palo Alto. General Taylor at once halted, refreshed his men, ad- 
vanced to within a quarter of a mile of the Mexican line, and gave battle. 
The conflict first commenced between the artillery, and for two hours, 
Ringgold's, and Duncan's, and Churchill's batteries mowed down rank 
after rank of the enemy. The infantry remained idle spectators until 
General Torrejon, with a body of lancers, made a sally upon our train. 
The advancing columns were received with a tremendous fire, and faltered, 
broke, and fled. The battle now became general, and for a time raged 
with terrific grandeur, amid a lurid cloud of smoke from the artillery, 
and the burning grass of the prairie. It rested for an hour, and then 
again moved on. The American batteries opened with more tremendous 
effect than ever ; yet the ranks of the enemy were broken only to be 
refilled by fresh men courting destruction. Captain May charged upon 
the left, but with too few men to be successful. The chivalrous Ringgold 
fell. The cavalry of the enemy advanced upon our artillery of the right 
to within close range, when a storm of cannister swept them back like a 
tornado. Their infantry made a desperate onset upon our infantry, but 
recoiled before their terrible reception. Again they rallied, and again 
were they repulsed. Panic seized the baffled foe, and soon squadron and 
column were in full retreat. The conflict had lasted five hours, with a 
loss to the Americans of 7 killed and 37 wounded, and to the Mexicans 
of at least 250 killed and wounded. 

In the evening, a council of war was held upon the propriety of persist- 
ing to advance upon Fort Brown, in spite of the vastly superior force of 
the enemy. Of the thirteen officers present some were for retreating to 
Point Isabel, others for intrenching upon the spot, and only four for push- 
ing ahead. The general, after hearing all opinions, settled the question by 
the laconic declaration, ' I will be at Fort Brown before to-morrow night, 
if I live.' In the morning the army again marched. 

The enemy were again met most advantageously posted in the ravine of 
Resaca de la Palma within three miles of Fort Brown. About 4 p.m. the 
battle commenced with great fury. By order of General Taylor, May, 
with his dragoons, charged the enemy's batteries. The Mexicans reserved 
their fire until the horses were near the cannons' mouth, and then poured 
out a broadside which laid many a poor fellow low. Those of the dragoons 
not disabled rushed on, overleaped the batteries, and seized the guns. The 
enemy recoiled, again rallied, and with fixed bayonets returned to the on- 
set. Again they were repulsed. The ' Tampico veterans ' came to the 
rescue, were met by the dragoons now reinforced with infantry, and all 
but seventeen fell sword in hand after fighting with the most deperate brave- 
ry. This decided the battle. The flanks of the enemy were turned, and 
soon the rout became general. The Mexicans fled to the flat boats ^ f the 
river, and the shouts of the pursuers and the ^rieks of the drowning closed 
the scene. A great number of prisoners including fourteen officers, eight 
pieces of artillery, and a large quantity of camp equipage fell into the 
hands of the victors. The American loss was 39 killed and 71 wounded ; 
that of the enemy in the two actions was at least 1000 killed and wounded. 
Fort Brown was relieved, and the next day Barita on the Mexican bank 
was taken by colonel Wilson without resistance. 

The victories of the 8th and 9th filled our country with exultation. Gov- 
ernment acknowledged the distinguished services of General Taylor by 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 721 

making him Major-general by brevet ; congress passed resolutions of high 
approval ; Louisiana presented him with a sword, and the press everywhere 
teemed with his praise. 

As soon as means could be procured, General Taylor crossed the Rio 
Grande, took Matamoras without opposition, and made colonel Twiggs its 
governor. The army soon received large volunteer reinforcements, and on 
the 5th of August the American general left Matamoras for Camargo, and 
thence proceeded through Seralos to Monterey, where he arrived the 19th 
of September. The Mexicans, under General Ampudia, had placed this 
strongly fortified town in a complete state of defense. Not only were 
the walls and parapets lined with cannons, but the streets and houses were 
barricaded and planted with artillery. The bishop's palace on a hill at a 
short distance west of the city was converted into a perfect fortress. The 
town was well supplied with ammunition, and manned with 7000 troops of 
the line, and from 2000 to 3000 irregulars. The attack commenced on the 
21st, and two important redoubts without the city, and an important work 
within, were carried with a loss to the Americans in killed and wounded 
of not less than 394. At three the next morning, a considerable force un- 
der General Worth dragged their howitzers by main strength up the hill, 
and assaulted the palace. The enemy made a desperate sortie, but were 
driven back in confusion, and the fortification was soon taken by the Amer- 
icans with a loss of only 7 killed and 12 wounded. The next night, the 
Mexicans evacuated nearly all their defenses in the lower part of the city. 
The Americans entered the succeeding day, and by the severest fighting 
slowly worked their way from street to street and square to square, until 
they reached the heart of the town. General Ampudia saw that further 
resistance was useless, and, on the morning of the 24th, proposed to evacu 
ate the city on condition that he might take with him the personel and materiel 
of his army. This condition was refused be the American general. A 
personal interview between the two commanders ensued, which resulted in 
a capitulation of the city, allowing the Mexicans to retire with their forces 
and a certain portion of their materiel beyond the line formed by the pass 
of the Rinconada and San Fernando de Presas, and engaging the Americans 
not to pass beyond that line for eight weeks. Our entire loss during the 
operations was 12 officers and 108 men killed, 31 officers and 337 men 
wounded ; that of the enemy is not known, but was much larger. The 
terms accorded by the conqueror were liberal, and dictated by a regard to 
the interests of peace ; they crowned a gallant conquest of arms with a 
more sublime victory of magnanimity. 

General Taylor could not long remain inactive, and with a bold design to 
seek out the enemy and fight him on his own ground, he marched as far as 
Victoria. But by the transfer of the seat of the war to Vera Cruz, he was 
deprived of the greater portion of his army, and was obliged to fall back 
on Monterey. Here he remained until February, when, having received 
large reinforcements of volunteers, he marched at the head of 4,500 men, 
to meet Santa Anna ; and on the 20th, took up a position at Buena Vista, 
the great advantages of which had previously struck his notice. On the 
22d, a Mexican army of 20,000 made its appearance, and Santa Anna 
summoned the American commander to surrender. General Taylor, with 
Spartan brevity, ' declined acceding to the request.' The next morning 
the ten-hours' conflict began. We shall not attempt to rehearse the his- 
46* 



722 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

tory of that fearful battle : it is written forever on the memory of the na- 
tion. The advance of the hostile host with musket3 and swords and bayonets 
gleaming in the morning sun ; the shouts of the marshaled foemen ; the 
opening roar of the artillery ; the sheeted fire of the musketry ; the un- 
checked approach of the enemy ; the outflanking by their cavalry and its 
concentration in our rear ; the immovable fortitude of the Illinoians ; the 
flight of the panic-stricken Indianians ; the fall of Lincoln ; the wild shouts 
of Mexican triumph ; the deadly and successful charge upon the battery 
of O'Brien ; the timely arrival of General Taylor from Saltillo, and his 
composed survey, amid the iron hail, of the scene of battle ; the terrible 
onset of the Kentuckians and Illinoians ; the simultaneous opening of the 
batteries upon the Mexican masses in the front and the rear ; the impetu- 
ous but ill-fated charge of their cavalry upon the rifles of Mississippi ; the 
hemming-in of that cavalry, and the errand of Lieutenant Crittenden to 
demand of Santa Anna its surrender ; the response of the confident chief- 
tain by a similar demand ; the immortal rejoinder, ' General Taylor never 
surrenders !' the escape of the cavalry to a less exposed position ; its baffled 
charge upon the Saltillo train ; its attack upon the hacienda, and its re- 
pulse by the horse of Kentucky and Arkansas ; the fall of Yell and Vaughn ; 
the insolent mission, under a white flag, to inquire what General Taylor 
was waiting for ; the curt reply ' for General Santa Anna to surrender ;' 
the junction, by this ruse, of the Mexican cavalry in our rear with theii 
main army ; the concentrated charge upon the American line ; the over- 
powering of the battery of O'Brien ; the fearful crisis ; the reinforcement 
of Captain Bragg 'by Major Bliss and I;' the 'little more grape, Captain 
Bragg;' the terrific carnage; the pause, the advance, the disorder, the 
retreat ; the too eager pursuit of the Kentuckians and Illinoians down the 
ravines; the sudden wheeling around of the retiring mass; the desperate 
struggle, and the fall of Harden, McKee, and Clay ; the imminent destruc- 
tion, and the rescuing artillery ; the last breaking and scattering of the 
Mexican squadrons and battalions ; the joyous embrace of Taylor and 
Wool ; and Old Rough and Ready's ' 'T is impossible to whip us when we 
all pull together;' the arrival of cold nightfall; the fireless, anxious, weary 
bivouac ; the general's calm repose for another day's work ; the retreat of 
the enemy under the cover of darkness — are not all these things familiar 
to every American schoolboy ? The American loss was 2G7 killed, 456 
wounded, and 23 missing. The Mexicans left 500 dead on the field, and 
the whole number of their killed and wounded was probably near 2000. 
History tells not of a battle more bravely contested and more nobly won: 
and well did the greatest warrior of the age, in learning it, exclaim, 
' General Taylor's a general indeed!' 

The victory of Buena Vista was the last and crowning achievement of 
General Taylor's military life. His department in Mexico was entirely 
reduced by it to subjection, and the subsequent operations of his army 
were few and unimportant. At the close of the war he retired from 
Mexico, carrying with him not only the adoration of his soldiers, but even 
the respect and attachment of the very people he had vanquished. 
Louisiana welcomed him with an ovation of the most fervent enthusiasm. 
Thrilling eloquence from her most gifted sons, blessings, and smiles, and 
wreaths from her fairest daughters, overwhelming huzzas from her warm- 
hearted multitudes, triumphal arches, splendid processions, costly banners, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 723 

sumptuous festivals, and, in short, every mode of testifying love and 
homage was employed ; but modesty kept her wonted place in his heart, 
and counsels of peace were, as ever, on his tongue. His prowess in 
conflict was no more admirable than his self forgetfulness in triumph. 

His last great deed had hardly ceased to echo over the land, before the 
people began to mark him out for their highest gift. He coveted no such 
distinction, and constantly expressed a wish that Henry Clay might be the 
chosen one. But the popular purpose grew stronger and stronger, and 
General Taylor was named for the presidency by one of the great political 
parties of the country. During the political contest he remained stead- 
fastly true to himself. He neither stooped nor swerved, neither sought 
nor shunned. He was borne by a triumphant majority to the presidential 
chair, and in a way that has impelled the most majestic intellect of the 
nation to declare, that ' no case ever happened in the very best days of the 
lloman Republic, where any man found himself clothed with the highest 
authority of the state under circumstances more repelling all suspicion of 
personal application, all suspicion of pursuing any crooked path in politics, 
or all suspicion of having been actuated by sinister views and purposes.' 

The inaugural address of President Taylor was redolent with old- 
fashioned patriotism, and breathed the very spirit of Washington. And 
his subsequent administration, though beset by sectional strifes of fearful 
violence, was conducted with wisdom, firmness, equanimity, and moderation, 
on great national principles, and for great national ends. Owing to his 
profound deference to the coordinate branches of government, and his 
inability to either dictate or assume, his policy in reference to some of the 
exciting questions of the day was not, during the short period of his 
administration, fully proclaimed to congress, and pressed upon its adoption ; 
but, though a southern man and a slaveholder, he had deliberately and 
explicitly declared himself in favor of the prompt and untrammeled admis- 
sion of California into the Union. He was taken away in the midst of the 
controversy, just as he was about to submit his views upon the subject to 
the representatives of the people. His last public appearance was in doing 
homage to Washington, on the birthday of our liberties, and his last official 
act was adding a new guaranty to the peace of the world, by signing the 
convention recently concluded between our country and Great Britain 
respecting Central America. Disease soon did its work. Confronting 
Death with the fearless declaration, ' I am prepared — I have endeav- 
ored to do my duty,' the old hero succumbed — his first and last 
surrender. 

General Taylor married in early life a lady of Virginia, and was 
connected either by affinity or blood, with many of the most noted families 
of the Old Dominion. His excellent consort, a son, and a daughter, 
survive him. In person, General Taylor was about five feet eight inches 
in height, and like most of our revolutionary generals, was inclined to 
corpulency. His hair was gray, his brow ample, his eye vivid, and his 
features plain but full of firmness, intelligence and benevolence. His 
manners were easy and cordial, his dress, habits, and tastes simple, and his 
style of living temperate in the extreme. His speeches and his official 
papers, both military and civil, are alike famed for their propriety of feeling 
and their chastity of diction. His private life was unblemished, and the 
loveliness of his disposition made him the idol of his own household and the 



724 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

favorite of all who knew him. His martial courage was only equaled by 
his Spartan simplicity, his unaffected modesty, his ever wakeful humanity, 
his inflexible integrity, his uncompromising truthfulness, his lofty magna- 
nimity, his unbounded patriotism, and his unfaltering loyalty to duty. 
His mind was of an original and solid cast, admirably balanced, and 
combining the comprehensiveness of reason with the penetration of instinct. 
Its controlling element was a strong, sterling sense, that of itself rendered 
him a wise counselor and a safe leader. All of his personal attributes and 
antecedents made him preeminently a man of the people, and remarkably 
qualified him to be the stay and surety of his country in its day of danger. 

A braver soldier never wielded sword — 
A gentler heart did never sway in council. 
But he is dead — and millions weep his loss. 

JOHN E. WOOL. 

John E. Wool, a distinguished American general, was born in Newburgh, 
New York, in 1789. He received but a scanty education, and passed the 
greater part of his youth in the store of a merchant at Troy, in the situa- 
tion of clerk. He afterwards commenced the study of law, but at the end 
of a year he gave up the idea of following this profession, and, war having 
been declared with Great Britain, he procured a captain's commission in a 
regiment of infantry, and joined the forces under General Van Rensselaer, 
on the Niagara frontier. In the course of this war he distinguished him- 
self greatly. For his services at Queenstown he was promoted to the rank 
of major ; and for his gallant conduct at Plattsburgh he was made lieuten- 
ant-colonel, by brevet. During the interval of peace which followed the 
treaty of Ghent, Colonel Wool performed several important services. In 
1832, he was despatched to Europe, for the purpose of procuring informa- 
tion on military matters ; and in discharge of that duty he traveled through 
France and Belgium, and was present at Antwerp during the siege of that 
city by the French. In 1836, he superintended the removal of the Indians 
from the Cherokee country to the Arkansas ; and, in 1838, he was placed 
in command of the Maine frontier during the troubles arising out of the 
boundary question. In 1841, he had risen by successive steps to the rank 
of brigadier-general. During the war with Mexico, General Wool was 
attached to the army under General Taylor ; and it was to his skill and 
energy that the Americans were greatly indebted for the victory of Buena 
Vista. For his services on this occasion he was appointed major-general 
by brevet. Since the conclusion of the Mexican war, General Wool has 
been in command of the northeastern division of the American army, and 
now resides in the city of Troy. 




GEN. WOOL 



726 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Daniel Webster was born in the town of Salisbury, New Hampshire, 
January 18, 1782. His father, Major Ebenezer Webster, was one of the 
pioneers of the settlement in that quarter. He served with credit in the 
old French war, and also in the war of the revolution, especially under 
Stark, at Bennington. Major Webster established himself in a newly- 
granted township at the confluence of the Winnipisiogee and Pemigewasset, 
after the peace of 1763. In this region, then lying almost in a state of 
nature, the great orator and statesman was born, and passed the first years 
of his life. His opportunities of education were very deficient, and he was 
indebted for his earliest instruction to his mother, who was a woman of 
character and intelligence. For a few months only, in 1796, he enjoyed 
the advantages of Phillips' Exeter academy. Here his education for 
college commenced; it was completed under the Rev. Dr. Wood, of 
Boscawen. He entered Dartmouth college in 1797, and during the four 
years of his study there, gave plain indications of future eminence. Soon 
after his graduation, he engaged in professional studies, first in his native 
village, and afterward at Fryeburg, in Maine, where at the same time he 
had the charge of an academy. He eked out his frugal salary by acting 
as a copyist in the office of register of deeds. He was moved to these 
strenuous exertions by the wish to aid his brother to obtain a college 
education. Having completed his law-studies in the office of governor 
Gore, of Boston, he was admitted to the bar of Suffolk, Massachusetts, in 
the year 1805. He immediately commenced the practice of law in his 
native state and county. His father, a man of sterling sense and character, 
who for the last twelve years of his life had been a judge of the court of 
common pleas, died in 1806, but not without the satisfaction of hearing 
his son's first speeches at the bar. In 1807, Mr. Webster removed to 
Portsmouth in his native state, and soon became engaged in a most 
respectable and extensive, but not very lucrative practice. In 1812, he 
was chosen one of the members of congress from New Hampshire, and in 
due time was reelected. Although among the youngest members of the 
house of representatives, and entirely without legislative experience, he 
rose at once to the front rank, both in the despatch of business and in 
debate. Among his associates in the house were Clay, Cheves, Lowndes, 
Calhoun, Forsyth, and other members of great ability. It was soon felt 
and admitted that he was worthy to be named with the ablest of them. It 
was the remark of Mr. Lowndes ' that the south had not his superior, nor 
the north his equal.' Finding the professional fields at Portsmouth inade- 
quate to the support of a growing family, Mr. Webster removed to Boston 
in 1816. His professional reputation had grown as rapidly as his fame as 
a statesman. He placed himself at once by the side of the leaders of the 
Massachusetts bar. He had already appeared before the supreme court 
of the United States in Washington. By his brilliant argument in the 
Dartmouth college case, carried by appeal to Washington in 1817, he took 
rank among the most distinguished jurists in this country. In 1820, Mr. 
Webster was chosen a member of a convention called for the purpose of 
revising the constitution of Massachusetts. No one exercised a more 
powerful influence over its deliberations. He was offered, about this time, 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 727 

a nomination as a senator of the United States, but declined. In 1822, he 
yielded to the most pressing solicitations to become a candidate for the 
place of representative of the city of Boston in the eighteenth congress, 
and was chosen by a very large majority. This step involved a great 
sacrifice of professional interest. He took his seat in Congress in Decem- 
ber, 1823, and early in the session made his celebrated speech on the 
Greek revolution, an effort which at once established his reputation as one 
of the first statesmen of the age. In the autumn of the same year he was 
reelected by a vote of 4,990, out of 5,000 cast. In 1826 he was again a 
candidate, and not a hundred votes were thrown against him. Under the 
presidency of Mr. Adams (1825-29), he was the leader of the friends of 
the administration, first in the house of representatives, and afterward in 
the senate of the United States, to which he was elected in June, 1827. 
His great speech on the Panama mission was made in the first session of 
the nineteenth congress. When the tariff law of 1824 was brought 
forward, Mr. Webster spoke with great ability against it on the ground of 
expediency. He represented one of the greatest commercial constituencies 
in the Union ; and his colleagues, with a single exception, voted with him 
against the bill. This law, however, forced a large amount of the capital 
of New England into manufactures; and in 1828 Mr. Webster sustained 
the law of that year for a more equal adjustment of the benefits of protec- 
tion. The change which took place in his course in this respect was the 
result of the circumstances alluded to, and was approved by his constitu- 
ents. Mr. Webster remained in the senate under the administration of 
Gen. Jackson, and Mr. Van Buren, a period of twelve years. During 
this time the most important questions were discussed, measures of the 
highest moment to the country were brought forward, and political events 
and combinations of the most novel and extraordinary character succeeded 
each other. Under all changes of men and measures, Mr. Webster main- 
tained the position of a constitutional and patriot statesman, second to none 
who had ever devoted himself to the service of his country. In 1830, he 
made what is generally regarded the ablest of his parliamentary efforts, 
his second speech in reply to colonel Hayne of South Carolina. This 
gentleman in a speech on a resolution moved by Mr. Foote, of Connecticut, 
relative to the surveys of the public lands, had indulged in some personali- 
ties against Mr. Webster, had commented with severity on the political 
course of the New England states, and had laid down in rather an authori- 
tative manner those views of the constitution usually known as the doctrines 
of ' nullification.' Mr. Webster was accordingly called upon to defend 
himself from the insinuations of the distinguished senator from South 
Carolina, to vindicate New r England, and to point out the fallacies of 
nullification. To accomplish these objects, he employed all the resources 
of the most skillful rhetoric, polished sarcasm, and acute argument. The 
records of modern eloquence contain nothing of superior force and beauty. 
The second speech of Mr. Webster in this debate may be regarded as the 
greatest effort of this consummate orator. Shaping his public course by 
principle, and not by the blind impulse of party, Mr. Webster, though 
opposed to the administration of General Jackson, gave it a cordial support 
in its measures for the defense of the Union in 1832-'33. The doctrines 
of the president's proclamation against the theories of South Carolina were 
mainly adopted from Mr. Webster's speeches, and he was the chief 




DANIEL WEBSTER. 






730 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

dependence of the administration upon the floor of congress. When, 
however, the financial system of general Jackson was brought forward and 
fully developed, it was strenuously opposed by Mr. Webster. He foretold 
with accuracy the explosion which took place in the spring of 1837, and 
contributed materially to rally the public opinion of the country alike 
against the first phase of the new financial system, which was that of an 
almost boundless expansion of paper currency, issuing from the state 
banks, and against the opposite extreme, which was adopted as a substitute, 
that of an exclusive use of specie in all payments to or by the government. 
Mr. Webster maintained with great force of argument, and variety of 
illustration, the superior convenience of the financial system which had 
been adopted in the infancy of the governoent, with the approval of every 
administration, from that of Washington down, viz : that of a mixed cur- 
rency of specie and convertible paper, kept within safe bounds by the law 
requiring all payments to be made in specie or its equivalent, and regulated 
by a national institution acting as a check upon the state banks. The 
clear and forcible manner in which these principles were inculcated by Mr. 
Webster contributed materially to the downfall of Mr. Yan Buren's admin- 
istration. In 1839, Mr. Webster made a short visit to Europe. His 
time was principally passed in England, but he devoted a few weeks to the 
continent. His fame had preceded him to the old world, and he was 
received with the attention due to his character and talents at the French 
and English courts, and in the highest circles of both countries. On the 
accession of General Harrison to the presidency, Mr. Webster was placed 
at the head of his cabinet as secretary of state. His administration of the 
department during the two years he remained in it was signalized by the 
most distinguished success. The United States was at that time involved 
in a long standing controversy with Great Britain, on the subject of the 
northeastern boundary of Maine. To this had been added the difficult 
questions arising out of the detention of American vessels by British 
cruisers on the coast of Africa. Still more recently, the affair of M'Leod, 
in New York, had threatened an immediate rupture between the two 
governments. The correspondence between the United States' minister, 
in London, in 1841, Mr. Stevenson and the British secretary of state for 
foreign affairs, Lord Palmerston, was of an uncompromising character. 
Other causes of mutual irritation existed, which the limits of this sketch do 
not permit us to enumerate. 

Shortly after the accession of General Harrison, the Melbourne admin- 
istration was overturned in England, and Sir Robert Peel returned to 
power. This cotemporary change of government in the two countries 
was favorable to a settlement of the long-standing difficulties. Mr. Web- 
ster, after coming into the department of state, intimated to the British 
minister that the government of the United States was convinced of the 
impossibility of settling the boundary-line by adhering to the course hith- 
erto pursued — that of topographical explorations, with a view to the lite- 
ral execution of the treaty of 1783 — but was prepared to adopt a conven- 
tional line, on the basis of mutual gain and concession, if such a line could 
be agreed upon. The new ministry, taking advantage of this overture, 
immediately determined to send Lord Ashburton as a special envoy to the 
United States, to negotiate upon this and the other subjects in controversy. 
Massachusetts and Maine were invited to take part by their commissioners 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 731 

in the negotiation ; and on August 9, 1842, the treaty of Washington was 
ratified by the senate. By this treaty the boundary dispute, which had 
lasted fifty years, was happily adjusted. An amicable and efficient arrange- 
ment was made for joint action in the suppression of the slave-trade, and 
an agreement entered into for a mutual extradition of fugitives from jus- 
tice. The other subjects of discussion at that period, between Great 
Britain and the United States, with the exception of the Oregon bounda- 
ry, were happily disposed of in the correspondence accompanying the 
treaty. The terms of this important treaty were equally honorable and 
satisfactory to both parties. Mr. Tyler's cabinet was broken up in 1842, 
but Mr. Webster remained in office till the spring of 1843, being desirous 
of putting some other matters connected with our foreign relations in a 
prosperous train. Steps were taken by him in the winter of 1842-'3, 
which led to the recognition of the independence of the Sandwich islands 
by the principal maritime powers. His last official act was the preparation 
of the instructions of General C. Cushing, as commissioner for negotiating 
a treaty with China. With the commencement of Mr. Polk's administra- 
tion, Mr. Webster returned to the senate of the United States. He 
remained a member of that body during the whole of the administration 
of Mr. Polk, and till the death of General Taylor. Though unconnected 
with the executive government, he rendered the most material service in 
the settlement of the Oregon dispute. It has been publicly stated by Mr. 
M'Gregor, the distinguished member of parliament for Glasgow, that a 
letter written to him by Mr. Webster, and shown to the British ministers, 
led them to agree to the adoption of the line of boundary which was 
established in 1846. Mr. Webster opposed the Mexican war on princi- 
ple; and in the full persuasion, which events have confirmed, that acquisi- 
tions of territory would disturb the balance of the Union, and endanger 
its stability. He, however, concurred in granting the supplies which 
were required for the efficient conduct of the war. His second son, Major 
Edward Webster, with the entire approbation of his father, accepted a 
commission in the Massachusetts regiment of volunteers, and sunk under 
the exposures of the service in Mexico. He was a young man of great 
promise. In conformity with Mr. Webster's anticipations, the acquisition 
of Mexican territory led to agitations on the subject of slavery, which, 
during the years 1849-'50, seriously threatened the Union. The ques- 
tion whether slavery should exist in California seemed likely to lead to the 
renewal of the Missouri controversy, aggravated by all the bitterness which 
has grown out of the struggles of the last fifteen years. Mr. Webster 
entertained the most serious apprehensions of an inauspicious result. The 
convention of the people of California having unanimously adopted a con- 
stitution by which that question was disposed of, without the interference 
of congress, Mr. Webster conceived the hope that, by mutual concession 
on other and less important points, the harmony of the South and North 
could be restored, and a severance of the Union averted. With a view to 
this consummation, he made his great speech of March 7, 1850. A very 
powerful influence was exerted by this speech on the public mind. While 
the debates on what have been called the ' compromise measures ' were in 
progress in the senate, General Taylor died. The chair of state was 
assumed by President Fillmore, who immediately called Mr. Webster to 
the department of state. His administration of the office was marked 



732 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

with characteristic ability and success. In a series of public addresses of 
unsurpassed ability, made in different parts of the Union, he enforced the 
great duty of mutual concession, in reference to the sectional controversy 
which so seriously alarmed the country. In December, 1850, the famous 
Hiilsemann letter was written, to which Kossuth has applied the epithet 
of ' immortal.' Mr. Webster, by his firm and judicious manner of treating 
the Cuba question, obtained of the Spanish government the pardon of the 
followers of Lopez, who had been deported to Spain. About the same 
time, he received from the English government an apology for the interfer- 
ence of a British cruiser with an American steamer in the waters of Nica- 
ragua. This is the second time that the British government has made a 
similar concession at the instance of Mr. Webster. The first was in refer- 
ence to the destruction of the ' Caroline,' at Schlosser. It has been 
affirmed that these are the only occasions on which the British government 
has ever apologized for the conduct of its affairs. Mr. Webster's intellec- 
tual efforts were not confined to politics. He filled a place second to none 
of his cotemporaries at the American bar, and his discourses upon various 
historical and patriotic anniversaries are among the brightest ^gems of 
modern eloquence. The works of Mr. Webster have been lately pub- 
lished in six volumes, 8vo, with a biographical memoir by Mr. Edward 
Everett, from which the preceding sketch has been for the most part 
extracted. He died at his residence in Marshfield, Massachusetts, on the 
24th day of October, 1852. 

HENRY CLAY. 

Henry Clay was born April 12, 1777, in Hanover county, Virginia. 
His father was a Baptist clergyman, of small means, who died when his 
son was only five years of age. He was one of a large family of children, 
who were left under the care of their mother — a firm-minded and truly 
excellent woman. Henry's early advantages consisted in the privilege of 
attending a common country Virginia school ; and such were the circum- 
stances of the widow, that thus early, he was obliged to contribute to the 
support of the family. His work was generally on the farm. At fourteen 
years of age he was placed in a small retail shop in Richmond, Va. The 
next year he entered the office of Mr. Tinsley, clerk of the high court of 
chancery, where among other valuable acquaintances, he attracted the 
notice and acquired the friendship of the distinguished and beloved Chan- 
cellor Wythe — one of the venerated signers of the declaration of indepen- 
dence. With him the poor orphan found a patron and a home. Under the 
direction of his great benefactor, and for the purpose of studying his pro- 
fession, he entered the law office of Robert Brooke, attorney general of 
the State. In 1797 he moved to Lexington, Ky., where before he com- 
menced the practice of the law, he devoted some months to severe study. 
Such were the youthful trials of this great man. The foundation of his 
long, eminent, patriotic and glorious career was thus, not family, nor 
wealth, nor titles, but talents, industry, integrity, and worth. Our space 
will not permit a full detail of a progress alike honorable to a people who 
saw and appreciated his value as a man, and to the patriot who devoted 
himself zealously to the public service. This commenced in 1797, when 
he took part in the debates relating to the call of a convention to form a 




HENRY CLAY. 




HON. LEVI WOODBURY. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 735 

constitution for Kentucky, and in 1798, when he zealously entered the 
field against the celebrated alien and sedition laws. As soon as he was 
eligible, he was elected to the legislature of Kentucky. He was a leading 
member until 1800, when he was sent to the senate of the United States, 
to fill the place occasioned by the resignation of General Adir. This, 
however, was only a fraction of a term ; and at the close of the session, 
Mr. Clay was again chosen to a seat in the legislature. He was speaker 
several years. In 1809, he was a second time elected to the United States 
senate and to fill a fractional part of a term. This expired in 1811, 
when he was elected a member of the house of representatives. On the 
first ballot he was elected speaker, which office he filled with distinguished 
ability. It is no more than justice to remark, that thus far Mr. Clay had 
proved himself equal, and more than equal, to every place which he had 
been called upon to fill. Indeed, he was a member of the republican party, 
and so signal had been his eloquence, his patriotism, his influence and his 
efficiency, as to have attracted the eyes of the nation. He nobly sus- 
tained the administration of Mr. Madison and the war of 1812. After the 
conclusion of the treaty of Ghent, Mr. Clay, with Mr. Adams and Mr. 
Gallatin, went to London, where a commercial convention between this 
country and Great Britain was concluded. Mr. Clay was again elected to 
the house of representatives in 1815, and again made speaker. _ Subse- 
quently, after two years absence from congress, he was reelected in 1823, 
and again made the speaker, which place he filled until 1825, when he was 
appointed secretary of state by John Quincy Adams. Mr. Clay was 
speaker of the house from 1811 to 1825, with the exception of two years, 
during which time he voluntarily retired from congress. 

Mr. Clay continued in the office of secretary of state until 1829. Two 
years later, in December, 1831, he was again elected to the senate of the 
United States, and continued a member of that body until March 31, 1842, 
when he resigned. Mr. Clay lived in elegant retirement at Ashland, until 
he was again (1849) elected to the senate. And here, after a brilliant 
parliamentary career, he closed his life, as his friend John Quincy Adams 
did, with his harness on — still serving the country for whose welfare his 
heart so fervently beat. He died on the 29th of June, 1852. 

HON. JUDGE WOODBURY. 

The subject of the accompanying likeness is one, perhaps, as well known 
to the people of this country as any name engraven upon its political scroll. 
His long public service has been such as to keep him prominently before 
the public eye for forty years, during which period he has sustained an 
unsullied reputation, and has commanded the respect and a large share of 
the confidence of all parties. Mr. Woodbury graduated at Dartmouth 
College in 1809, and immediately applied himself to the study of the law, 
which he subsequently practiced with credit and success until 1816, when 
he was appointed secretary of the senate of the United States, and du- 
ring the following year judge of the superior court. Shortly after this 
we°find him a member of General Jackson's cabinet, and in 1823, gov- 
ernor of New Hampshire. In the year 1825, Mr. Woodbury was chosen 
to the United States senate. In 1831, we find him secretary of the na- 
vv. In 1834, we find him secretary of the treasury, and find him again 




fmm 



m 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 737 

in the senate of the United States from New Hampshire, in 1841. In the 
autumn of 1845, a vacancy occurred on the bench of the supreme court 
of the United States, by the demise of Judge Story ; this appointment 
was offered to Mr. Woodbury and accepted. Such are a few of the im- 
portant datas in the career of Mr. Woodbury's life, and would space per- 
mit us, we should be pleased, in this connection, to go into an elaborate 
description of his personal characteristics and patriotism. His character 
has ever been remarkable for firmness and consistency, and whether as a 
citizen, a politician, or a jurist, he has been found a steady supporter of 
the constitution of the United States. 

HON. ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

We can give no better sketch of Mr. Rantoul's life than to quote from 
Hon. Charles Sumner's eulogy pronounced in congress. He was born 
August 13th, 1805, at Beverly, in the county of Essex, the home of Nathan 
Dane. Here under happy auspices of family and neighborhood, he com- 
menced life. His excellent father, honored for his public services, venerable 
also in years and flowing silver locks, yet lives to mourn his last surviving 
son. The sad fortune of Burke is renewed. He who should have been 
as posterity, is now to this father in the place of ancestry. Mr. Rantoul 
was early a member of the legislature of Massachusetts, and there won 
his first fame. For many years he occupied a place in the board of 
education in that state. He was also, for a time, collector of the port 
of Boston, and afterwards attorney of the United States for Massachusetts. 
During a brief period he held a seat in the senate, and finally, in 1851, 
by the choice of his native district, remarkable for its intelligence and 
public spirit, he became a representative in the other branch of our national 
legislature. In all these spheres he performed most acceptable service, 
and the future promised opportunities of a higher character, to which his 
abilities, industry and fidelity would have amply responded. By fitness, 
by study, knowledge and experience, he was formed for public service, 
but he was no stranger to other pursuits. Early devoted to the profession 
of the law, he followed it with assiduity and success. In the antiquities of 
our jurisprudence, few were more learned, and his arguments at the bar, 
were thorough. Nor were his intelligence and promptness in all emergen 
cies of a trial easily surpassed. Literature, neglected by many under the 
pressure of professional duties, was always cultivated by him. His taste 
for books was enduring. He was a constant student, amidst his manifold 
labors, professional and public. He was a reformer in the warfare with 
evil. He was enlisted earnestly and openly as a soldier for life. As 
such, he did not hesitate to encounter opposition, to meet obloquy, and to 
brave his enemies. His conscience, pure as goodness, sustained him in 
every trial, even that sharpest of all, the desertion of friends ; and yet 
while earnest in his cause, his zeal was tempered beyond that of the com- 
mon reformer. He knew well the difference between the ideal and the 
actual, and sought by practical means, in harmony with public sentiment, 
to promote the public interest. Recognizing in the social and political 
system the essential elements of stability and progress, he discerned the 
office of the conservative and the reformer; but he saw, also, that a blind 
conservatism was not less destructive than a blind reform. He was the 
47* 




FRANKLIN PIERCE 




WILLIAM R . KING. 



740 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

faithful supporter of common schools, the glory of New England. By 
word and example he sustained the cause of temperance. Some of his 
most devoted labors, commencing in the legislature of Massachusetts, were 
for the abolition of capital punishment. With its final triumph, in the 
progress of civilization, his name will be indissolubly connected. In har- 
mony with these noble reforms was the purity of Ins private life ; there he was 
blameless. In manners, he was modest, simple and retiring. In conver- 
sation, he was disposed to listen rather than to speak, though all were well 
pleased when he broke silence, and in apt language declared his glowing 
thoughts. But in the public assembly, before the people, he was bold and 
triumphant. As a debater, he rarely met his equal. Fluent, earnest, 
rapid, incisive, his words at times came forth like a flashing scimitar. 
Few could stand against him ; he always understood his subjects, and then 
clear, logical, and determined, seeing his point before him, pressed forward 
with unrelenting power. His speeches were enriched by study, and con- 
tained passages of beauty — but he was most truly at home in dealing with 
practical questions arising from exigencies of life. Few had studied public 
affairs more intelligibly. As a constant and effective member of the 
democratic party, he had become conspicuous by the championship of its 
doctrines. There was no topic of national moment that did not interest 
him. Northwestern and Western interests were near his heart. 

In person, Mr. Rantoul was of medium height, of spare figure, and restless 
activity both of mind and body. His manner of speaking was peculiar to 
himself; with great rapidity of utterance, his sentences were simple in their 
construction, and his language selected less with reference to ornament than 
to strength. Devoted to his profesion and studies, of abstemious habits, 
great purity of character, the friend of all moral movements of society, 
he was snatched away in the prime of life, when his talents, matured by 
earnest study, were unfolding themselves to the world with much power. 

FRANKLIN PIERCE. 

Franklin Pierce, president of the United States, is the son of Benja- 
min Pierce, who rose to the rank of brigade-major in the American army 
during the revolutionary war, and held several political offices in the state 
of New Hampshire. Franklin Pierce was born in the western part of that 
state, in the town of Hillsborough in 1804, and after completing his aca- 
demical studies, entered Bowdoin college, Maine. Immediately on leav- 
ing college he commenced his legal studies with Judge Howe, of North- 
ampton, Mass., but subsequently returned to his native state and, finally 
finished his studies at Amherst Mass. He was admitted to the bar and 
commenced the practice of his profession in his native town ; but before 
the end of two years he was elected a representative in the state legisla- 
ture, and during his second year's service was chosen speaker of the house. 
In 1833 he was elected to congress, and remained a member of the house 
of representatives for four years. During this period, General Pierce, 
although a firm supporter of democratic measures, seldom distinguished 
himself as a debater, being modest and unassuming in his character, and 
rather quick to hear and slow to speak. In 1837 he was elected a mem- 
ber of the United States senate, but, after five years' service in that body, 
resigned his seat, intending to devote himself wholly to his profession. He 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 741 

had been more than ten years in public life and he felt the necessity of 
giving his attention to his private affairs, which had suffered in his absence. 
He accordingly settled in Concord, the capital of his native state, and re- 
sumed his practice at the bar, with a firm resolution to be withdrawn for 
the future _ from public life. He rose to high distinction as an advocate, 
being considered one of the ablest lawyers in New Hampshire. He firmly 
adhered to his resolution of accepting no political office ; he declined to be 
a candidate for governor of the state, or United States senator, and he 
also refused the offices of attorney-general and secretary of war, which 
were tendered him by President Polk. On the breaking out of the Mex- 
">n war, however, General Pierce, deeming that his services were requir- 
a in the cause of his country, enrolled himself as a private soldier in the 
New England regiment, but President Polk sent him a colonel's commis- 
sion, and subequently raised him to the rank of brigadier-general in March, 
1847. His command consisted of 2,500 men, with whom he landed at 
Vera Cruz, June 28, 1847. He distinguished himself in most of the bat- 
ties which were fought between Vera Cruz and the city of Mexico, and 
made himself highly popular with the men under his command. On the 
restoration of peace between the two countries, he resigned his commission, 
and returned home, where he met with a brilliant reception from his fellow- 
citizens. He was elected president of the United States in 1852. 

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 

Samuel Finley Breese Morse, an American artist, better known, 
perhaps, as the inventor of the electric telegraph, is the eldest son of the 
Rev. Jedediah Morse, the first American geographer, and was born in 
Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 27, 1791. He was educated at Yale 
College, where he graduated in 1810. He had from a very early age 
determined to be a painter ; and his father finding his passion for art in- 
corrigible, consented to indulge him, in his wishes ; and he accordingly 
sailed for England, under the charge of Mr. Allston, and arrived in Lon- 
don, in August, 1811. Here he formed an intimacy with C. R. Leslie, 
and the first portraits of either of these artists painted in London were 
likenesses of each other. Mr. Morse made rapid progress in his profession. 
In 1813, he exhibited at the Royal Academy his picture of " The Dying 
Hercules," of colossal size, which received high praise from the connois- 
seurs, and the plaster model which he made of the same subject, to assist 
him in his picture, received the prize in sculpture, the same year. En- 
couraged by this success, the artist determined to contend for the premium 
in historical composition offered by the academy the following year. The 
picture, the subject of which was, " The Judgment of Jupiter, in the case 
of Apollo, Marpessa, and Idas," was completed in time, but Mr. Morse 
was obliged to leave England before the premiums were to be adjudged, 
and was consequently excluded from the privilege of competing for the 
prize. Mr. West afterward assured him that he would undoubtedly have 
won it. On his return to America, he settled in Boston, but he met with 
so little encouragement, that he removed to New Hampshire, where he 
found employment in painting portraits at $15 per head. He was induced 
by his friends to remove to Charleston, South Carolina, and there his art 
proved more profitable. About 1822, he took up his residence in New 




PROF. MORSE. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 745 

York, where he found his works and talents more justly appreciated, and his 
skill as an artist put into requisition. Under a commission from the cor- 
poration, he painted a full length portrait of Lafayette, then on a visit to 
the United States. It was shortly after this, that Mr. Morse formed that 
association of artists which resulted in the establishment of the National 
Academy of Design, of which he was elected president ; and it is worthy 
of note, that the first course of lectures on the subject of art read in 
America, was delivered by him before the New York Athenaeum, and 
afterward repeated to the students of the academy. In 1829, he paid a 
second visit to Europe, and remained abroad three years. On his return 
from Europe, in the packet-ship Sully, in 1832, a gentleman, in describing 
the experiments that had just been made in Paris with the electro-magnet, 
the question arose as to the time occupied by the electric fluid in passing 
through the wire, stated to be about one hundred feet in length. On the 
reply that it was instantaneous (recollecting the experiments of Franklin,) 
he suggested that it might be carried to any distance, and that the electric 
spark could be a means of conveying and recording intelligence. This 
suggestion, which drew some casual observation of assent from the party, 
took deep hold of Professor Morse, who undertook to develop the idea 
which he had originated ; and, before the end of the voyage, he had 
drawn out and written the general plan of the invention with which his 
name will be inseparably connected. His main object was to effect a com- 
munication by means of the electro magnet that would leave a permanent 
record by signs answering for the alphabet, and which, though carried to 
any distance, would communicate with any place that might be on the line. 
His first idea was to pass a strip of paper, saturated with some chemical 
preparation that would be decomposed when brought in connection with 
the wire, along which the electric current was passing, and thus form an 
alphabet by marks, varying in width and number, that could be made upon 
the paper at the will of the operator, and by this means avoid separating 
the wire at the different points of communication. On his return to New 
York, he resumed his profession, still devoting all his spare time, under 
great disadvantages, to the perfection of bis invention. Finding his orig- 
inal plan impracticable, he availed himself of the action of the electro- 
magnet upon the lever as a mode of using pens and ink, as in the ruling 
machine. Of these he had five, with the idea of securing the required 
characters from one of the pens. These he abandoned for pencils, and 
after a trial of various means for obtaining the end desired, and finding 
by experiment he could obtain any requisite force from the lever, he 
adopted the stylus or steel point for indenting the paper, and it is this he 
has since used. After great difficulty and much discouragement, Profes- 
sor Morse in 1835 demonstrated the practicability of his invention by 
completing and putting in operation in the New York university, a model 
of his 'Recording Electric Telegraph' — the whole apparatus, with the 
exception of a wooden clock which formed part of it, having been made 
by himself. In 1837, he abandoned his profession, with great regret, 
hoping to make his invention a means of resuming it, under easier and 
more agreeable circumstances. In the same year, he filed his caveat at 
the patent-office in Washington ; and it is somewhat singular that, during 
this year (1837), Wheatstone, in England, and Steinheil, in Bavaria, 
both invented a magnetic telegraph, differing from the American and 




DAGUERRE. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 747 

from each other. Wheatstone's is very inferior, not being a recording 
telegraph, but requiring to be watched by one of the attendants — the 
alphabet being made by the deflection of the needle. Steinheil's, on the 
contrary, is a recording telegraph, but from its complicated and delicate 
machinery, has been found impracticable for extended lines. At a con- 
vention held in 1851 by Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Wurtemberg, and 
Bavaria, for the purpose of adopting a uniform system of telegraphing 
for all Germany, by the advice of Steinheil, Professor Morse's was the 
one selected. From the sultan of Turkey he received the first foreign 
acknowledgment of his invention in the bestowal of a nishan, or order — 
the ' order of glory :' a diploma to that effect was transmitted to him with 
the magnificent decoration of that order in diamonds. The second ac- 
knowledgment was from the king of Prussia, being a splendid gold snuff- 
box, containing in its lid the Prussian gold medal of scientific merit. The 
latest acknowledgment is from the king of Wurtemberg, who transmitted 
to him (after the adoption of the Telegraph treaty by the convention 
above mentioned) the ' Wurtemberg Gold Medal of Arts and Sciences.' 
In 1838, he went to England, for the purpose of securing a patent there, 
but was refused through the influence of Wheatstone and his friends, under 
the pretense that his invention had already been published there. All 
that could be adduced in proof of this was the publication in an English 
scientific periodical of an extract copied from the New York ' Journal of 
Commerce,' stating the results of his invention, without giving the means 
by which they were produced. In the following spring, he returned to 
this country, and in 1840 perfected his patent at Washington, and set 
about getting his telegraph into practical operation. In 1844, the first 
electric telegraph was completed in the United States, between Baltimore 
and Washington ; and the first intelligence of a public character which 
passed over the wires was the announcement of the nomination of James 
K. Polk, as the democratic candidate for the presidency, by the Baltimore 
convention. Since then, he has seen its wires extend all over the country, 
to the length of more than fifteen thousand miles — an extent unknown 
elsewhere in the civilized world. His success has led to the invasion of his 
patent rights by others, whom he has finally succeeded in defeating, after 
an expensive and protracted litigation. Professor Morse still clings to the 
idea of resuming his early profession of painting, to which he is strongly 
attached, and in the progress of which he has always taken a deep interest. 
As an artist, he has always enjoyed a very high reputation. His tastes 
inclined to historical painting, but circumstances did not often permit him 
to indulge in it ; he was mainly engaged in the painting of portraits. In 
1820, he painted a large picture of the interior of the house of represen- 
tatives, with portraits of the members, which passed into the possession 
of an English gentleman ; and in 1832, while in Paris, he made a beauti- 
ful picture of the Louvre gallery, copying in miniature the most valuable 
paintings. He resides at Locust Grove, two miles south of Poughkeep- 
sie, on the banks of the Hudson river. 

M. DAGUERRK 

This far-famed Frenchman, who has given his name to the art which he 
first discovered, the Daguerreotype, died not long since, at his residence, 




VICTOR HUGO, 



BIOGKAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 749 

near Paris. The likeness which we present herewith, is from an original, 
taken after his own style and invention, and is necessarily correct. It 
would be superfluous for us to enlarge upon the merits of an art so familiar 
to all. Daguerre was an artist, a painter, and also possessed considerable 
chemical talent and taste ; and it was while experimenting for other pur- 
poses, that he discovered the art which now bears his name. It was des- 
tined, however, to be wonderfully improved by other hands, and it is said 
that the Americans have produced by far the most perfect and beautiful 
specimens of the art that have ever yet been exhibited. Daguerre was 
favorably known to the world before the announcement of his discovery of 
the Daguerreotype. His attempts to improve panoramic paintings, and the 
production of dioramic effects, were crowned with the most eminent suc- 
cess. His pictures attracted much attention at the time of their exhibi- 
tion. In them the alternate effects of night and day — of storm and 
sunshine — were beautifully produced. To these effects of light were 
added others, arising from the decomposition of form, by means of which, 
for example, in the ' Midnight Mass,' figures appeared where the spectators 
had just beheld seats, altars, etc. ; or, again, as in ' The Valley of Goldau,' 
in which rocks tumbling from the mountains replaced the prospect of a 
smiling valley. He was in the 62d year of his age at the time of his 
death, and is represented to have been an extremely modest and worthy 
man, and one devoted to his profession of the fine arts. 

VICTOR HUGO. 

Victor Hugo, a politician, one of the most prominent living French 
writers, was born February 26, 1802. The political contrariety which 
has marked his career may be said to have been inherited by Hugo, his 
father having been one of the first volunteers of the republic, and his 
mother, a Vendean by birth and sentiment, a proscribed royalist, wander- 
ing while yet a girl in the Bocage of La Vendee. At the date of his 
birth, his father was a colonel in the army of Napoleon ; and the child, 
born almost amid the roar of cannon, followed with its mother the steps 
of Bonaparte. From Besancon he was carried' to Elba, from Elba to 
Paris, from Paris to Rome, from Rome to Naples, before he was five 
years of age, so that he exclaims, ' I made the tour of Europe before I 
began to live.' In Naples he resided about ten years, his father having 
been appointed governor of Avellino. In 1809 he returned to France 
with his two brothers and his mother, by whom he was educated within 
the walls of the convent of the Feuillantes, where the family had taken 
up its residence. He here received the benefit of classical instruction 
from an old general, whom his mother was then concealing from the impe- 
rial police. At the close of 1811, his father, then a general and major- 
domo of Joseph Bonaparte's palace at Madrid, sent for his family to join 
him in that capital, and Victor accompanied his mother to Spain. He 
remained at Madrid about a year, and returned to the old convent until 
the restoration of 1814. This event, by exciting in his mother and father 
the opposite feelings of joy and indignant grief, led to their separation. 
Victor was placed by his father in a private academy, where he studied 
mathematics, it is said with great success, previous to his intended removal 
to the polytechnic school. In 1816 he published his parable of i The Rich 



750 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and Poor,' and an elegy called the ' Canadian.' In 1817 he was a com 
petitor for a prize on the 'Advantages of Study,' offered by the academy. 
In 1819, having committed himself to a literary career with his father's 
consent, he wrote two odes, entitled ' The Virgins of Verdun,' and ' The 
Restoration of the Statue of Henri IV,' and sent them to the Academy 
of Floral Fetes, at Toulouse, by which they were both crowned. In 1820 
he published his 'Infant Moses in the Nile.' In 1822 appeared the first 
volume of his ' Odes and Ballads,' a collection of occasional pieces, all 
breathing a royalist spirit. His ' Hans of Iceland,' and ' Bug-Jargal,' 
though not published until some years later, were written about this time. 
Before the close of the same year the young poet married Mdlle. Foucher, 
and rising into distinction as a royalist writer, he received a pension from 
Louis XVIII. In 1826 he published a second volume of ' Odes and Bal- 
lads,' which betrayed an inward revolution in his political and literary 
opinions. In the succeeding year he composed a drama, called ' Crom- 
well,' intended to assert the freedom of the Christian and romantic drama, 
against the theory of Aristotle's unity, as understood and practiced by 
Racine. He prefaced it with a dramatic theory of his own, to which, 
however, he hardly gave a fair chance of success, since its accompanying 
illustration contained scarcely a feature of merit. In 1828 he published 
his ' Orientals,' a poem of finished versification, but destitute of force or 
spirit. In 1829, Victor Hugo published his ' Last Days of a Condemned 
Prisoner,' and so vividly depicted the anticipated tortures of a man left 
for execution, that the terrific interest of the work gave it an immense 
success. Hugo now prepared to make a second attack on the stiff and 
unnatural dramatic system prevalent in his country. On the 26th Febru- 
ary, 1830, his ' Ernani ' was played at the Theatre Francais. The indig- 
nation of the old and the enthusiasm of the new party knew no bounds. 
The academy went so far as to lay a complaint against the innovation at 
the foot of the throne, but Charles X, with a good sense which would 
have been very serviceable to him four months later, replied, that ' in mat- 
ters of art he was no more than a private person.' Meanwhile the drama, 
which was far superior in construction to ' Cromwell,' succeeded. Shortly 
after the revolution of July, his ' Marion de Lorme,' embodying his new 
political tastes, and which had been suppressed by the censorship under 
the restoration, was brought out, and was considered theatrically success- 
ful. In January, 1832, his play, ' Le Roi S'amuse,' was performed at the 
Theatre Francais, and the next day interdicted by the government. This 
was scarcely necessary, the piece had not been warmly received ; in fact, 
people, however willing to be amused, especially at the expense of mon- 
archy, did not like to see the quondam royalist employed in burlesquing 
the historical heroes of their country. M. Hugo afterward published a 
number of dramatic pieces of various merit ; among them are ' Lucrece 
Borgia,' ' Marie Tudor,' 'Angelo,' and ' Ruy Bias.' His greatest novel is 
' Notre Dame de Paris.' He has since produced ' Chants du Cree'puscle,' 
and ' Voix Inte'rieures.' In the works of this poet may be found some of 
the sublimest creations of French poetry. It is to be regretted that, side 
by side with these, the author's preverted taste led him to place images 
the most monstrous and disgusting. He was created a peer of France by 
Louis Philippe, and, on the downfall of that monarch, avowing the princi- 
ples of the revolution, was returned to the constituent, and afterward to 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 751 

the national assembly, of which he was one of the few eloquent speakers. 
He is also a leading member of the Peace Congress, and was its president 
in 1849 — a position remarkable enough for the author of the bellicose 
; Lettres du Rhin.' He was an energetic opponent of Louis Napoleon in 
December, and on that account was compelled to fly to Brussels in an 
assumed name. 

OMAR PASHA. 

Omar Pasha Avho commands the Turkish army, is an Austrian subject, 
and a native of Coroalia. He was born in 1801, at Vaski, a village situ- 
ated in the circle of Ogulina, thirteen leagues from Fiume. His family 
name is Lattas. His father was lieutenant-administrator of the circle ; his 
uncle was a priest of the United Greek Church. Admitted, when very 
young, into the School of Mathematics of Thurm, near Carlstadt, in Tran- 
sylvania, after having completed his studies with distinction, the young 
Lattas entered the corps of the Ponts et Chaussees, which, in Austria, is 
organized on a military footing. In 1830, in consequence of a misunder- 
standing with his superiors, he left for Turkey, and embraced Islamism. 
Khosrew Pasha, who was then Seraskier, took him under his protection, 
procured him admission into the regular army, and attached him to his per- 
sonal staff. He then gave him his ward in marriage, who was one of the 
richest heiresses in Constantinople, and a daughter of one of the Janizaries, 
whose head he had caused to be cut off in 1827, when that corps revolted 
against Sultan Mahmoud. In 1833, Lattas, who had taken the name of 
Omar, was chief of battalion, and was appointed aid-de-camp, and inter- 
preter to General Chrzanowski, who had charge of the instruction of the 
Ottoman troops encamped near Constantinople. Omar was thenceforward 
actively employed in the reorganization of the Turkish army, and, still 
protected by Khosrew Pasha, obtained successively important missions and 
command in the army. The troubles of Syria, and the Albanian insurrec- 
tion of 1846, gave him occasion to distinguish himself, and attracted to 
him the attention of the Sultan. He was sent to the Kurdistan, and suc- 
ceeded in obtaining the submission of that province, which was nearly inde- 
pendent of the Porte. Named in 1848 to the command of the army, sent 
to the Danubian provinces, he made the authority of the Sultan respected, 
while at the same time he respected the susceptibilities and the privileges 
of those provinces, placed, as they were, under the double protection of 
Russia and Turkey. The year 1851 was the most brilliant period of the 
military career of Omar Pasha. Named commander-in-chief of Bosnia, 
the principal chiefs of which had refused to recognize Tanzimat — that is, 
the new organization of his empire — he combatted successfully, though with 
an inferior force, the Beys of that country. At last he was sent to Mon- 
tenegro, where he found himself for the first time commanding an army of 
30,000 men. The intervention of Austria, as is known, put a term tc 
that expedition before decisive operations could be commenced. At the 
present date, Omar Pasha is at the head of nearly 100,000 men in the 
Crimea. 




OMAR PASHA 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 753 



EDWARD EVERETT. 

Edward Everett, an American orator, scholar, and diplomatist, was 
born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in April 1794. His father was a re- 
spectable clergyman in Boston ; and his elder brother was minister at the 
court of Spain. He received his early education at Boston, and entered 
Harvard college when little more than thirteen years old, leaving it with 
first honors four years later, undecided as to a pursuit for life. He turned 
his attention for two years to the profession of divinity ; but, in 1814, he 
was invited to accept the new professorship of Greek literature at Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, with permission to visit Europe. He accepted the 
office ; and, before entering on its duties, embarked at Boston for Liver- 
pool. He passed more than two years at the famous university of Gottin- 
gen, engaged in the study of the German language and the branches 
of learning connected with his department. He passed the winter of 
1817-18 at Paris. The next spring he again visited London, and passed 
a few weeks at Cambridge and Oxford. While in England, he acquired 
the friendship of some of the most eminent men of the day ; among others, 
of Scott, Byron, Jeffrey, Campbell, Mackintosh, Romilly, and Davy. In 
the autumn of 1818, he returned to the continent, and divided the winter 
between Florence, Rome, and Naples. In the spring of 1819, he made a 
short tour in Greece. Mr. Everett came home in 1819, and entered at 
once upon the duties of his professorship. Soon after his return, he became 
the editor of the ' North American Review,' a journal, which, though 
supported by writers of great ability, had acquired only a limited circula- 
tion. Under its new editor, the demand increased so rapidly that a second 
and sometimes a third edition of its numbers was required. One of his 
first cares as editor was, to vindicate American principles and institutions 
against a crowd of British travelers and critics, who were endeavoring to 
bring them into contempt. The spirit with which he performed his task 
checked this system of assault; and Campbell, who had inadvertently 
admitted into ' The New Monthly Magazine ' a paper of the same descrip- 
tion, made a handsome amende. In 1824, Mr. Everett delivered the 
annual oration before the Phi-Beta-Kappa Society, at Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts. The entire discourse was favorably received ; but the peroration, 
being an apostrophe to Lafayette, who was present, touched a chord of 
sympathy in an immense audience, already excited by the unusual circum- 
stances of the occasion. This was the first of a series of orations and 
addresses delivered by Everett on public occasions of almost every kind 
during a quarter of a century, and lately collected in two volumes. Up 
to 1824, he had taken no active interest in politics ; but his articles in the 
review had evinced his acquaintance with the wants and spirit of the 
nation, and his recent oration had brought him prominently before the 
public. The constituency of Middlesex, Massachusetts, without any solic- 
itation on his part, returned him to congress by a great majority over the 
regular candidate. For ten years he sat in congress, and proved himself 
a working member, never taking advantage of his superior powers to detain 
the house with oratorical display, but taking part in every debate of impor- 
tance. In 1835, he retired from congress, and was for four successive 
years chosen governor of Massachusetts. In 1839, he was again a candi- 
48* 



754 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

date for the same honor, but was defeated on local questions by a majority 
of one out of more than 100,000 votes. In 1841, he was appointed to 
represent the United States at the court of St. James, a position for 
which he was peculiarly qualified by his knowledge of the European 
tongues, and his acquaintance with the then mooted boundary question. 
Although the secretaryship of state at Washington was held by four differ- 
ent statesmen, of various politics, during Everett's mission, he enjoyed 
the confidence and approbation of all. His firmness, high intelligence, 
and assiduous habits, won him great respect in England ; and his scholar 
ship was recognized in the bestowal of the degree of D. C. L. by the uni- 
versities of Oxford and Cambridge. He returned to America in 1845, 
and was chosen president of Harvard college, which office he resigned in 
1849. He now lives at Boston, employed on his promised ' Treatise on 
the Law of Nations.' 

WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783, 
in which place his father, William Irving, had been settled as a merchant 
some twenty years. After receiving an ordinary school education, at the 
age of sixteen, he commenced the study of the law. Three years later he 
contributed, under the signature of Jonathan Oldstyle, a series of letters 
to the 'Morning Chronicle,' a newspaper of which his brother, Peter 
Irving, was editor. These juvenile essays attracted much notice at the 
time, were extensively copied by other journals, and in 1823 or 1824 were 
collected and published without the sanction of the author. In 1804, in 
consequence of ill health, he sailed for Bordeaux on a visit to Europe, and 
traveled through the south of France to Nice, where he took a felucca to 
Genoa, in which city he remained some two months. He then went by 
sea to Sicily, made the tour of the island, crossed from Palermo to Naples, 
passed through Italy, meeting Allston at Rome, who strongly recommended 
his devoting himself to art, thence over the St. Gothard, through Switzer- 
land to Paris, where he remained several months. He then went to 
Holland, whence he embarked for England, where he spent part of the 
autumn, and returned to New York in March, 1806, completely restored 
to health. He again resumed the study of the law, and was admitted to 
the bar in November of that year, but never practiced. Shortly after he 
took the chief part in ' Salmagundi,' the first number of which appeared 
in January, 1807, and the last in January, 1808. In December the 
following year, he published his ' Knickerbocker's History of New York.' 
In 1810, two of his brothers, who were engaged in commercial business, 
one being at the head of the establishment in New York, and the other in 
Liverpool, gave him an interest in the concern, with the understanding 
that he was not to enter into the duties and details of the business, but 
pursue his literary avocations. During the war with Great Britain, in 
1813-14, he edited the 'Analectic Magazine,' and in the fall of the latter 
year, joined the military staff of the governor of the state of New York, as 
aid-de-camp, and military secretary, with the title of colonel. On the 
close of the war, May, 1815, he embarked for Liverpool, with the intention 
of making a second tour of Europe, but was prevented by the sudden and 
great reverses which followed the return of peace, overwhelming, after a 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 755 

struggle of two or three years, in which Mr. Irving took an active part to 
avert the catastrophe, the house in which his brothers had given him an 
interest, and involving him in its ruin. In 1818, he determined to try his 
pen as a means of support, and commenced the papers of the ' Sketch- 
Cook,' which were transmitted piecemeal from London, where he resided, 
to New York for publication. Three or four numbers were thus published, 
when, finding that they attracted notice in England, he had them published 
in a volume, February, 1820, by Mr. John Miller ; but he failing shortly 
after, the work was transferred to Mr. Murray, with a second volume, 
published in July of that year. Mr. Murray had bought the copyright for 
£200, but its success far surpassing his expectations, he sent Mr. Irving, 
of his own accord, first £100, and the sale still increasing, an additional 
£100. After a residence of five years in England, Mr. Irving removed 
to Paris in August, 1820, and remained there till July of the following 
year, when he returned to England and published his ' Bracebridge Hall' 
in London and New York in May, 1822. The following winter he passed 
in Dresden, returned to Paris in 1823, and crossed to London in May, 
1824, to publish his ' Tales of a Traveler,' which appeared in August of 
that year in two volumes, and in four parts in New York. In August, he 
returned to Paris, and in the autumn of 1825, visited the south of France, 
spending part of the winter in Bordeaux. In February, 1826, he left 
that city for Madrid, where he remained two years. Here he wrote the 
life of ' Columbus,' which appeared in 1828. In the spring of 1828, he 
left Madrid on a tour to the south of Spain, visiting Granada and the main 
points mentioned in the ' Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada, by Fray 
Agapida,' of which he had made a rough sketch. This he prepared for 
the press at Seville, and transmitted to London and New York for publica- 
tion; it appeared in 1829. In the spring of this year he again visited 
Granada, and resided some three months in the Alhambra, where he 
collected materials for the work published under that name in 1832. In 
July he went to England, being appointed secretary of legation to the 
American embassy in London, which office he held until the return of Mr. 
M'Lane in 1831, when, after remaining a few months as charge, he 
resigned, on the arrival of Mr. Van Buren. While in England, in 1830, 
Mr. Irving received one of the fifty-guinea gold-medals, provided by 
George IV, for eminence in historical composition ; the other was awarded 
to Mr. Hallam, the historian. In 1831, the university of Oxford conferred 
on Mr. Irving the degree of LL.D. In the spring of 1832, he returned 
to New York, after an absence of seventeen years. His return was 
greeted on all hands with the warmest enthusiasm ; a public dinner was 
given to him, at which Chancellor Kent presided ; and similar testimonials 
were offered in other cities, but which he declined. In the summer of this 
year he accompanied Mr. Ellsworth, one of the commissioners for removing 
the Indian tribes west of the Mississippi, and whom he had met on a tour 
to the west, on his expedition. The most interesting portion of this 
journey has appeared in the * Tour on the Prairies,' published in 1835. 
This was followed in the same year by ' Abbotsford and News.tead Abbey,' 
and ' Legends of the Conquest of Spain.' In 1836 he published ' Astoria,' 
and in the following year he published ' The Adventures of Captain Bonne- 
ville.' In 1839 he entered into an engagement which lasted two years, 
with the proprietors of the ' Knickerbocker Magazine,' to furnish monthly 



756 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

articles for that periodical. In February, 1842, he received, unsolicited, 
the appointment of minister to Spain. He left for Madrid on the 10th of 
April of that year. His official duties terminating in the summer of 1846, 
he returned to this country, and, in 1848, commenced the publication of a 
revised edition of his works which had long been out of print. In 1849 
he published ' Oliver Goldsmith, a Biography,' and ' Mahomet and his 
Successors,' 1849-50. He has recently published a life of Washington. 
Mr. Irving is essentially the man of his works, genial, warm-hearted, and 
benevolent ; so much so, that all who see him would be apt to forget the 
author in the man. He has a countryseat, ' Sunnyside,' on the banks of 
the Hudson, twenty-five miles from the city of New York, which is now 
his home. 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

William Cullen Bryant, an American journalist and poet, was born 
at Cummington, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, November 3d, 1794. 
His forefathers, for three generations, were medical men ; but this family 
penchant for physic did not exist, apparently, in the case of our poet, who 
changed the professional current by becoming a lawyer. For ten years he 
followed the tortuous course of legal practice, but at last gave it up for the 
more genial profession of literature. In 1808, Mr. Bryant published a 
little collection of poems, written before he had completed his fourteenth 
year, entitled, ' The Embargo, and other Poems.' In 1821, he published 
at Cambridge, Massachusetts, the volume entitled, ' The Ages, and other 
Poems.' In 1825, he came to New York, when he became one of the 
editors of the ' New York Review' (which, however, had but a short exist- 
ence), and published several poems and tales, which quickly became popu- 
lar. From this point he went on successfully, writing in the chief periodical 
publications, in conjunction with some of the leading American authors of 
his day, and becoming, moreover, the -editor of a New York paper, the 
' Evening Post.' In 1834-35, and also in 1845, he traveled in Europe, 
writing descriptions of what he saw for his journal in America. Mr. Bry- 
ant again visited Europe in 1849, and on his return published his ' Letters 
of a Traveler,' being a resume of his tours in Europe and this country. 
He has gained a high reputation by his poems ; and his political writings in 
favor of free trade and free discussion, against monopolies of all kinds, are 
marked with clearness and vigor. He has labored earnestly to diffuse a 
taste for the fine arts in this country, and was president of the Apollo 
Association, prior to its incorporation as the American Art Union. 

GEORGE BANCROFT. 

George Bancroft, the distinguished American author and historian, was 
born at Worcester, Massachusetts, in the year of 1800. His father, who 
was himself an author and a doctor of divinity, gave to his son's mind the 
bent and disposition which in after-years conducted him to celebrity, posi- 
tion, and power. Not yet seventeen, Mr. Bancroft graduated at Harvard 
college, with honors, and soon entered upon a course of literary pursuits, 
having as their ultimate end the profession of a historian. In 1818, he 
went to Europe, and there studied at Gottingen and Berlin, enjoying the 
high advantages of the most thorough system of instruction and the society 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 757 

of distinguished and cultivated men. After an absence of four years, 
during which he traveled in England, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, 
he returned to the United States. His first sphere of labor was naturally 
in accordance with his previous life, and he was appointed tutor of Greek 
in Harvard college. A love of intellectual independence and the desire to 
engraft upon the academic system in New England the German method of 
instruction, led him in company with a literary friend, to separate labors in 
the field of instruction, which were pursued for some time in the interior 
of New England, but afterward abandoned for duties of a more public and 
permanent character. During the interval of severer labors, Mr. Bancroft 
made many contributions to American literature, especially from the stores 
of German thought and intellect, then comparatively sealed, even to edu- 
cated men in the United States. He early adopted decided political opin- 
ions, attaching himself to the democratic party, in whose behalf his first 
vote was cast. In 1826, in a public oration, afterward published, he 
announced as his creed 'universal suffrage and uncompromising democracy ;' 
and in the ranks of the liberal party he rose to political preferment and 
distinction rarely attained by one whose career at the outset was so purely 
that of a scholar. In 1834, Mr. Bancroft published the first volume of his 
'History of the United States,' a work to which he had long devoted his 
thoughts and researches and in which he laid the foundation of a reputa- 
tion at once permanent and universal. The first and two succeeding vol- 
umes of the work, comprising the colonial history of the country, were hailed 
with the highest satisfaction, as exhibiting for the first time, in a pro- 
found and philosophical manner, not only the facts but the ideas and prin- 
ciples of American history. In January, 1838, Mr. Bancroft received 
from President Van Buren the appointment of collecter of the port of Bos- 
ton, a post of more responsibility than profit, which he occupied until the 
year 1841, discharging its duties with a fidelity which proved that a man 
of letters may also be a man of business, in the strictest sense of the term. 
In 1844, he was the candidate of the democracy of Massachusetts for the 
office of governor of the state ; and though the party was in the minority, 
his unusually large vote, greater than that which any other democratic Can- 
dida te has since received, attested his popularity. In the spring of 1845, 
Mr. Bancroft was called by President Polk to a scat in the cabinet, and 
the administration of the navy department, over which he presided with an 
energy and efficiency which, notwithstanding the short period of his con- 
nection with it, perpetuated themselves in numerous reforms and improve- 
ments, of lasting utility to the naval service. In 1846, he was appointed 
minister-plenipotentiary to Great Britain, and there represented the United 
States, until succeeded by Mr. Abbott Lawrence, in 1849. In England, 
the prestige of Mr. Bancroft's literary reputation and his high social qual- 
ities contributed to enhance the popularity and respect which attached 
to him during his entire diplomatic career, which was one of complete 
satisfaction to the government which he represented and to that to which 
he was accredited. On his return, he fixed his residence in the city of 
New York, and resumed more actively the prosecution of his historical 
labors. The fourth volume of his history appeared early in 1852. It 
includes the opening scenes of the great drama of American independence, 
and amply sustains the interest and dignity of the work by which Mr. 
Bancroft has inseparably linked his name with the annals of his country. 



758 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 

William Hickling Prescott, an eminent American historian, was 
born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1796, the son of an able lawyer, and 
grandson of that Prescott who commanded our troops at Bunker's Hill. 
When he was twelve years of age his family removed to Boston, where 
Prescott has since resided, and where his classical training, begun in the 
place of his birth, was continued with success by Dr. Gardiner, a pupil of 
Dr. Parr. In 1811 he entered Harvard college, and was graduated there 
in 1814, with honors appropriate to his favorite studies, and with an in- 
tention to devote himself to the legal profession. But the great misfortune 
of his life had already befallen him. Before he had been graduated, 
an accidental blow had deprived him of the sight of one eye, and 
the natural consequences soon followed. The other became weakened by 
the increased labor thrown upon it ; and, after a severe illness, during which 
he was entirely blind, he found the sight of his remaining eye so much im- 
paired, that he was compelled to give up his professional studies and his 
hopes of success at the bar. The next two years he spent in Europe, tra- 
veling for his health in England, France, and Italy, and seeking the aid 
of the great oculists of London and Paris. He returned to America with 
renovated health, but for his misfortune found no relief. Still he was not 
disheartened, but turned with alacrity to those studies which remained yet 
within his reach. He resolved to become, in the best sense of the word, 
a historian, and freely gave himself ten years to prepare for the task, by 
a course of the classical reading he had always loved. He then selected 
his subject, and, having done this, gave ten years more to his 'History of 
Ferdinand and Isabella, ' one of the few important periods in the affairs of 
modern Europe that seemed to invite the hand of a master. With this 
great work, in 1838, at the age of forty-two, he appeared before the world 
as an author, publishing simultaneously in London and Boston. It was re- 
ceived on both sides of the Atlantic, with unhesitating applause. It has 
since run through many editions, and been translated into German, Italian, 
French, and Spanish. During his labor on this work, Mr. Prescott's vis- 
ion had been somewhat improved by a diminution of the sensibility which 
had led to earlier inflammations, and which had compelled him to live in a 
darkened apartment, relying entirely on a reader when collecting his ma- 
terials. His ' Conquest of Mexico, ' therefore, first printed in 1843, 
though prepared largely from manuscript documents, was perhaps a work 
of less troublesome toil than his first had been. The prompt honors that 
it received were even more brilliant than those paid to the ' Ferdinand 
and Isabella, ' and having before been admitted to several of the distin- 
guished academies of Europe, he was now elected a member of the French 
institute. His 'Conquest of Peru ' appeared in 1847. It is marked by 
the same striking events which distinguished its predecessors, and is, with 
the exception of a volume of collated miscellanies, his last work. It is 
understood that he is now engaged in writing a ' History of Philip II. ' 
In 1850 he made a short visit to England, where he was received with 
marked kindness and respect by whatever is most distinguished in society 
and letters, and where the ancient university of Oxford conferred on him the 
honorary degree of doctor in the civil law. 



BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. 759 



HIRAM POWERS. 



Hiram Powers, sculptor, was born in Woodstock, Vermont, July 29, 
1805. He was the eighth child of a family of nine, and his parents were 
plain country people, who cultivated a little farm. He acquired such educa- 
tion as the district school afforded, and he also found leisure to get some 
knowledge of divers kinds of handicraft, among which was the art of 
drawing. His father finding it difficult to maintain his family upon his 
farm removed to Ohio, where he shortly after died, and the future artist 
was thrown upon his own resources. He set out for Cincinnati to seek his 
fortune, and found employment in a reading-room connected with one of 
the principal hotels of the city, and afterwards became clerk in a produce 
store, where he remained until his principal failed. He then found a 
situation with a clockmaker, by whom he was employed in collecting debts, 
and afterwards in the mechanical part of the business ; but, although this 
employment was not disagreeable to him, he aspired to some higher branch 
of the arts. In Cincinnati, he made the acquaintance of a Prussian, who 
was engaged upon a bust of general Jackson, and with some little instruc 
tion in the art of modeling obtained from him, Mr. Powers was soon able 
to produce busts in plaster of considerable merit , in fact one of his ear ■ 
liest he has declared, himself, to have been unsurpassed in likeness and 
finish by any of his later works. He then felt that his vocation was 
the arts, and he formed a connection with the Western Museum at Cincin- 
nati, where, for about seven years, he superintended the artistic department, 
such as wax-work shows etc. After leaving this place he visited Wash- 
ington in 1835, hoping to gain some reputation as an artist, which would 
enable him to increase his business, and furnish him the means of visiting 
Italy. In this he was not disappointed. After spending some time in the 
capital engaged in taking the busts of the most eminent men of the day, 
he was enabled, by the liberality of Mr. N. Longworth, to accomplish his 
long-cherished scheme ; and in 1837 he landed in Florence. For some 
time after his arrival he continued to devote himself principally to busts, 
but he soon determined to employ his spare time on the production of an 
ideal work; the subject determined upon was 'Eve.' Just before the 
model of this statue was completed, Mr. Powers received a visit from the 
celebrated Thorwalsden, who was then passing through Florence. He 
expressed himself in terms of high admiration of the artist's busts; and, 
in reference to these, declared Powers to be the greatest sculptor since 
Michael Angelo. The statue of ' Eve' also excited his admiration : and 
to the artist's apology that it was his first statue, he replied that any man 
might well be proud of it, as his last. When the model of ' Eve' was 
completed, he began the ' Greek Slave,' which was finished in eight months. 
This, the best known and most admired of all Mr. Powers' works, has 
been exhibited throughout the United States, and at the Great Exhibition 
at London. There are two copies in existence besides the original, one of 
which recently formed one of the prizes distributed by the Western Art- 
Union. Among some of his finest works are portraits of Jackson, Web- 
ster, Adams, Calhoun, Chief-Justice Marshall and many persons of less em- 
inence. He has also produced some ideal busts; the 'Proserpine' is one 
of the finest. 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OP NAVAL ARCHITECTURE. 



From the semi-barbarous epoch of the middle ages to the present cen- 
tury, which has seen the birth of steam navigation, the form and rig of 
vessels have undergone many modifications. We are about to give a rapid 
historical sketch of these, quoting, as far as possible, those types of naval 
architecture celebrated in preceding centuries. Still, we are hardly per- 
mitted to go back farther than the ninth century, where we find some cer- 
tain ideas respecting the Scandinavian vessels. Before this period all is 
confusion, and leaves us full of uncertainty. We know well that the 
ancient Trireme gave birth to a sort of row-galleys known in the fifth cen- 
tury by the name of Dromons ; but we have no positive details respecting 
the precise form of these vessels. In the sixth century, the Emperor 
Maurice, in a treatise on the military art, spoke of them as vessels partic- 
ularly contrived for battle. Three hundred years later, the Emperor Leo, 
who wrote on the same subject, said that the dromon was long, and broad 
in proportion to its length, and that it carried on each side two banks of 
oars, one above the other, of twenty-five each ; but nothing further to 
enlighten us. As for the Norman vessels from the ninth to the twelfth 
century, we know the draJcar (dragon), which was as much of a dragon 
as the ancient Pristis was a whale — that is to say, that at the summit of 
her prow rose a figure carved into a dragon, and that her form had some- 
thing that resembled a serpent. All of the dragons were not of the same 
size. The dragon of Alaf Tryggrasson is spoken of in cotemporary his- 
tories as the giant of Scandinavian vessels. 

Never was one seen larger, finer, or more imposing in bulk and decora- 
tion. She had thirty-four oars on each side. If the tradition is accurate, 
she must have been as long as the galleys of the sixteenth century. It 
was, it will be seen, a vessel of considerable importance ; for galleys with 
twenty-six oars only were about one hundred and thirty feet long. The 
dragons were built to resist a sea more stormy than the Mediterranean. 
Consequently they had broad sides and a vast stern, so as to have a firm 
seat on the water. They were flatbottomed, and drew very little water. 
Besides the draker, the Scandinavians had the sekkar, or serpent vessel, 
which had twenty benches of rowers. Its form differed little from that of 
the dragon. It was only shorter, shallower and narrower. All Norman 
vessels were alike in bow and stern. But some war vessels had a little 
building on the poop called the castle. This castle was a little embattled 
platform, where the archers and slingers were placed. It would be difficult 
to tell precisely what the internal arrangements of the Scandinavian vessels 



7u2 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



were. The smallest were not probably decked. As for the larger 
ones, they doubtless had a deck like the galleys ; and beneath this deck a 
hold, apportioned according to their wants, to rooms, magazines and stables 
for their horses. The Scandinavian vessels had only one mast, with a vane 




Tenth Century. — A Norman Vessel. 



and four or five shrouds. The sail was square, attached to a yard, fur- 
nished with sheets at its lower angles, and managed by two braces that 
belayed aft. The yard had a halyard passing through a block at the mast 




2. Twelfth Centurt. — Gallet, three rowers to Bench. 

head. As for the rudder, it consisted of two blades, large, crutchhandled 
oars, near the stern, on the right, and also left of the vessel. The anchors 
of the Normans were like oars, but they did not have that cross-bar of 
wood we call the stock. In the twelfth century we see the galleys, accord 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 



763 



ing to Wenesalf, which were only little light dromons, built particularly 
for speed, and having only one tier of oars. The following is a textual pass- 
age from this writer relating to them : — 'What the ancients called Uburnus, 
the moderns have named galley. It is a ship of no great depth, armed at 




3. Thirteenth Century. — Ship of St. Louis. 

the prow with a motionless piece of wood, vulgarly called calcar (spur), 
an instrument with which the galley pierces the enemy's ships that she 
strikes.' A diminutive of the galley was the galleon, which, being shorter 




4. Thirteenth Century. — A Galley. 



and swifter, was better suited for discharging the Greek fire. For the 
rest, starting from this invention, the action of the shock of the calcar was 
by degrees replaced by the hand to hand struggle. 



764 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



Among the galleys, which afterwards gave birth to the galea grossa, in 
assuming more capacity and more amplitude, some were manoeuvred by 
two oars to the bench, others three. It is even certain that, at a later 




5. Fifteenth Century. — Smrs of Christopher Columbus. 

period, in the sixteenth century, the strongest ones had as many as five 
oars, which appears incredible. The galleys possessed only one mast, 
which was stepped rather forward — that is, in the first third of the vessel. 




6. Fifteenth Century. — A Carrack. 



In the thirteenth century, the fleet which St. Louis took with him towards 
the Holy Land, gives proof of the thorough modifications which naval 
structures have undergone. St. Louis could only collect the eighteen 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 



765 



hundred vessels which composed his fleet, without recourse to the marine 
of neighboring states — Genoa and Venice among others. Now, the con- 
tracts for hire he exchanged with Venice for many vessels, give us infor 




Venetian Galeass. 



mation with respect to one called the St. Mary, represented in the engraving. 
This vessel had two decks and two masts. It possessed two poops, placed 
above each other, two platforms, an upper deck, and a fighting gallery of 
four or five feet overhanging the poop. This ship, manned by one hundred 




8. Seventeenth Century. — The Great Harry. 



and ten sailors, was one hundred feet long. The same contracts give us 
also information concerning another vessel, called the Rochefort. Although 
not so long as the St. Mary, she was stronger and broader. She had two 



766 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



rudders; one to starboard, and the other to larboard. Her sparring 
consisted, also, of two masts ; one at the prow, and the other amidships. 
The mainmast was smaller and lower than the foremast. It had only 
twenty-six braces, while the other had twenty-eight. The sails of almost 
all the fleet were of cotton. All the sails were rectangular triangles with 
the hypothenuse attached to the yard, and were called antennal. Still, 
it is proper to mention the assertion of some authors, that the sails of St. 
Louis' vessels were square. Their assertions were only founded on the 
form and dimensions of the yards, which all the documents of the time 
represent as very long and slung by the middle. We ought to observe 
that, in speaking of the St. Mary and the Rochefort, Venetian ships, we 




9. Seventeenth Century. — Store Ship. 



have indirectly spoken of naval constructions coming from the ports of 
France and those of other European countries. At this period, all vessels, 
Genoese, Castilian, French, etc., resembled each other; and to be acquaint- 
ed with one was to know all. The galleys of the thirteenth century were 
thus somewhat changed. Lighter, sharper than those of the preceding 
century, in the fourteenth, the kind called ' subtle galleys,' were observed 
to preponderate. These galleys, extremely light and swift, were furnished 
on each side with from twenty-four to twenty-six oars, and might have 
been from one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty feet in length. 
Still, in the fourteenth century, and even in the fifteenth and sixteenth, 
the most celebrated ships were the carracks. Their tonnage may be esti- 
mated by their cargoes, which sometimes amounted to fourteen hundred 
casks. 

In 1359, the Castilians took a Venetian carrack, which had three 
' covers' (decks), and must consequently have been as high as the great 
storeships of the seventeenth century. In 1545, a French carrack, the 
Carraquon, which passed for the finest ship and fastest sailer of the west 
ern ocean, was of eight hundred tons burthen, and had one hundred pieces 
of artillery of all calibers for armament. The carracks of the fourteenth 
century had only two masts ; in the fifteenth, they took three, and after 




10. Seventeenth Century. — A Galley. 




11. Seventeenth Century.— The Gale ass 



'<>8 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



wards four. At first three-decked, they finally reached as high as seven 
decks. The poop and prow were the height of three or four men above 
the deck, and looked like castles raised at each of the extremities. The 




12. Seventeenth Century. — The Sovereign op the Seas. 

castles mounted each from thirty-five to forty guns. In the galleys, the 
employment of fire-arms did not effect material changes ; the prow alone, 
somewhat shortened, was armed with a gun mounted on a mass of wood 




13. Seventeenth Century. — The Royal Sun. 

destined for its recoil, and extending amidships through the whole length 
of the vessel. This piece of wood was called the coursie, and the gun 
placed upon it the courser. At the sides, upright carriages supported a 




14. Seventeenth Century. — Sea-Going Craft. 




15. Seventeenth Century. — Mediterranean Craft. 



49* 



770 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



few falconets and other pieces of small ordnance. The gaceass, origina- 
ting in the galea grossa, as the latter did in the galley, carried, as well as 
the carrack and other ships, a castle at the bow and a castle at the stern. 
In the former, there were twelve guns in three tiers ; in the latter, ten 
only in two tiers. She had thirty-two benches of rowers, and between 





, mm - 



16. Seventeenth Century. — Long Barque. 

each of her benches rose a swivel on a point. This, it will be perceived, 
was a formidable armament. The galeass had three masts and lateen 
sails. The Venetians made great use of this vessel. Their famous 
Bucentaur belonged to this class. At the end of the fifteenth century, 
when Christopher Columbus armed his vessels at Palos, he formed his lit- 
tle flotilla exclusively of caravels. Now, this name of caravel, which in 




Seventeenth Century. — Ocean, Line of Battle Ship. 



the outset belonged only to a common barque, was at this time borne by a 
vessel of considerable, but not extraordinary size. The caravel had four 
masts ; the forward one with a square sail surmounted by a topsail, the 
three others each carrying a lateen sail. These sails enabled the caravel 
to manoeuvre well, and she was as prompt to handle as the French tartane, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 771 

much renowned at that epoch. She came about as quickly as if she had 
been a row-boat. She had but one deck, and very little carrying capa 3ity. 
Still, if the caravels of Christopher Columbus were smaller than those of a 
later period, at the close of the sixteenth century, they were large enough 
to contain ninety seamen and the provision necessary for a long voyage. 
The flag ship of Columbus was called the Santa Maria ; the two other, La 
Pinta and La Nina. A passage in the journal of Columbus himself, gives 
a detail of the canvass of the Santa Maria. ' The wind,' says he, ' became 
mild and manageable, and I set all the sails of the vessel — the mainsail 
with the two studding sails, the foresail, the spritsail, the mizzen and the 
topsail.' The caravels then had, like all the great vessels of the period, a 
castle at the bow and a castle at the stern. They made, on an average, 
six knots an hour. Columbus was only thirty-five days in going from 
Palos to San Salvador — an ordinary passage even in these days of quick 
sailing. The sixteenth century was an epoch of progress for the marine ; 
England particularly gave it the onward impulse. Meanwhile, an impor- 
tant invention, that of gun-ports, was due to a Frenchman, of Brest, named 
Descharges. The system then adopted for the arrangement of batteries 
has never since been changed, and exists to the- present time. Historians 
and antiquaries have taken great pains to arrive at a knowledge of the 
forms of ships of war at this period. The documents written and drawn 
are, some so confused, others so deficient in proportion and perspective, 
that it is difficult to understand them. 

Still, as some authentic details respecting the Great Harry are known, 
this ship may serve to give an idea of the navy of the sixteenth century ; 
and we have accordingly presented our readers with an engraving of this 
formidable vessel. Up to the seventeenth century, one model seems to 
have prevailed in all naval constructions. The Spaniards and the Portu- 
guese followed the example of the Venetians ; the Dutch and the northern 
nations derived their nautical knowledge from the same sources ; the Eng- 
lish themselves, so jealous of their naval supremacy, received their lessons 
in improving and strengthening their embarkations from Italian masters. 
They were accustomed to place at the extremity of the prow a sculptured 
figure, which served to distinguish the vessels of one nation from another. 
The Venetians adopted a bust from preference ; the Spaniards, a lion ; the 
English, especially after the accession of the Stuarts, the figures of the 
reigning monarch, either on horseback, or riding on a lion. The stern, 
above the cabin windows, presented a plane surface or tablet, with aper- 
tures for light and air, starboard and larboard. On Venetian, Spanish and 
Portuguese stern some saint or hero was placed. Other nations had only 
the arms of their respective states. Before the end of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, some Portuguese and Spanish vessels carried as many as eighty guns 
mounted on carriages. At this period, the strongest vessel of the English 
navy carried but fifty guns or pieces deserving that name. The ' Sovereign 
. of the Seas,' built in 1637, at Woolwich, Kent, ' to the great glory of His 
Britannic Majesty,' as a cotemporary description we have before us declares, 
was decorated in a style of regal magnificence. On her bow washing 
Edgar, on horseback, trampling on seven kings ; on the stern, a cupid on 
a lion ; and grouped together, at the bow, six statues, representing Coun- 
sel, Prudence, Perseverance, Strength, Courage and Victory. _ On the 
quarter-deck, four figures, with their attributes, Jupiter, with his eagle, 



772 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Mars, with sword and shield, Neptune, with his sea-horse, and Eolus on a 
cameleon. On the stern, a Victory displayed her wings, and bore a scroll 
with this device : Validis incumbite remis. This vessel had two galleries 
on each side. These galleries, as well as the whole vessel, were covered 
with trophies, emblems and scutcheons, of all kinds. Her length from 
stem to stern was 232 feet. She carried five lanterns, one of which, the 
largest, could contain ten persons, standing, with ease. She had three 
decks running from stem to stern, a forecastle-deck, a half-deck, a quarter- 
deck, and a poop-deck. Her armament was as follows : thirty ports, with 
large and small guns, in the lower battery ; thirty ports, with culverins, in 
the second battery; twelve ports in the forecastle, and fourteen on the 
half-deck ; finally, thirteen or fourteen swivels, a multitude of port-holes 
for musketry, ten bow-chasers, and as many stern-chasers. There were 
twelve anchors. 'The Sovereign of the Seas,' says Charnock, ' was the 
first large vessel constructed in England. Splendor and magnificence were 
particularly kept in view in building her. She was in some sort the occa- 
sion of the serious complaints made of the expenses of the navy in the 
reign of Charles I. Cut down one deck, she became one of the best ships 
of war in the whole world.' It is certain that the suppression of this deck, 
and the lowering of her deck-cabin, gave her more stability than she had 
at first. Now, for speed, what she gained in strength by these changes 
was compensated by the length added to her masts. Topsails at this pe- 
riod were an important addition to ships. Old engravings show us the ves- 
sels of the sixteenth century sailing generally under their courses. After 
the building of the Sovereign of the Seas, this only occurred in particular 
cases and certain conditions of the elements. Captain Phineas Pett di- 
rected the work of building and afterwards improving the Sovereign of the 
Seas. A learned engineer, he deserves the credit of having done-more 
than any one else to give an impulse to the English navy. The artillery 
was strengthened, and the crews larger, and better lodged. The entire 
navy felt this progress. The Sovereign of the Seas gauged 1637 tons, a 
thing which, according to a historian of the time, deserved the attention 
of the whole world, since it represented exactly the date of her launch. 
Notwithstanding the thrice-fortunate augury which the historian saw in 
this coincidence, the Sovereign of the Seas met with the fate of the Great 
Harry. She was destroyed, like the latter, by fire, in a ship-yard, where 
she was being repaired, in 1696, after sixty years' service. Observe here 
that Fuller, in his history of the ' Wonders of England,' acknowledges that 
at the commencement of the seventeenth century, the Dunkirkers furnished 
the models of the best vessels built at this period in the British ports. 

When Louis XIV became king of France, there was no French navy, 
properly speaking. Voltaire asserts that in 1664 a few frigates and a 
line-of-battle ship, in poor condition, constituted the entire force. After 
the siege of La Rochelle, Richelieu, jealous of the growth of the English 
navy, had given a sort of impulse to naval ideas by arming immediately 
fifty ships and twenty galleys ; but the effect of this impulse was merely 
momentary. Colbert was the true creator of the French navy. Under 
him, in less than five years, France possessed a triumphant maritime force. 
The most renowned of the French ships at this period was the Royal Sun. 
This vessel was constructed partly on French, and partly on Dutch princi- 
ples. She was 1600 tons, 150 feet long, 48 broad, and 16 deep. She 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 773 

carried three lanterns on the poop. As the flag-ship, she carried at the 
main the white standard, embroidered with the fleurs-de-lys, and the 
French coat of arms surrounded the orders of St. Michael and the Holj 
Ghost. The decorations of the Royal Sun surpassed everything before or 
since. A model of this ship is contained in the naval museum of the 
Louvre, at Paris. The Royal Sun mounted 120 guns in three batteries 
complete, with stern and bow guns. 

The seventeenth century was perhaps the most brilliant period in the 
history of galleys. Those of France were commanded by a general. 
There were two kinds of them, the ordinary and the extraordinary. The 
ordinary had only twenty-six oars, and twenty-six benches on each side ; 
the extraordinary had often thirty-two. There was no difference of model 
between them, their dissimilarity only resulting from their relative sizes. 
All were extremely long, low and narrow. They carried only two masts 
and lateen sails. The armament consisted of five guns forward and two 
swivels. These swivels were attached to the sides of the galley to prevent 
the recoil. There were generally at least five rowers to each oar, the oars 
being very long and very heavy. Between the rowers' benches and the 
sides of the ship there was a space where the soldiers were stationed. 
Soldiers to fight, sailors to manoeuvre, and a gang composed of galley- 
slaves, or Turkish prisoners, made up the crews of the galleys. 

Naval architecture, in the course of the eighteenth century, advanced in 
model, sparring and rigging of vessels. Two deckers with fifty guns were 
superseded by frigates carrying the same number of pieces in one battery. 
The following were the dimensions generally adopted for the different 
classes of vessels: For first class vessels, one hundred and sixty four to one 
hundred and eighty-six feet in length, forty-seven to fifty feet in breadth, 
twenty-three to twenty-five feet in depth ; for second class vessels, one 
hundred and fifty-six to one hundred and seventy in length, forty-three to 
forty-seven in breadth, twenty and a half to twenty-three in depth ; for 
third class vessels one hundred and fifty to one hundred and sixty in length, 
forty-two to forty-three in breadth, twenty to twenty and a-half in depth ; 
for fourth class vessels, one hundred and thirty-five to one hundred and 
fifty in length, thirty-five to forty in breadth, seventeen to twenty in depth ; 
for fifth class vessels, one hundred and two to one hundred and thirty in 
length, thirty-three to thirty-four in breadth, thirteen to seventeen in 
depth; for sixth class vessels, sixty to seventy in length, eighteen to twenty 
in breadth, nine to ten in depth. Among the considerable changes in con- 
struction, the first that strikes the eye is the enormous augmentation of 
canvas. Never did ships carry so much sail. 

At the same time that ships of fifty guns became frigates, in their turn 
the light frigates — those, for instance, which carried from ten to twenty 
pieces of artillery — formed a new class of vessels, under the name of cor- 
vettes. The corvettes, at the beginning, had three masts, and their guns 
under cover. Afterwards, to increase their speed, they carried all their 
artillery on the upper deck. Later year, the mizzen-mast was abandoned 
in the smallest. This kind of corvette gave place to the brig-of-war. The 
bomb-galliot became a bomb-ketch, a sort of three-masted corvette, with 
platforms between the main and mizzen, and the main and fore masts. 
Yachts, galliots, gun-boats, armed some with a few light pieces, others 
with one heavy gun, complete the series of naval forces in use at the 



774 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

eighteenth century, except a few varieties peculiar to different seas and 
coasts. As for the fire-ship of the first part of the century, no mention is 
made of it at the close ; and if, since that time, certain infernal machines, 
more or less closely fashioned after the fire-ships, have made their appear- 
ance, they have only proved unfortunate attempts, and not answered the 
expectations of their contrivers. The Turks alone preserved these old 
warlike contrivances up to the present time ; and Navarino offered us, for 
the last time, the spectacle of a ship — the Scipio — engaged with a fire- 
ship Like the fire-ship, the ancient galley disappeared with the eighteenth 
century. In the Mediterranean, the three-masted barque has become the 
xebeck ; and we find, under the same appearance, all the embarkations 
spoken of in the preceding ages. The lateen vessels are those the least 
changed in appearance, because, from the simplicity of their rig, they 
sooner reached a stage bordering on perfection. 

The ship Ocean, represented in engraving (17), is an excellent speci- 
men of the science of the eighteenth century. Presented to Louis XIV, 
by the estates of Burgundy, nothing was spared to make the frigate wor- 
thy of its destiny. Built in 1760, it was modernized, and is still in exis- 
tence. 

EARLY MARITIME DISCOVERIES. 

The Portuguese were among the first to signalize themselves in the 
career of geographical discovery. At the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, Prince Henry, son of John I, was at the head of the marine of Por- 
tugal. Under his immediate direction, several voyages were undertaken 
to the coast of Africa ; in one of which the voyagers were driven by a 
storm out of their usual course along shore, and for the first time the terri- 
fied mariners found themselves in the boundless ocean. When the storm 
abated, they were in sight of an island, to which, in their thankfulness to 
Heaven for the succor it afforded, they gave the name of Puerto Sancto, 
or the Holy Haven — the least of the Madeiras. The voyages of the 
Portuguese now succeeded each other rapidly ; and other navigators of 
this nation, either grown bolder, or again driven off the coast, discovered 
the Azores. In 1433, the Portuguese passed Cape Nun, hitherto the limit 
of their courses, and arrived at a cape, which presenting a frightful bar- 
rier to the still timid seamen, in the terrible surf that broke on the shoals 
near it, they named Bojador, signifying its projection into the sea and the 
consequent circuit it required to double it. 

In succeeding expeditions, Cape Verd was reached, and the Senegal 
arrived at, and Lisbon saw with astonishment a different race from the 
Moors. Cape Mesurado was the limit of the Portuguese discoveries at 
the death of Prince Henry in 1463, which damping the ardor of discovery, 
it was not until 1471 that the Equator was crossed, and the islands in the 
gulf of Guinea were discovered. 

The terrors of the burning zone, and the belief of the union of Africa 
and Asia being dissipated by these successive voyages, the passage to 
India round Africa was no longer deemed impossible, and a fleet was fitted 
out under Bartholomew Diaz for the express purpose of attempting it. 
The captain coasted Africa to within sight of its southern point, to which 
lie gave the name of Cape of all Torments, from the violent storms he expe- 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 775 

nenced off it, and which, as well as the want of provisions, obliged him to 
return to Lisbon, after an absence of sixteen months. The name of the 
Cape of all Torments was changed bj the king to that of Good Hope, 
from the prospect it afforded of accomplishing the passage to India. 

Ten years however elapsed after the discovery of the Cape before this 
passage was attempted ; and Vasco de Gama had the honor of doubling 
the promontory the 20th of November, 1497. Sailing along the coast of 
Africa, he passed through the Mozambique Channel to Mombaz and thence 
to Melinda, where he procured pilots, and crossing the Arabian sea, arrived 
at Callicut the 22d of May, 1498. It is thought that the ridiculous cere- 
mony of ducking,etc, on crossing the line, was first practiced in this 
voyage. 

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

Christopher Columbo or Colon, better known by his Latinized name 
of Columbus, was born at Genoa about the year 1436. His father was 
a woolcomber, in not very affluent circumstances; although connected, 
according to some accounts, with persons of superior rank. Columbus 
was the eldest of a family of four. His two brothers, Bartholomew and 
Diego, will afterwards be mentioned in connection with his discoveries ; 
his sister married an obscure person of the name of Bavarello. 

Of the early life of Columbus very little is known. Considering the 
habits of the age, and the condition of his parents, he appears to have 
received a good education. While yet a mere child, he learned reading, 
writing, and arithmetic; he was also such a proficient in drawing and 
painting, that according to one of his biographers, he could have earned a 
livelihood by them. At an early age he went to the university of Padua, 
in Lombardy, then a celebrated school of learning. Here he acquired 
the Latin language, and devoted himself with zeal to the study of mathe- 
matics in all its branches, especially those connected with geography and 
navigation, towards which he seems to have been drawn from the first by 
an irresistible propensity. His stay at Padua connot have been long ; for 
in his fourteenth year he returned to his father's house in Genoa, where he 
is said to have pursued for some time the occupation of woolcombing. 
This, however, was far from his taste ; and he made choice of the seafaring 
profession. Genoa being at that time one of the greatest commercial cities 
in the world, the enthusiasm for maritime enterprise was universal amongst 
its inhabitants. A historian of the period speaks of the proneness of the 
Genoese youth to wander through the world in quest of riches, which they 
intended to return and spend in their native city : few, however, he says, 
were able to carry their intention into effect — not one in ten of those 
who left Genoa ever revisiting it. Of these adventurous youths, whose 
ambition to be sailors was nursed by the sight of the merchant-vessels 
landing their rich freights on the quays of Genoa, Columbus was one ; 
and, as we have already seen, his education was suitable for the mode of 
life he had chosen. 

At fourteen years of age Columbus left Genoa in the humble capacity 
of a sailor boy on board a Mediterranean trader ; and for many years, at 
first as a common sailor, and latterly as master of a vessel, he appears to 
have sailed along the Mediterranean from the Levant to Gibraltar, possibly 



776 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

also undertaking an occasional voyage to some of the northern countries of 
Europe, with which the Genoese merchants may have had dealings. In 
this undistinguished course of life he passed his youth ; and he does not 
come prominently into notice till he settled in Lisbon in 1470, when he 
was thirty-four years of age. At this period he is described as being 
above the middle size, and of strong muscular frame. His visage was 
long ; his nose aquiline ; his eyes of a bluish gray ; his complexion fair, 
but somewhat inflamed. His hair in youth was reddish, but before he was 
thirty years of age it had turned quite white. His habits were simple ; 
his manners grave and affable ; his temper, which was naturally irritable, 
he had subdued by the force of his will ; and in his attention to the observ- 
ances of religion, he was devout and enthusiastic. His acquirements were far 
beyond what might have been expected in one whose life had been spent at 
sea. Besides being a skillful navigator, he was well-informed in astronomy, 
geography, and all the general science of the age ; and while on shore, 
his leisure appears to have been spent in studying such scientific works as 
were within his reach. A marriage which he contracted about this period 
seems to have had some effect in determining his subsequent career. The 
lady to whom he became attached was Fe;ipa de Palestrello, the daughter 
of Bartolemeo de Palestrello, an Italian who had distinguished himself as 
a navigator in the Portuguese service. Marrying this young lady, Colum- 
bus obtained from her mother all the charts, journals, and memorandums 
of her late husband, the possession of which was a treasure to him. After 
his marriage he lived for many years as a humble citizen of Lisbon, earning 
a livelihood for himself and family by constructing maps and charts, or by 
making an occasional voyage in a Portuguese vessel to the Guinea coast, 
then the ultimate limit of African navigation. 

Columbus seems to have acted from deliberate choice in making Lisbon 
his place of residence. In no city in the world would the demand be so 
great at that time for maps and charts, or for persons skilled in any of the 
arts connected with navigation. Portugal had taken the lead of all the 
nations of Europe in maritime enterprise ; and for upwards of twenty 
years all the great discoveries which had been made by navigators of new 
coasts or islands had been effected under the auspices of the Portuguese 
government. 

The best result of Columbus' labors in drawing maps was, that he 
thereby became acquainted with the small extent of that part of the earth's 
surface known to geographers and navigators, as compared with the con- 
jectural extent of the whole. This fact appears to have made a deep im- 
pression on his mind, and to have been the germ of his future speculations. 
It was not long, however, before the idea began to assume a more definite 
shape. Like all the navigators of the time, he was full of the notion of 
discovering a new route to India, Cathay, or Cipango — the land of gold, 
and diamonds, and spices — which was supposed to lie in the east of Asia, 
and respecting which the most gorgeous fancies were entertained. There 
was this difference, however, between the speculations of Columbus and 
other navigators as to this imaginary route to India, that while they uni- 
versally followed Prince Henry in supposing that it was to be sought by 
sailing round Africa, he was employed in considering the possibility of 
effecting the same object by sailing due west across the Atlantic. This 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 777 

most original idea was fully formed in Columbus' mind before the year 
1474. 

The globular form of the earth had been for a considerable time known 
to all scientific men, and various calculations had been made as to its prob- 
able size. On this latter point all were at fault, the general supposition 
being, that the globe was much smaller than it is. Columbus, in pondering 
on its imaginary magnitude, arrived at the conviction that the Atlantic was 
a comparatively narrow sea, and that if any one were to push boldly across 
it, he would inevitably reach the shores of India. These ideas were con- 
firmed by the various rumors which prevailed of lands existing in the 
Atlantic to the west of Africa. Plato's fabled island of Atalantis was 
supposed to be a real country lying in that quarter. There were many 
traditionary recollections of mariners having been cast upon unknown 
shores when driven far out to sea by the violence of a storm. There were 
legends also of adventurers who had embarked in ships in the northern 
countries of Europe, and gone to seek homes across the Atlantic ; and of 
fugitive bishops and priests, who, to escape persecution in their own coun- 
try, had committed themselves to the waves, and been conducted by the 
hand of Providence to fertile and happy islands to the west of the Azores. 
Moreover, certain circumstances had come within Columbus' own knowl- 
edge, which seemed to argue the existence of land in that direction. 
Martin Vicenti, a pilot in the Portuguese service, had picked up a piece 
of carved wood floating in the ocean four hundred and fifty leagues west 
of St. Vincent, which, as the wind was westerly, he concluded must have 
come from some land opposite to Africa. Columbus' brother-in-law, Pedro 
Correa, had seen a similar piece of wood, which had drifted across the 
ocean from the same quarter ; and had also heard of large canes seen 
floating on the waves west of Madeira, apparently resembling the reeds 
known to be produced in the East Indies. It was likewise reported that, 
when the wind had blown long from the west, trunks of huge pine-trees 
were often cast ashore upon the Azores ; and that once two dead bodies, 
evidently the corpses neither of Europeans nor Africans, were driven upon 
the beach of the island of Flores. 

All these and many other arguments convinced Columbus that the East 
Indies could be reached by sailing westward from Gibraltar, or the west- 
ern coast of Africa. Every circumstance corroborative of this view which 
came to his knowledge he diligently noted down ; and at last the conviction 
became so strong, that he conceived himself to be expressly destined by 
God for the great work of discovering a new world. No doubt or hesita- 
tion remained in his mind ; and his only wish was to find the means of mak- 
ing the contemplated voyage. Once launched upon the Atlantic, he was 
absolutely certain that, after having sailed seven or eight hundred leagues 
to the west of the Canaries, he would come upon Marco Polo's island of 
Cipango, or the dominions of the great khan of Tartary. 

Impressed with these delusive convictions, Columbus was eager to make 
application to some of the governments of Europe for means to make a voy- 
age of discovery on the Atlantic. He first applied to John II, king of 
Portugal, who inherited the enterprising spirit of his grand-uncle, prince 
Henry, and in whose reign the means of finding the latitude at sea had 
been discovered. Columbus, without much difficulty, obtained an inter- 
view with the Portuguese monarch, to whom he explained his scheme of 



778 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

reaching the East Indies, not by the route round Africa, which all other 
navigators were pursuing, but by a shorter one across the Atlantic. Vari- 
ous accounts are given of the manner in which the proposal was received. 
John himself was a wise and magnanimous prince, and he appears to have 
been much impressed by the earnestness of the noble-looking foreigner who 
addressed him. Naturally cautious, however, of patronising an enterprise 
which might turn out to be a mere chimera, he referred the matter to some 
of his counselors, who dissuaded him from engaging in it. Still, such was 
the effect of Columbus' representations, that John did not at once dismiss 
the project. On the contrary, by a piece of meanness not agreeing with 
his general character, he followed the advice of some of his counselors, and 
having, on false pretenses, procured from Columbus a detailed plan of his 
contemplated voyage, with maps and charts to correspond, he secretly 
despatched a vessel to ascertain the practicability of the intended route. 
The vessel actually sailed a considerable way beyond the Cape Verd islands ; 
but a storm arising, the crew became afraid to venture farther, and put 
back, reporting that Columbus' notion was mad and irrational. 

Indignant at this unjust treatment, Columbus, whose wife had for some 
time been dead, secretly left Lisbon, taking with him his young son Diego. 
The reason for his leaving the city secretly is said by some to have been 
the fear of being prevented by the government ; by others, the fear of be- 
ing apprehended for debts which he was unable to pay. Proceeding to his 
native city of Genoa, he renewed an offer which he had previously made 
by letter, of conducting the enterprise under the patronage of the Genoese 
government — an offer which was contemptuously refused, Genoa being al- 
ready in the decline of her fortunes, and too broken-spirited to engage in 
any more bold enterprises. It is said that Columbus' next offer was made 
to the Venetian government ; which, however, is improbable. The usual 
account, also, of his sending his brother Bartholomew at this time to Eng- 
land to propose the scheme to Henry VII, is incorrect: it was not till the 
year 1488, when the negotiations with Spain had begun, that Bartholomew 
proceeded to England on this errand. 

Columbus' Negotiations in Spain. Spain was the country to which 
Columbus looked with the greatest hope after the rejection of his scheme 
by Portugal. No country at that time occupied the attention of Europe 
so much as Spain. By the marriage of Ferdinand II of Arragon, with Isa- 
bella of Castile, the whole of the peninsula, except Portugal, had been con- 
solidated into one powerful kingdom. Ruling separately over their dis- 
tinct territories — the wise, cold, and wary Ferdinand over his subjects of 
Arragon, and the generous and high-souled Isabella over hers of Castile — 
the two made it their common endeavor to promote the glory of Spain, and 
raise its reputation as one of the first powers of Christendom. They were 
at this time engaged in a war with Granada, the last of the Moorish king- 
doms in Spain ; and all their energies were occupied in the accomplishment 
of what was then regarded a noble and chivalrous enterprise — the entire 
expulsion of the Moors from the peninsula. Spain, accordingly, was then 
the land of daring deeds, and hither our poor Italian resolved to bend his 
steps, with the scheme of a new world. 

In Andalusia, one of the most southern of the Spanish provinces, and 
next to Granada, is an insignificant little seaport, of the name of Palos de 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 779 

Moguer. At a little distance from this village stood, and we believe still 
stands, a Franciscan convent, dedicated to Santa Marie de Rabido. One 
day, late in the year of 1485, a stranger on foot, accompanied by a little 
boy, stopped at the convent gate, and begged a little bread and water for 
his child. The stranger was of a noble aspect, venerable from his white 
hairs, and interesting from his foreign accent. While the porter of the 
convent was supplying him with what he had asked, the prior, Juan Perez 
de Marchena, chanced to pass, and, struck with the stranger's appearance, 
he entered into conversation with him. The stranger informed him that 
his name was Columbus, and that, with his son, he was on his way to the 
neighboring town of Huelua, where his brother-in-law resided. Inviting 
him into the convent, the prior soon learned the rest of his story ; and in- 
stantly conceiving a wonderful affection for the extraordinary man whom 
Providence had thus cast in his way, he insisted on his taking up his resi- 
dence with him until a fit time should arrive for proceeding to the court of 
the Spanish sovereigns. Himself a man of information and ability, Juan 
Perez entered heartily into Columbus' views, and sent for such scientific 
persons in the neighborhood as he thought would be able to form a judg- 
ment on the matter. Here, in the midst of a little club of listeners, gath- 
ered in the evenings in the comfortable apartment of the prior, did Columbus 
produce his charts and expound his project in the winter of 1485-6 ; and 
long afterwards, in the height of his fame, did the great navigator remem- 
ber Juan Perez, his first kind friend in Spain. 

Early in the year 1486 Columbus set out for Cordova, where the Span- 
ish court then resided, making preparations for a spring campaign against 
the Moors of Granada. He left his son Diego under the charge of the 
worthy prior, who, to add to his other kindnesses, furnished him with a 
letter of introduction to Fernando de Talavera, prior of Prado, and con- 
fessor of Queen Isabella — a man, therefore, of some importance, and 
likely to be of use to him. The letter proved of small avail ; either Juan 
Perez had overrated his influence with so great a personage as Talavera, 
or Talavera was too busy to pay any attention to the poor Italian enthusi- 
ast who was introduced to him. Neither Columbus nor his project appears 
to have been mentioned to the Spanish sovereigns ; and the campaign 
against the Moors having commenced, there was no hope of his obtaining 
an interview with them for some time. While the court was thus shifting 
about, Columbus remained in Cordova, supporting himself, as before, by 
his skill in designing maps. Here also his worth, his noble appearance, 
and the modest enthusiasm of his manners, gained him many kind friends, 
through whom he made the acquaintance of Mendoza, archbishop of 
Toledo, and grand cardinal of Spain. Mendoza, after being satisfied that 
there was something more in Columbus' project than a mere vague fancy, 
procured him an audience with Ferdinand and Isabella. The able Ferdi- 
nand instantly perceived the propriety of at least inquiring into the 
scheme which was proposed to him ; he therefore referred the matter to 
Fernando de Talavera, the above-mentioned prior, to whom Columbus had 
already been introduced : instructing him to hold a council of the most 
learned geographers and scientific men to examine and report on the plan 
submitted by Columbus. 

Few meetings ever held are more interesting to us now than the great 
meeting of scientific men held in the convent of St. Stephen, at Salamanca, 



780 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to investigate into the feasibility of Columbus' project of reaching the 
East Indias by sailing due west. There were assembled all the sages of 
Spain, professors of astronomy, geography, and "mathematics, most of them 
churchmen, together with a number of learned friars and ecclesiastical 
dignitaries in their robes; and in the midst of them all stood a simple 
mariner of Genoa, ready to explain his scheme and answer questions. A 
great majority seem to have been prepossessed against -Columbus from the 
beginning, arguing that of necessity he must be wrong, seeing that it wa3 
not in the nature of things that one man could know better about such 
matters than all the rest of the world. Others, however, favored him so 
far as to be ready at least to enter into argument with him. The argu- 
ments produced against him were of the strangest kind — a mixture of 
crude "science with religious dogmas — quotations from Scripture inter- 
preted in the oddest manner ; together with extracts from the Greek and 
Latin fathers. To all the objections urged Columbus answered with firm- 
ness and modesty, failing, however, as may be supposed, to convince men 
against long-cherished prejudice, backed by an erroneous interpretation of 
Scripture. 

The deliberations of the assembly were interrupted by the departure of 
the court from Cordova in the spring of 1487. No answer had as yet 
been given to Columbus with respect to his project ; on the whole, how- 
ever, there seemed little hope of a favorable one. The next fivo years 
were occupied by the Spanish sovereigns in the war against Granada, so 
that they had no leisure to enter personally into a consideration of the 
merits of the proposal made to them by the Genoese navigator. During 
all that time Columbus waited patiently, generally residing at Cordova, 
where, it is said, the children in the streets used to point to their fore- 
heads as he passed, bidding each other look at the mad Italian; sometimes, 
however, following the court in its journeys from place to place, and even 
taking part in the sieges and battles in which the Spanish troops were 
engaged. His hopes seem to have alternately risen and sunk during these 
five years. In the year 1488 he appears to have despaired of a favorable 
issue to his application ; for in that year he despatched his brother Bar- 
tholomew Columbus to England to make an offer of his project to Henry 
VII. Unfortunately, Bartholomew was captured by pirates on the voyage , 
and was not able to reach England for some years, otherwise Spain might 
have been for ever deprived of the advantages offered her ; for when the 
scheme was ultimately proposed to Henry VII, he embraced it more 
warmly than any monarch to whom it had been broached before. In the 
same year, 1488, Columbus received a letter from the king of Portugal, 
inviting him to return to that country, but he refused the invitation. 

In the winter of 1491, when the Spanish monarchs were about to com- 
mence their last Moorish campaign, Columbus received an answer to his 
frequent applications. He was informed that the expenses of the war pre- 
vented the sovereigns from engaging at present in any new enterprise, but 
that, when the war was over, his scheme would be again considered. This 
was most disheartening to one who had -waited so long. Already advanced 
in years, he began to fear that death would overtake him before he had 
obtained the means of accomplishing his design. He resolved to quit 
Spain. Before doing so, however, he offered his scheme to two of the 
Spanish nobles, whose wealth and importance made them almost indepen- 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 781 

dent princes — the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the Duke of Medina Celi. 
Both, after some delay, refused to engage in the project, as too ambitious 
for any but a great sovereign. Columbus, therefore, hesitated no longer, 
but prepared to go to France, where he anticipated a more favorable recep- 
tion. Before setting out, he proceeded to the convent at Palos, to visit 
his friend Juan Perez, and to bring away his son Diego, whom with his 
other son, Fernando, he intended to leave at Cordova. When his old friend 
the prior saw Columbus once more at the gate of his monastery, after sev- 
eral years of vain solicitation at court, he was deeply affected. He en- 
treated him by all means to remain in the country. He had been father 
confessor to the queen, and thought he might still exercise an influence 
over her mind. He accordingly proceeded to Santa Fe, where the sove- 
reigns were in person superintending the siege of the capital of Grenada. 
Perez obtained a ready access to the queen. He laid before her the prop- 
ositions of Columbus with freedom and eloquence. Isabella was moved 
with the grandeur of the project. The principles on which it was founded, 
the advantages that would result from its success, and the glory it would 
shed on Spain, were for the first time represented to her in their true co- 
lors. She promised her patronage to the undertaking. Columbus was 
summoned to court, and 20,000 maravedies, equivalent to upwards of 
$200 of our money, were sent to him to pay his traveling expenses ; and 
he arrived in time to witness the memorable surrender of Granada to the 
Spanish arms. It was now only necessary to agree upon the terms of the 
proposed enterprise. A meaner spirit, after years of unsuccessful toil, 
poverty, and disappointment, would have been glad to secure the assistance 
of the sovereigns on such arrangements as their own liberality might dic- 
tate. But Columbus stipulated his own rewards and honors, and would 
consent to no other. He demanded them as if he were already successful, 
and aware of the extent and importance of his discoveries. In consequence 
of his resoluteness in adhering to these demands, the negotiation was once 
more broken off; and Columbus, mounting his mule, left Santa Fe,' resol- 
ed never to return. He was within two leagues of Grenada, when a cour- 
ier overtook him and brought him back. The court now agreed that he 
should be admiral on the ocean, and enjoy all the privileges and honors 
allowed to the high admiral of Castile ; that he should be governor over 
all the countries he might discover ; and that he should reserve to himself 
one-tenth of all pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, and articles of mer- 
chandise, in whatever manner obtained, within his adinirality. They also 
allowed that he should appoint judges in all parts of Spain trading to 
those countries ; and that on this voyage, and at all other times, he should 
contribute an eighth part of the expense, and receive an eighth part of the 
profits. These articles of agreement were signed by Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella at the city of Santa Fe' on the 17th of April 1492. 

Preparations for the voyage were now commenced in good earnest. 
The port of Palos de Moguer, already mentioned, was fixed as the place 
where the armament should be fitted out. Royal orders were issued to the 
magistrates of Palos to have three caravels in readiness, and somewhat 
arbitrary measures were had recourse to for the purpose of obtaining crews. 
As soon as the nature of the enterprise became known, the little town of 
Palos was in an uproar ; the owners of vessels refused to lend them ; and 
the boldest seamen absconded, lest they should bo pressed into such ser- 



782 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

vice. Columbus had repaired to the spot ; but all his exertions were una- 
vailing ; neither vessels nor crew could be got. At length a rich and 
adventurous navigator, named Alonzo Pinzon, came forward, and interested 
himself strenuously in the expedition. His assistance was effectual. He 
owned vessels, and had many seamen in his employ, and consequently pos- 
sessed great influence. He and his brother Vicente Pinzon determined to 
take commands, and sail with Columbus. Their example had a great effect ; 
they persuaded their relations and friends to ( embark with them; and the 
vessels were ready for sea within a month after they had thus engaged in 
their equipment. 

After all, the armament was miserably ill-proportioned to the grandeur 
of the enterprise. Only one of the three small vessels was full-decked. 
The other two, says Washington Irving, ' were light barques, called cara- 
vels, not superior to river and coasting craft of more modern days. They 
are delineated as open, and without deck in the center ; but built up high 
at the prow and stern, with forecastles and cabins for the accommodation 
of the crew. The largest vessel was called the Santa Maria : on board 
of this Columbus hoisted his flag. The second, called the Pinta, was com- 
manded by Martin Alonzo Pinzon, accompanied by his brother Francisco 
Martin, as pilot. The third, called the Nina, had latine sails, and was 
commanded by the third of the brothers, Vicenta Yanez Pinzon. ' The 
crews, including Columbus, the three Pinzons, three other pilots, several 
royal officials, a physician and a surgeon, some private adventurers with 
their servants, and ninety sailors, amounted in all to one hundred and 
twenty persons. 

Thus, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, after innumerable efforts and 
disappointments, and at least eighteen years after he had matured his pro- 
ject in his own mind, did Columbus find his wishes gratified, by being 
placed at the head of an armament bound on a voyage through the hith- 
erto unexplored Atlantic. He still labored under the delusion that the 
lands he would reach by sailing in that direction would be the East Indies 
— the golden regions lying in the eastern extremity of Asia, and described 
in such glowing colors by Marco Polo. So firm was he in this belief, that 
he was furnished by Ferdinand and Isabella with letters to be delivered to 
the great khan of Tartary. It ought to be mentioned also, as character- 
istic of the times, and of the almost wildly-enthusiastic genius of Colum- 
bus, that he had all along cherished the design of devoting the wealth 
which should be acquired from his discoveries to the object of rescuing the 
holy sepulchre of Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels. 

The Voyage. — On the 2d of August, 1492, Columbus and all his com 
panions marched in solemn procession to the monastery of Rabida to con 
less their sins, obtain absolution, and implore the blessing of God on their 
expedition. The account of this deeply-interesting voyage may be best 
given in the elegant language of Robertson: 

' On Friday, the third day of August, in the year one thousand four 
hundred and ninety-two, Columbus set sail, a little before sunrise, in 
presence of a vast crowd of spectators, who sent up their supplications to 
Heaven for the prosperous issue of the voyage, which they wished rather 
than expected. Columbus steered directly for the Canary Islands, and 
arrived there (August 13) without any occurrence that would have de 
served notice on any other occasion. But in a voyage of such expectation 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 783 

and importance, every circumstance was the object of attention. The 
rudder of the Pinta broke loose the day after she left the harbor; and 
that accident alarmed the crew, no less superstitious than unskillful, as a 
certain omen of the unfortunate destiny of the expedition. Even in the 
short run to the Canaries, the ships were found to be so crazy and ill- 
appointed, as to be very improper for a navigation which was expected to 
be both long and dangerous. Columbus refitted them, however, to the 
best of his power ; and having supplied himself with fresh provisions, he 
took his departure from Gomera, one of the most westerly of the Canary 
Islands, on the sixth day of September. 

'Here the voyage of discovery may properly be said to begin; for 
Columbus, holding his course due west, left immediately the usual track of 
navigation, and stretched into unfrequented and unknown seas. The first 
day, as it was very calm, he made but little way ; but on the second, he 
lost sight of the Canaries ; and many of the sailors, dejected already and 
dismayed, when they contemplated the boldness of the undertaking, began 
to beat their breasts and to shed tears, as if they were never more to 
behold land. Columbus comforted them with assurances of success, and 
the prospect of vast wealth in those opulent regions whither he was con- 
ducting them. This early discovery of the spirit of his followers taught 
Columbus that he must prepare to struggle not only with the unavoidable 
difficulties which might be expected from the nature of his undertaking, 
but with such as were likely to arise from the ignorance and timidity of 
the people under his command ; and he perceived that the art of govern- 
ing the minds of men would be no less requisite for accomplishing the dis- 
coveries which he had in view, than naval skill and undaunted courage. 
Happily for himself, and for the country by which he was employed, he 
joined to the ardent temper and inventive genius of a projector, virtues of 
another species, which are rarely united with them. He possessed a 
thorough knowledge of mankind, an insinuating address, a patient perse- 
verance in executing any plan, the perfect government of his own passions, 
and the talent of acquiring an ascendency over those of other men. All 
these qualities, which formed him for command, were accompanied with 
that superior knowledge of his profession which begets confidence in times 
of difficulty and danger. To unskillful Spanish sailors, accustomed only 
to coasting voyages in the Mediterranean, the maritime science of Colum- 
bus — the fruit of thirty years' experience, improved by an acquaintance 
with all the inventions of the Portuguese — appeared immense. As soon 
as they put to sea, he regulated everything by his sole authority; he 
superintended the execution of every order ; and allowing himself only a 
few hours for sleep, he was at all other times upon deck. As his course 
lay through seas which had not formerly been visited, the sounding line, 
or instruments for observation, were continually in his hands. After the 
example of the Portuguese discoverers, he attended to the motion of tides 
and currents, watched the flight of birds, the appearance of fishes, or sea- 
weeds, and of everything that floated on the waves ; and entered every 
occurrence with a minute exactness in the journal which he kept. As 
the length of the voyage could not fail of alarming sailors habituated only 
to short excursions, Columbus endeavored to conceal from them the real 
progress which they made. With this view, though they ran eighteen 
leagues on the second day after they left Gomera, he gave out that they 



784 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

had advanced only fifteen ; and he uniformly employed the same artifice 
of reckoning short during the whole voyage. By the fourteenth of Sep- 
tember, the fleet was above two hundred leagues to the west of the Canary 
Islands, at a greater distance from land than any Spaniard had been before 
that time. There they were struck with an appearance no less astonishing 
than new. They observed that the magnetic needle in their compasses did 
not point exactly to the polar star, but varied towards the west ; and as 
they proceeded, this variation increased. This appearance, which is now 
familiar — though it still remains one of the mysteries of nature, into the 
cause of which the sagacity of man hath not been able to penetrate — 
filled the companions of Columbus with terror. They were now in a 
boundless and unknown ocean, far from the usual course of navigation ; 
nature itself seemed to be altered, and the only guide which they had left 
was about to fail them. Columbus, with no less quickness than ingenuity, 
invented a reason for this appearance, which, though it did not satisfy him- 
self, seemed so plausible to them, that it dispelled their fears or silenced 
their murmurs. t 

' He still continued to steer due west, nearly in the same latitude with 
the Canary Islands. In this course he came within the sphere of the trade 
wind, which blows invariably from east to west between the tropics and a 
few degrees beyond them. He advanced before this steady gale with such 
uniform rapidity, that it was seldom necessary to shift a sail. When 
about four hundred leagues west of the Canaries, he found the sea so 
covered with weeds that it resembled a meadow of vast extent, and in some 
places they were so thick as to retard the motion of the vessels. This 
strange appearance occasioned new alarm and disquiet. The sailors 
imagined that they were now arrived at the utmost boundary of the navi- 
gable ocean ; that these floating weeds would obstruct their farther 
progress, and concealed dangerous rocks, or some other large tract of 
land, which had sunk, they knew not how, in that place. Columbus 
endeavored to persuade them that what had alarmed ought rather to have 
encouraged them, and was to be considered as a sign of approaching land. 
At the same time a brisk gale arose and carried them forward. Several 
birds were seen hovering about the ship, and directing their flight towards 
the west. The desponding crew resumed some degree of spirit, and 
began to entertain fresh hopes. 

' Upon the first of October they were, according to the admiral's 
reckoning, seven hundred and seventy leagues to the west of the Canaries ; 
but, lest his men should be intimidated by the prodigious length of the 
navigation, he gave out that they had proceeded only five hundred and 
eighty-four leagues ; and, fortunately for Columbus, neither his own pilot, 
nor those of the other ships, had skill sufficient to corect this error, and 
discover the deceit. They had' now been above three weeks at sea ; they 
had proceeded far beyond what former navigators had attempted or deemed 
possible ; all their prognostics of discovery, drawn from the flight of birds 
and other circumstances, had proved fallacious; the appearances of land, 
with which their own credulity or the artifice of their commander had from 
time to time flattered and amused them, had been altogether illusive ; and 
their prospect of success seemed now to be as distant as ever. These 
reflections occurred often to men who had no other object or occupation 
than to reason and discourse concerning the intention and circumstances of 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 785 

their expedition. They made impression at first upon the ignorant and 
timid ; and, extending by degrees to such as were better informed or more 
resolute, the contagion spread at length from ship to ship. From secret 
whispers or murmurings, they proceeded to open cabals and public com- 
plaints. They taxed their sovereign with inconsiderate credulity in paying 
such regard to the vain promises and rash conjectures of an indigent 
foreigner, as to hazard the lives of so many of her own subjects in prose- 
cuting a chimerical scheme. They affirmed that they had fully performed 
their duty by venturing so far in an unknown and hopeless course, and 
could incur no blame by refusing to follow any longer a desperate adven- 
turer to certain destruction. They contended that it was necessary to 
think of returning to Spain while their crazy vessels were still in a condi 
tion to keep the sea; but expressed their fears that the attempt would 
prove vain, as the wind, which had hitherto been so favorable to their 
course, must render it impossible to sail in the opposite direction. All 
agreed that Columbus should be compelled by force to adopt a measure on 
which their common safety depended. Some of the more audacious pro- 
posed, as the most expeditious and certain method of getting rid at once of 
his remonstrances, to throw him into the sea, being persuaded that, upon 
their return to Spain, the death of an unsuccessful projector would excite 
little concern, and be inquired into with no curiosity. 

' Columbus was fully sensible of his perilous situation. He had observed 
with great uneasiness the fatal operation of ignorance and of fear in pro- 
ducing disaffection among his crew, and saw that it was now ready to 
burst out into open mutiny. He retained, however, perfect presence of 
mind. He affected to seem ignorant of their machinations. Notwith- 
standing the agitation and solicitude of his own mind, he appeared with a 
cheerful countenance, like a man satisfied with the progress he had made, 
and confident of success. Sometimes he employed all the arts of insinua- 
tion to soothe his men. Sometimes he endeavored to work upon their 
ambition or avarice, by magnificent descriptions of the fame and wealth 
which they were about to acquire. On other occasions he assumed a tone 
of authority, and threatened them with vengeance from their sovereign if, 
by their dastardly behavior, they should defeat this noble effort to promote 
the glory of God and to exalt the Spanish name above that of every other 
nation. Even with seditious sailors the words of a man whom they had 
been accustomed to reverence were weighty and persuasive, and not only 
restrained them from those violent excesses which they meditated, but pre- 
vailed with them to accompany their admiral for some time longer. 

'As they proceeded, the indications of approaching land seemed to be 
more certain, and excited hope in proportion. The birds began to appear 
in flocks, making towards the south-west. Columbus, in imitation of the 
Portuguese navigators, who had been guided in several of their discoveries 
by the motion of birds, altered his course from due west towards that 
quarter whither they pointed their flight. But, after holding on for sev- 
eral days in this new direction, without any better success than formerly, 
having seen no object during thirty days but the sea and the sky, the 
hopes of his companions subsided faster than they had risen ; their fears 
revived with additional force ; impatience, rage, and despair appeared in 
every countenance. All sense of subordination was lost. The officers, 
who had hitherto concurred with Columbus in opinion, and supported his 



786 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

authority, now took part with the private men ; they assembled tumultu- 
ously on the deck, expostulated with their commander, mingled threats 
with their expostulations, and required him instantly to tack about and to 
return to Europe. Columbus perceived that it would be of no avail to 
have recourse to any of his former arts, which, having been tried so often, 
had lost their effect ; and that it was impossible to rekindle any zeal for 
the success of the expedition among men in whose breasts fear had extin- 
guished every generous sentiment. He saw that it was no less vain to 
think of employing either gentle of severe measures to quell a mutiny so 
general and so violent. It was necessary, on all these accounts, to soothe 
passions which he could no longer command, and to give way to a torrent 
too impetuous to be checked. He promised solemnly to his men that he 
would comply with their request, provided they would accompany him, 
and obey his command for three days longer ; and if, during that time, 
land were not discovered, he would then abandon the enterprise, and 
direct his course towards Spain. 

'Enraged as the sailors were, and impatient to turn their faces again 
towards their native country, this proposition did not appear to them 
unreasonable. Nor did Columbus hazard much in confining himself to a 
term so short. The presages of discovering land were now so numerous 
and promising, that he deemed them infallible. For some days the sound- 
ing-line reached the bottom, and the soil which it brought up indicated 
land to be at no great distance. The flocks of birds increased, and were 
composed not only of sea-fowl, but of such land birds as could not be sup- 
posed to fly far from the shore. The crew of the Pinta observed a cane 
floating, which seemed to have been newly cut, and likewise a piece of 
timber artificially carved. The sailors aboard the Nina took up the branch 
of a tree covered with red berries, perfectly fresh. The clouds around 
the setting sun assumed a new appearance ; the air was milder and warm- 
er ; and during night the wind became unequal and variable. From all 
these symptoms, Columbus was so confident of being near land, that 
on the evening of the eleventh of October, after public prayers for success, 
he ordered the sails to be furled, and the ships to lie to, keeping strict 
watch lest they should be driven ashore in the night. During this inter- 
val of suspense and expectation no man shut his eyes ; all kept upon deck, 
gazing intently towards that quarter where they expected to discover the 
land, which had been so long the object of their wishes. 

'About two hours before midnight, Columbus, standing on the forecastle, 
observed a light at a distance, and privately pointed it out to Pedro 
Guttierez, a page of the queen's wardrobe. Guttierez perceived it, and 
calling to Salcedo, comptroller of the fleet, all three saw it in motion, as 
if it were carried from place to place. A little after midnight the joyful 
sound of 'Land ! land ! ' was heard from the Pinta, which kept always 
ahead of the other ships. But having been so often deceived by fallacious 
appearances, every man had now become slow of belief, and waited in all 
the anguish of uncertainty and impatience for the return of day. As soon 
as morning dawned [October 12th], all doubts and fears were dispelled. 
From every ship an island was seen about two leagues to the north, whose 
flat and verdant fields, well stored with wood, and watered with many riv- 
ulets, presented the aspect of a delightful country. The crew of the 
Pinta instantly began the Te Deum, as a hymn of thanksgiving to God, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 787 

and were joined by those of the other ships with tears of joy and trans- 
ports of congratulation. This office of gratitude to Heaven was followed 
by an act of justice to their commander. They threw themselves at the 
feet of Columbus, with feelings of self-condemnation mingled with rever- 
ence. They implored him to pardon their ignorance, incredulity, and 
insolence, which had created him so much unnecessary disquiet, and had 
so often obstructed the prosecution of his well-concerted plan ; and pass- 
ing, in the warmth of their admiration, from one extreme to another, they 
now pronounced the man whom they had so lately reviled and threatened, 
to be a person inspired by Heaven with sagacity and fortitude more than 
human, in order to accomplish a design so far beyond the ideas and con- 
ceptions of all former ages. 

'As soon as the sun arose, all their boats were manned and armed. 
They rowed towards the island with their colors displayed, with warlike 
music, and other martial pomp. As they approached the coast, they saw 
it covered with a multitude of people, whom the novelty of the spectacle 
had drawn together, whose attitudes and gestures expressed wonder and 
astonishment at the strange objects which presented themselves to their 
view. Columbus was the first European who set foot in the new world 
which he had discovered. He landed in a rich dress, and with a naked 
sword in his hand. His men followed, and kneeling down, they all kissed 
the ground which they had so long desired to see. They next erected a 
crucifix, and, prostrating themselves before it, returned thanks to God for 
conducting their voyage to such a happy issue. They then took solemn 
possession of the country for the crown of Castile and Leon, with all the 
formalities which the Portuguese were accustomed to observe in acts of 
this kind in their new discoveries. 

' The Spaniards, while thus employed, were surrounded by many of the 
natives, who gazed in silent admiration upon actions which they could not 
comprehend, and of which they did not foresee the consequences. The 
dress of the Spaniards, the whiteness of their skins, their beards, their arms, 
appeared strange and surprising. The vast machines in which they had 
traversed the ocean, that seemed to move upon the waters with wings, and 
uttered a dreadful sound resembling thunder, accompanied with lightning 
and smoke, struck them with such terror, that they began to respect their 
new guests as a superior order of beings, and concluded that they were 
children from the sun, who had descended to visit the earth. 

' The Europeans were hardly less amazed at the scene now before them. 
Every herb, and shrub, and tree, was different from those which flourished 
in Europe. The soil seemed to be rich, but bore few marks of cultivation. 
The climate, even to the Spaniards, felt warm, though extremely delight- 
ful. The inhabitants appeared in the simple innocence of nature — entirely 
naked. Their black hair, long and uncurled, floated upon their shoulders, 
or was bound in tresses around their heads. They had no beards, and 
every part of their bodies was perfectly smooth. Their complexion was of 
a dusky copper color ; their features singular, rather than disagreeable ; 
their aspect gentle and timid. Though not tall, they were well-shaped 
and active. Their faces, and several parts of their bodies, were fantastic- 
ally painted with glaring colors. They were shy at first through fear, but 
soon became familiar with the Spaniards; and with transports of joy 



788 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

received from them hawks' bells, glass beads, or other baubles, in return 
for which they gave such provisions as they had, and some cotton yarn, the 
only commodity of value that they could produce. Towards evening 
Columbus returned to his ship, accompanied by many of the islanders in 
their boats, which they called canoes ; and though rudely formed out of 
the trunk of a tree, they rowed them with surprising dexterity. Thus, in 
the first interview between the inhabitants of the old and new worlds, 
everything was conducted amicably, and to their mutual satisfaction. The 
former, enlightened and ambitious, formed already vast ideas with respect 
to the advantages which they might derive from the regions that began to 
open to their view. The latter, simple and undiscerning, had no foresight 
to the calamities and desolation which were approaching their country. 

' Columbus, who now assumed the title and authority of admiral and 
viceroy, called the island which he had discovered San Salvador. It is 
better known by the name of Guanahani, which the natives gave to it, and 
is one of that large cluster of islands called the Lucaya or Bahama Isles. 
It is situated above three thousand miles to the west of Gomera, from 
which the squadron took its departure, and only four degrees to the south 
of it ; so little had Columbus deviated from the westerly course which he 
had chosen as the most proper.' 

Cruise in the West India Archipelago — Various Discoveries. — 
Columbus imagined that the island he had thus discovered, and others 
which could be seen from it, belonged to the Archipelago, which, according 
to Marco Polo, lay east of the Asiatic continent. He resolved, therefore, 
to remain no longer at San Salvador, but to sail in the direction in which 
he conceived the mainland to lie. When he asked the natives, by signs, 
where they obtained the gold, of which most of them wore thin plates 
attached to their nostrils by way of ornament, they invariably pointed to 
the south. To the south, therefore, he determined to prosecute his voyage, 
not doubting but that the region which the natives pointed to must be 
Cathay or Cipango. Accordingly, after spending one day at San Salva- 
dor, he directed his course through the midst of that multitudinous cluster 
of islands now called the Bahamas, convinced as he gazed at their green 
and luxuriant foliage, that these must be the ' seven thousand four hundred 
and fifty-eight islands abounding with spices and odoriferous trees,' which 
Marco Polo described as filling the Chinese sea. He landed at three of 
the largest, and gave them names. Here the appearance of the ships and 
the Spaniards produced the same astonishment among the natives as at 
San Salvador. Receiving to his inquiries after gold the same invariable 
answer, that it lay to the south, he pushed on through group after group 
of islands, and at last, on the 28th of October, came in sight of Cuba. 
The appearance of this noble island as he approached it, its high moun- 
tains, its spreading forests, its broad rivers, made him uncertain whether it 
might not be part of the great continent he was in search of. ' He entered 
the mouth of a large river with his squadron, and all the inhabitants fled to 
the mountains as he approached the shore. But as he resolved to careen 
his ships in that place, he sent some Spaniards, together with one of the 
people of San Salvador, to view the interior part of the country. They 
having advanced above sixty miles from the shore, reported, upon theii 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 789 

return, that the soil was richer and more cultivated than any they had 
hitherto discovered ; that, besides many scattered cottages, they had found 
one village containing above a thousand inhabitants; that the people, 
though naked, seemed to be more intelligent than those of San Salvador, 
but had treated them with the same respectful attention, kissing their feet, 
and honoring them as sacred beings allied to heaven ; that they had given 
them to eat a certain root, the taste of which resembled roasted chestnuts, 
and likewise a singular species of corn called maize, which, when roasted 
whole or ground into meal, was abundantly palatable ; that there seemed 
to be no four-footed animals in the country but a species of dog, which 
could not bark, and a creature resembling a rabbit, but of a much smaller 
size ; that they had observed some ornaments of gold among the people, 
but of no great value.' Here also, for the first time, the Spaniards saw 
the use of tobacco. 

Columbus was particularly anxious to ascertain whether the country he 
had now reached belonged to the Indian continent. From the rude 
civilization which he saw around him, the ill constructed huts, the want of 
clothing among the natives, etc., he knew that he was still at some distance 
from the territories of the great khan, covered with finely-built cities, and 
abounding in gold and spices ; but he imagined that Cuba might be the 
extremity of that part of the continent where the expected territories lay. 
Full of this delusion, he eagerly seized on every little circumstance which 
seemed to confirm it. When the natives spoke of Cubanacan as the place 
where the gold was to be found, meaning by it the central district of Cuba, 
he fancied that they were speaking of the country of Kubla Khan, one 
of the great potentates mentioned by Marco Polo. At length, however, 
after cruising along the coast for nearly a fortnight without approaching 
the confines of the desired country, he altered his course to the east-south- 
east, intending to sail for an island called Hayti, to which the natives 
directed him as a place where gold was more plentiful than with them. 
The fleet left Cuba on the 12th of November, having on board some of 
the natives, who were to act as guides. On their way thither, ' Martin 
Alonzo Pinzon, impatient to be the first who should take possession of the 
treasures which this country was supposed to contain, quitted his companions, 
regardless of all the admiral's signals to slacken sail until they should come 
up with him. Columbus, retarded by contrary winds, did not reach Hayti 
till the 6th of December. He called the port where he first touched, 
St. Nicholas, and the island itself Espagnola, in honor of the kingdom by 
which he was employed ; and it is the only country of those he had yet 
discovered which has retained the name that he gave it. As he could 
neither meet with the Pinta, nor have any intercourse with the inhabitants, 
who fled in great consternation towards the woods, he soon quitted St. 
Nicholas ; and, sailing along the northern coast of the island, he entered 
another harbor, which he called Conception. Here he was more fortunate ; 
his people overtook a woman who was flying from them, and, after treating 
her with great gentleness, dismissed her with a present of such toys as 
they knew were most valued in those regions. The description which she 
gave to her countrymen of the humanity and wonderful qualities of the 
strangers, their admiration of the trinkets, which she showed with exulta- 
tion, and their eagerness to participate in the same favors, removed all 
their fears, and induced many of them to repair to the harbor. The strange 



790 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

objects which they beheld, and the baubles which Columbus bestowed 
upon them, amply gratified their curiosity and their wishes. They nearly 
resembled the people of Guanahani and Cuba. Like them, they were 
naked, ignorant, and simple ; and seemed to be equally unacquainted with 
all the arts which appear most necessary in polished societies ; but they 
were gentle, credulous, and timid, to a degree which rendered it easy to 
acquire the ascendency over them, especially as their excessive admiration 
led them into the same error with the people of the other islands, in believ 
ino- the Spaniards to be more than mortals, and descended immediately 
from heaven. They possessed gold in greater abundance than their neigh- 
bors, which they readily exchanged for bells, beads, or pins ; and in this 
unequal traffic both parties were highly pleased, each considering themselves 
as gainers by the transaction.' 

The Spaniards remained at Hispaniola for the space of a month, during 
which time they explored a great part of the coast, and became familiar 
with the natives. Columbus had a keen sense of the beautiful in scenery, 
and his journal is full of enthusiastic description of Hispaniola, its deep 
groves, its clear skies, its tranquil bays, its soft and balmy atmosphere, its 
birds with their splendid plumage. ' Tongue,' he says, ' cannot express 
the whole truth, nor pen describe it ; and I have been so overwhelmed at 
the sight of so much beauty, that I have not known how to relate it. The 
people also seem to have made a deep impression on him by their gentle and 
confiding manners. ' So loving, so tractable, so peaceable,' he says, ' are 
these people, that I swear to your majesties there is not in the world a 
better nation nor a better land. They love their neighbors as themselves ; 
and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and- accompanied with a 
smile ; and though it is true that they are naked, yet their manners are 
decorous and praiseworthy.' Such are the descriptions given of the island 
of Hayti by its discoverer — the first island doomed to experience the 
miseries produced by the cruelty and avarice of the invaders. 

The part of Hayti which the fleet first touched at was its western 
extremity. As usual, one of the earliest inquiries made of the natives 
was where they obtained gold. The natives, in reply, pointed to a moun- 
tainous district to the eastward, which they named Cibao — a sound in 
which Columbus, still clinging to his original delusion, traced a resemblance 
to the Cipango of Marco Polo. Proceeding eastward, therefore, Colum- 
bus anchored his two vessels in a habor, to which he gave the name of St. 
Thomas. 

While here he received a message from a chieftain called Guacanagari, 
one of the five caciques or kings amongst whom the whole island was divi- 
ded, requesting that he would come and visit him. Columbus resolved to 
do so. ' He sailed for this purpose from St. Thomas on the 24th of De- 
cember, with a fair wind, and the sea perfectly calm ; and as, amongst the 
multiplicity of his occupations, he had not shut his eyes for two days, he 
retired at midnight in order to take some repose, having committed the 
helm to the pilot, with strict injunctions not to quit it for a moment. The 
pilot, dreading no danger, carelessly left the helm to an inexperienced 
cabin-boy, and the ship, carried away by the current, was dashed against 
a rock. The violence of the shock awakened Columbus. He ran up to 
the deck. There all was confusion and despair. He alone retained pres- 
ence of mind. He ordered some of the sailors to take a boat, and carry 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 791 

out an anchor astern ; but, instead of obeying, they made off towards the 
Nina, which was about half a league distant. He then commanded the 
masts to be cut down, in order to lighten the ship ; but all his endeavors 
were too late ; the vessel opened near the keel, and filled so fast with wa- 
ter, that its loss was inevitable. The smoothness of the sea, and the time- 
ly assistance of boats from the Nina, enabled the crew to save their lives.' 
Hearing of the accident, Guacanagari hastened to the shore, and, by the 
assistance of the Indians with their canoes, everything of value was saved 
from the wreck. Nothing could exceed the kindness of the chieftain : he 
testified the utmost sorrow at the loss Avhich had befallen his visitors, and 
offered his services to repair it. The loss was indeed a serious one to Co- 
lumbus. He had as yet heard no tidings from the treacherous Pinta ; his 
best ship was a total wreck ; and there remained but one crazy little bark 
to carry so many men back to Europe. 

In these circumstances he resolved to leave part of his men in Hispani- 
ola, returning to Spain with the rest for fresh ships and stores. Although 
driven by necessity to this resolution, it was advisable on many other ac- 
counts. The island was one which it would be desirable to colonize at all 
events ; and by leaving a number of men in it, the way would be prepared 
for a settlement ; a quantity of gold would be collected, ready to be carried 
to Spain against the time he came back ; and, by intercourse with the na- 
tives, much knowledge w'ould be obtained, not only about Hay ti itself, but 
about the other islands and lands in the Archipelago. Nor did he meet 
with any difficulty on the part of his men. On the contrary, when the 
proposal was made to them, many were delighted with the idea of remain- 
ing on an island where they would lead a life of such enjoyment. Nothing- 
remained, therefore, but to obtain the permission of Guacanagari, or some 
other cacique. This was soon granted. It appeared that the island was 
often visited by a terrible race of people called the Caribs, represented by 
the Haytians as cannibals, who came from the east, and, penetrating in- 
land, burned their villages, and carried many of them away captives. On 
the proposal, therefore, of Columbus to leave some of his men on the island, 
to protect it with their great guns against the incursions of these Caribs, 
Guacanagari and his people exhibited unbounded delight. The Spaniards 
immediately commenced building a fortress on a spot named by Columbus 
La Navidad; not omitting, at the same time, to improve the opportunity 
of obtaining as much gold as possible from the natives, to be shipped for 
Spain. Considerable quantities were obtained ; the natives readily ex- 
changing little lumps of the precious metal for any trinket offered them. 
The hawk's bells of the Spaniards, however, delighted them most. Tying 
these toys to some part of their persons, they would dance and caper about 
with them in perfect ecstacies at the sounds they produced ; and it is told 
of one Indian that, having obtained a hawk's bell in exchange for a lump 
of gold of about four ounces in weight, he made off to the woods as fast as 
possible with his prize, lest the Spaniard should repent of his bad bargain, 
and demand back the bell. 

The fortress was soon finished, and thirty-eight men chosen to remain 
on the island. ' He intrusted the command of these to Diego de Arado, a 
gentleman of Cordova, investing him with the same powers which he him- 
self had received from Ferdinand and Isabella ; and furnished him with 
everything requisite for the subsistence or defense of this infant colony. 



792 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

He strictly enjoined them to maintain concord among themselves, to yield 
an unreserved obedience to their commander, to avoid giving offense to the 
natives by any violence or exaction, to cultivate the friendship of Guaca- 
nagari, but not to put themselves in his power by straggling in small par- 
ties, or marching too far from the fort. He promised to revisit them soon, 
with such a reinforcement of strength as might enable them to take full 
possession of the country, and to reap all the fruits of their discoveries. 
In the meantime he engaged to mention their names to the king and 
queen, and to place their merit and services in the most advantageous 
light. 

' Having thus taken every precaution for the security of the colony, he 
left Navidad on the 4th of January 1493, and steering towards the east, 
discovered and gave names to most of the harbors on the northern coast of 
the island. On the 6th he descried the Pinta, and soon came up with her, 
after a separation of more than six weeks. Pinzon endeavored to justify 
his conduct by pretending that he had been driven from his course by stress 
of weather, and prevented from returning by contrary winds. The admi- 
ral, though he still suspected his perfidious intentions, and knew well what 
he urged in his own defense to be frivolous as well as false, was so sensible 
that this was not a proper time for venturing upon any high strain of au- 
thority, and felt such satisfaction in this junction with his consort, which 
delivered him from many disquieting apprehensions, that, lame as Pinzon's 
apology was, he admitted of it without difficulty, and restored him to fa- 
vor. During his absence from the admiral, Pinzon had visited several 
harbors in the island, and acquired some gold by trafficking with the na- 
tives, but had made no discovery of any importance. 

' From the condition of his ships, as well as the temper of his men, 
Columbus now found it necessary to hasten his return to Europe. The 
former, having suffered much during a voyage of such unusual length, 
were extremely leaky ; the latter expressed the utmost impatience to 
revisit their native country, from which they had been so long absent, 
and where they had things so wonderful and unheard-of to relate. Ac- 
cordingly, on the 16th of January, he directed his course towards the 
northeast, and soon lost sight of land. He had on board some of the 
natives, whom he had taken from the different islands which he discovered; 
and besides the gold, which was the chief object of research, he had col- 
lected specimens of all the productions which were likely to become sub- 
jects of commerce in the several countries, as well as many unknown birds, 
and other natural curiosities, which might attract the attention of the 
learned, or excite the wonder of the people. The voyage was prosperous 
to the 14th of February; and he had advanced nearly five hundred 
leagues across the Atlantic Ocean, when the wind began to rise, and con- 
tinued to blow with increasing rage, which terminated in a furious hurri- 
cane. Everything that the naval skill and experience of Columbus could 
devise was employed in order to save the ships. But it was impossible to 
withstand the violence of the storm, and, as they were still far from any 
land, destruction seemed inevitable. The sailors had recourse to prayers 
to Almighty God, to the invocation of saints, to vows and charms, to 
everything that religion dictates or superstition suggests to the affrighted 
mind of man. No prospect of deliverance appearing, they abandoned 
themselves to despair, and expected every moment to be swallowed up in 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 793 

the waves. Besides the passions which naturally agitate and alarm the 
human mind in such awful situations, when certain death, in one of its 
most terrible forms, is before it, Columbus had to endure feelings of dis- 
tress peculiar to himself. He dreaded that all knowledge of the amazing 
discoveries which he had made was now to perish ; mankind were to be 
deprived of every benefit that might have been derived from the happy 
success of his schemes ; and his own name would descend to posterity as 
that of a rash, deluded adventurer, instead of being transmitted with the 
honor due to the author and conductor of the most noble enterprise that 
had ever been undertaken. These reflections extinguished all sense of his 
own personal danger. Less affected with the loss of life than solicitous to 
preserve the memory of what he had attempted and achieved, he retired 
to Ms cabin, and wrote upon parchment a short account of the voyage 
which he had made, of the course which he had taken, of the situation and 
riches of the countries which he had discovered, and of the colony that he 
had left there. Having wrapped up this in an oiled cloth, which he en- 
closed in a cake of wax, he put it into a cask carefully stopped up, and 
threw it into the sea, in hopes that some fortunate accident might preserve 
a deposit of so much importance to the world.' 

The storm at length abated, and Columbus was able to reach the 
Azores. After being detained here for a short time by a dispute with the 
Portuguese governor of one of the islands, he continued his voyage, 
anxious to reach Spain before the Pinta, which had again parted company 
with him in the storm, with the design, he feared, of being the first to 
carry the news of his discovery to Spain. A second storm, however, 
obliged him to make for the coast of Portugal, and take refuge in the 
Tagus. Proceeding to Lisbon by the king's invitation, he was received 
with the highest honors — having thus the satisfaction of announcing the 
success of his great scheme to the very persons who, fourteen years before, 
had scouted and rejected it. After remaining five days at Lisbon, he set 
out for Palos, having still heard no tidings of the Pinta. He reached the 
little Spanish seaport on the 15th of March, seven months and four days 
from the time of his departure from it. Great was the excitement among 
the inhabitants as they saw the little bark, which they instantly recognized, 
standing up the river. And when the news spread that the new world 
was discovered, that Columbus had returned with gold and specimens of 
the productions of the new lands, and, above all, with live natives on 
board his ship, the joy was indescribable. The bells were rung, the shops 
shut, all business was suspended, and the whole population hurried to the 
shore to receive the admiral with shouts and acclamations, such as usually 
attend the visits of royalty. Columbus' first act on landing was to march 
with his people to church, to return thanks for the success of his voyage. 
On the evening of the day of his arrival, the missing Pinta likewise 
entered the harbor, having been driven far to the north by the violence of 
the storm. The commander, Martin Alonzo Pinzon, full of remorse and 
chagrin for his past conduct, took to his bed almost immediately on reach- 
ing Palos, and died in a few days. 

After the first expressions of joy and admiration, Columbus departed for 
Seville. From this place he sent a message to Barcelona, where the king 
and queen at that time resided, to lay before them a brief account of his 
voyage, and to receive from them an indication of their royal will. His 



794 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

reception at Barcelona was particularly gratifying. He made a sort of 
triumphal entry, surrounded by knights and nobles, -who emulated each 
other in their efforts to swell his praise. He was received publicly by the 
sovereigns, in a splendid saloon, seated on the throne, and encircled by a 
magnificent court. On his entrance, they rose to greet him, and would 
hardly allow him to kiss their hands, considering it too unworthy a mark 
of vassalage. Columbus then gave an account of his discoveries, and 
exhibited the different articles which he had brought home with him. He 
described the quantity of spices, the promise of gold, the fertility of the 
soil, the delicious climate, the never-fading verdure of the trees, the bril- 
liant plumage of the birds, in the new regions which his own enterprise 
had acquired for his sovereigns. He then drew their attention to six 
natives of the new world, whom he had brought, and who were present, 
and described their manners and dispositions. He exhibited their dresses 
and ornaments, their rude utensils, their feeble arms ; which corresponded 
with his description of them as naked and ignorant barbarians. To this 
he added, that he had observed no traces of idolatry or superstition among 
them, and that they all seemed to be convinced of the existence of a 
Supreme Being. The conclusion of his speech was in these words : ' That 
God had reserved for the Spanish monarchs not only all the treasures of 
the new world, but a still greater treasure, of inestimable value, in the infi- 
nite number of souls destined to be brought over into the bosom of the 
Christian church.' 

After he had finished his address, the whole assembly fell upon their 
knees, while an anthem was chanted by the choir of the royal chapel. With 
songs of praise the glory was given to God for the discovery of a new 
world. Columbus and his adventures were for many days the wonder and 
delight of the people and the court. The sovereigns admitted the admiral 
to their audience at all hours, and loaded him with every mark of favor 
and distinction. Men of the highest rank were proud of the honor of his 
company. 

The news of the great discovery which had been made soon spread over 
Europe, and the name of Columbus at once became celebrated over the 
whole of the civilized world. As it was universally believed that the lands 
which he had discovered were what he supposed them to be — the extremity 
of the Asiatic continent — they were spoken of as the Indies ; and hence, 
even after the error was found out, the name of West Indies still continued 
to be applied to them. 

The Second Voyage — Colony Founded in Hispaniola. — No time 
was lost in fitting out a second expedition to the new world. On the 
morning of the 25th September, 1493, Columbus left the bay of Cadiz 
with three large ships and fourteen caravels, loaded with everything neces- 
sary to found a colony, and manned not with despondent sailors, as the 
first fleet had been, but with eager and joyous adventurers, with young and 
bold cavaliers. In the fleet were several enthusiastic priests, who em- 
barked with the intention of spreading Christianity among the benighted 
heathens of the new lands. 

Steering farther south than in his last voyage, the first land which 
Columbus made was one of the Caribbee, or Leeward Islands, to which he 
gave the name of Dominica. It was discovered on the 2d of November, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 795 

1493. After cruising for about three weeks among these islands, giving 
names to several of the largest, among which may be mentioned Porto 
Rico, and everywhere discovering traces of that savage and warlike dispo- 
sition which the Haytians had attributed to the Caribs, he bent his course 
to the north-west, anxious to learn the fate of the little colony which he 
had left at Hispaniola. Anchoring off the coast of La Navidad, he was 
surprised and alarmed to find none of the Spaniards on the shore to 
welcome him, and to receive no return-signals to the shots which he fired 
announcing his arrival. He soon learned the dreadful truth. Not a man 
of the thirty-eight he had left remained alive — they had all fallen victims 
to their own imprudence and licentiousness. A mystery hung about their 
story which was never fully cleared up ; but it appeared, from the accounts 
of the natives, that as soon as Columbus had departed the men had begun 
to range through the island, committing all sorts of crimes, and losing the 
respect of the Indians ; that at length one of the five chieftains of the 
island, named Caonabo, had attacked the fort, and put them all to death ; 
and that Guacanagari and many of his subjects had been wounded in trying 
to protect them. With this account Columbus was obliged to be content, 
although some of his officers questioned its truth, and suspected Guacana- 
gari of having been concerned in the massacre of their countrymen. 

A second colony was immediately founded under better auspices. The 
plan of a city was marked out; and in a short time the building was 
sufficiently far advanced to afford protection to all who intended to remain 
on the island. To this rising city, Columbus gave the name of Isabella, 
in honor of the queen of Castile. Even thus early in the history of the 
colony, however, symptoms of discontent broke out. Many of the Span- 
iards were attacked by the diseases incident to a new climate ; others, 
and especially such as were of noble families, began to complain of the 
hard labor imposed upon them. They had imagined that, on reaching the 
new world, they would find lumps of gold lying on the soil ready to be 
gathered, and mines of diamonds which it would only be necessary to open, 
in order to grow rich ; and when they found that what gold the island 
contained was only to be obtained by industry, and that the principal value 
of the new country consisted in the fertility of its soil, and its readiness to 
yield abundant produce to the patient cultivator, they could not conceal 
their disappointment and dislike to the ambitious foreigner, whose false 
representations, they said, had lured them from their homes. To banish 
these gloomy thoughts from the minds of the colonists, Columbus, as soon 
as the settlement of Isabella was in tolerable condition, employed himself 
and his men in expeditions into the interior of the island, especially to the 
mountainous district of Cibao, where gold was said to be obtained in large 
quantities. 

Returning from a long expedition into the interior in the end of March 
1492, Columbus found the colony of Isabella in a most flourishing condi- 
tion. The only drawbacks to the satisfaction of Columbus were the illness 
of many of the colonists, their growing discontent, and the symptoms of 
ill-will which the natives began at length to manifest towards the Span- 
iards. Still, as there was no appearance of any interruption to the tran- 
quillity of the colony, Columbus resolved to undertake a voyage of discov- 
ery through the Archipelago, with a view to reach the great Indian continent, 
of which his imagination was still full. Leaving, therefore, his brother 



796 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Diego to govern the Island, with the assistance of a council of officers, and 
intrusting the command of a body of soldiers to Don Pedro Margarita, he 
sailed from Hayti on the 24th of April 1494. For five months he sailed 
in various directions through the West Indian Archipelago in quest of the 
imaginary Cathay or Cipango ; discovering nothing of consequence, how 
ever, except the island of Jamaica. The weather was tempestuous ; and 
it was only by incessant care on the part of the admiral that his fleet was 
kept afloat. At length, wearied out with his labors, he was attacked by a 
violent fever, which terminated in a sort of lethargy or paralysis of all his 
faculties ; and his officers, despairing of his life, returned to Hispaniola in 
the month of September. 

Here a joyful surprise awaited Columbus, which contributed greatly to 
his recovery. His brother Bartholomew, whom he had not seen for seve- 
ral years, had arrived in the island during his absence. Bartholomew, it 
will be remembered, had been despatched in 1488 to England, with offers 
of his brother's project to Henry VIII ; but had been captured by pirates 
on the way. Escaping at length, he was engaged in negotiations with the 
English monarch, when he learned that his brother had returned to Spain 
with the announcement of a new world. Ere he could reach Spain, how 
ever, Columbus had departed on his second voyage ; but on arriving, he 
had been treated with great honor by the Spanish sovereigns, and intrusted 
with the command of a squadron which they were sending out to tho col- 
ony with provisions. Bartholomew was a man of extraordinary vigor and 
talent, with less enthusiasm and genius than his brother the admiral, but 
his equal in decision and sagacity ; and much superior to his other brother 
Diego, who, though a worthy and good man, was of a soft and yielding 
character. 

During Columbus' absence the colony had fallen into confusion. Besides 
the growing discontent of many of the colonists, the natives were in insur- 
rection — provoked, as it appeared, by the ravages and cruelties of the 
whites. It was necessary, in the first place, to reduce the natives to obe- 
dience. Several months were spent in this wretched and bloody work ; 
which was at length accomplished at the expense of the lives of some 
Spaniards and thousands of the natives. Many of the latter were also ta- 
ken prisoners, and reduced to servitude ; some of them being even ship- 
ped to Spain, to be sold in the slave market. The natives universally were 
compelled to pay tribute. ' Each person above fourteen years of age, who 
lived in those districts where gold was found, was obliged to pay quarterly 
as much gold dust as filled a hawk's bell ; from those in other parts of the 
country twenty-five pounds of cotton were demanded. ' This was the 
first regular taxation of the Indians, and served as a precedent for exactions 
still more intolerable. Such an imposition was extremely contrary to those 
maxims which Columbus had hitherto inculcated with respect to the mode 
of treating them. But intrigues were carrying on in the court of Spain at 
this juncture, in order to undermine his power and discredit his operations, 
which constrained him to depart from his own system of administration. 
Several unfavorable accounts of his conduct, as well as of the countries dis- 
covered by him, had been transmitted to Spain. Columbus saw that there 
was but one method of supporting his own credit, and of silencing his ad- 
versaries. He must produce such a quantity of gold as would not only 
justify what he had reported with respect to the richness of the country, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 797 

but encourage Ferdinand and Isabella to persevere in prosecuting his plans. 
The necessity of obtaining it forced him not only to impose a heavy tax 
upon the Indians, but to exact payment of it with extreme rigor ; and may 
be pleaded in excuse for his deviating on this occasion from the mildness 
and humanity with which he uniformly treated that unhappy people. 

The task of reducing the island to order occupied Columbus till towards 
the end of the year 1495. Meanwhile the representations of his enemies 
in Spain had gained such weight over the cold and jealous Ferdinand, and 
even over the generous soul of Isabella, that they resolved to send out a 
commissioner to investigate into his conduct. The person chosen for this 
office was Aguado, a groom of the king's bed-chamber. On arriving in 
Hispaniola, Aguado's behavior was so arrogant, and had such a bad effect 
upon the interests of the colony, that Columbus determined to proceed to 
Spain, and vindicate his conduct personally to the sovereigns. Accordingly, 
appointing his brother Bartholomew adelantado, or lieutenant-governor, of 
the island, and Francis Roldan chief-justice, he set sail in the spring of 
1496, and arrived safely in Spain. 

Third and Fourth Voyages — Ill-treatment of Columbus — Death. 
The appearance of Columbus in Spain, his manly and candid defense of his 
conduct, his glowing exposition of the value of his discoveries, and the best 
means of prosecuting them, had the effect of silencing his detractors for a 
time. A third expedition was fitted out at his solicitation. It was not, 
however, till the beginning of 1498 that all was in readiness. This delay 
arose partly from the dilatoriness of officials, and partly from the unwilling- 
ness of men to engage in an enterprise which did not now appear so capti- 
vating as it did at first. ' To supply the want of voluntary recruits, a 
measure was adopted, at the suggestion of Columbus, which shows the 
desperate alternatives to which he was reduced by the great reaction of 
public sentiment. This was to commute the sentences of criminals con- 
demned to banishment, to the galleys, or to the mines, into transportation 
to the new settlements, where they were to labor in the public service with- 
out pay. This pernicious measure, calculated to poison the population of 
an infant community at its very source, was a fruitful cause of trouble, and 
misery and detriment to the colony. It has been frequently adopted by 
various nations whose superior experience should have taught them better, 
and has proved the bane of many a rising settlement. It is^ assuredly as 
unnatural for a metropolis to cast forth its crimes and its vices upon its 
colonies, as it would be for a parent willingly to engraft disease upon his 
children. 

On the 80th of May 1498, Columbus set sail on his third voyage, with 
a squadron of six vessels. Sailing much farther south in this voyage than 
he had done in the two former, he landed on the coast of Paria, in the 
South American continent. The circumstances of this third voyage, part 
of which lay within the tropics, and the appearance of the new coasts to 
which it conducted him, made a strong impression on the mind of Colum- 
bus, which had a natural bent for theorising upon every phenomenon pre- 
sented to it. Among other theories which he started about this time, was 
one by which he attempted to explain the variation of the compass, and 
other extraordinary changes which occurred in passing from the old world 
to the new. According to this theory, he supposed that the earth, instead 



798 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of being spherical, as hitherto imagined, was elongated or pear-shaped, 
with one end bulbous, and the other produced and tapering — a theory 
which, however absurd it may seem, was really a step in advance of the 
science of the day. 

After coasting along the South American continent, acquiring informa- 
tion which he thought all tended to show that he was on the track of the 
long-desired Indies of Marco Polo, Columbus was obliged, by the shattered 
condition of his ships, to make for Hispaniola. Here he found all in con- 
fusion. Roldan, whom he had appointed chief justice, had rebelled 
against the authority of the adelantado, and was living in another part of 
the island as the head of a band of insurgents. Bartholomew had govern- 
ed the colony vigorously and well ; but being a foreigner, and not of high 
birth, he was unpopular with the Spaniards. It required all Columbus' 
skill and command of temper to restore the semblance of order. ' By a 
seasonable proclamation, offering free pardon to such as should merit it 
by returning to their duty, he made impression upon some of the malcon- 
tents. By engaging to grant such as should desire it the liberty of return- 
ing to Spain, he allured all those unfortunate adventurers who, from sickness 
and disappointment, were disgusted with the country. By promising to 
reestablish Roldan in his former office, he soothed his pride ; and, by com- 
plying with most of his demands in behalf of his followers, he satisfied 
their avarice. Thus gradually, and without bloodshed, but after many 
negotiations, he dissolved this dangerous combination, which threatened 
the colony with ruin, and restored the appearance of order, regular gov- 
ernment, and tranquillity. 

Meanwhile Columbus' enemies were again undermining his popularity in 
Spain. The accounts which Roldan and others sent home of the arrogance 
of Columbus and his brothers, received more credit than the admiral's own 
despatches. Owing also to the cessation of labor in the colony, Columbus 
was unable to send home so much wealth as the sovereigns expected. 
Private adventurers were likewise fitting out expeditions of discovery to 
the new world ; and Ferdinand began to be of opinion that it would be 
more for the interests of the crown to deprive Columbus of his great and 
exclusive privileges as his viceroy in the new world, and to place the col- 
onial government on a new footing. Isabella alone seemed to befriend the 
admiral. At length, however, on the arrival of some ships from Hispan- 
iola freighted with natives, whom Columbus had been forced to permit some 
of the refractory colonists to take with them on their return to Spain, to 
be sold in the slave market, her queenly soul, abhorring the idea of mak- 
ing wealth by the sale of human beings, took fire, and she indignantly 
exclaimed, 'What right has the admiral to give away my vassals?' She 
no longer opposed Ferdinand's desire to send out a person to examine into 
the conduct of Columbus, and, if necessary, to order him home. The per- 
son chosen as commissioner was Don Francisco de Bovadilla, an officer 
of the royal household. 

On arriving at Hispaniola, Bovadilla reversed the order of his written 
instructions. He superseded Columbus before investigating into his con- 
duct. Entering the admiral's residence at Isabella, he seized all his fur- 
niture, books, and papers; and by his orders Columbus, with his brothers 
Diego and Bartholomew, were put in irons. What a burlesque on national 
gratitude was this outrage! The man who had led Europeans to an 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 799 

acquaintance with America, actually put in manacles by a miserable instru- 
ment of the Spanish government! Overcome with emotion, Columbus 
was thus led on board a ship which waited to receive him. On arriving 
on board, an officer charged with the duty of attending on him and his 
brothers offered, with considerate humanity, to remove the irons from his 
prisoners ; but the admiral refused, saying that they were put on by the 
command of their majesties, and should remain till removed by the same 
authority. These irons Columbus afterwards preserved as relics. 

The rumor had no sooner circulated at Cadiz and Seville that Colum- 
bus and his brothers had arrived, loaded with chains, and condemned to 
death, than it gave rise to a burst of public indignation. The excitement 
was strong and universal ; and messengers were immediately despatched 
to convey the intelligence to Ferdinand and Isabella. The sovereigns 
were moved by this exhibition of popular feeling, and were offended that 
their name and authority should have been used to sanction such dishon- 
orable violence. They gave orders for the immediate liberation of the 
prisoners, and for their being escorted to Granada with the respect and 
honor they deserved. They annulled, without examination, all the proces- 
ses against them, and promised an ample punishment for all their wrongs. 
At his first interview with the sovereigns after his arrival, Columbus was 
so overcome that he threw himself at their feet, where he remained for 
some minutes drowned in tears, and unable to speak from the violence of 
his sobbings. 

Columbus, however, was not reappointed to his command in Hispaniola. 
Bovadilla, it is true, was superseded ; but his successor was Don Nicholas 
de Ovando, a Spanish cavalier. It was represented to Columbus that this 
appointment was only temporary, and that as soon as the colony was in an 
orderly condition, he would be reinstated in his privileges. In the mean- 
time, he was to undertake a fourth voyage of discovery. In consequence 
of the knowledge which he had obtained on his previous voyages — as well 
as from the voyages of the numerous adventurers who followed him — of 
the extent of the American continent, connected with the announcement 
with which Europe was then ringing, of the final accomplishment of the great 
feat of the circumnavigation of Africa by Vasco de Gama in 1497, the 
genius of Columbus had conceived a new project, or rather a modification 
of his former one. This was the discovery of some strait lying somewhere 
between Honduras and Paria, in about the situation of what is now known 
as the Isthmus of Darien, and leading into the Indian Ocean. Having 
discovered this strait, he would sail through it, coast along the Indies to 
the shores of Arabia, and either sail up the Red Sea, and travel overland 
to Spain ; or repeat Vasco de Gama's feat the reverse way, and reach 
Spain after having circumnavigated the world. Such was the gigantic 
scheme with the thoughts of which the great old man regaled his declining 
years. We mistake the character of Columbus if we suppose him merely 
to have been a man of extraordinary courage, coupled with what we usually 
understand by the term intellect. He had perhaps one of the most daring 
and fanciful imaginations. He regarded himself as a personage expressly 
predestined by heaven to discover a new world, and prepare the way for 
the recovery of the holy sepulchre, and the conversion of the whole world 
to Christianity. These three events he conceived to be linked to each 



800 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

other by prophecy ; and he considered that he was the instrument in God's 
hands for bringing them all about. 

On the 9th of May 1502, Columbus again set sail from Cadiz on a fourth 
voyage of discovery. During this expedition he touched at some parts of 
the South American continent, and also at some of the formerly-discovered 
islands ; but he failed in making any important discoveries, in consequence 
of the bad state of his vessels, which were old, and unfit for sailing. With 
a squadron reduced to a single vessel he now returned to Spain, where he 
heard with regret of the death of his patron Isabella. This was a sad blow 
to his expectations of redress and remuneration. Ferdinand was jealous 
and ungrateful. He was weary of a man who had conferred so much 
glory on his kingdom, and unwilling to repay him with the honors and 
privileges his extraordinary services so richly merited. Columbus, there- 
fore, sank into obscurity, and was reduced to such straitened circumstances, 
that according to his own account, he had no place to repair to except an 
inn, and very frequently had not wherewithal to pay his reckoning. Dis- 
gusted and mortified by the base conduct of Ferdinand, exhausted with 
the hardships which he had suffered, and oppressed with infirmities, Colum- 
bus closed his life at Valladolid on the 20th of May 1506. He died with 
a composure of mind suitable to the magnanimity which distinguished his 
character, and with sentiments of piety becoming that supreme respect for 
religion which he manifested in every occurrence of his life. 

Columbus experienced the fate of most great men — little esteemed dur- 
ing his life, but almost deified after his decease. Fedinand, with a mean- 
ness which covers his memory with infamy, allowed this great man to pine 
and die, a victim of injustice and mortification ; but no sooner was he dead, 
than he erected a splendid monument over his remains in one of the 
churches of Seville. The body of Columbus was not destined, however, to 
be indebted to Spain for even this posthumous honor ; it was afterwards 
according to the will of the deceased, transferred to St. Domingo, and 
buried in the cathedral there ; but on the cession of that island, to the 
French, in the year 1795, it was transferred to Havana, in the island of 
Cuba, where we hope it will rest in peace. 

The discoveries of Columbus laid open a knowledge of what are now 
termed the West India Islands, and a small portion of the South American 
continent, which this great navigator, till the day of his death^ believed to 
be a part of Asia or India. About ten years after his decease the real 
character of America and its islands became known to European naviga- 
tors ; and by a casual circumstance one of these adventurers, Amerigo 
Vespucii, a Florentine, had the honor of conferring the name America 
upon a division of the globe which ought, in justice, to have been called 
after the unfortunate Columbus. 

MAGELLAN — FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD . 

Ferdinand Magellan was by birth a Portuguese, decended from a 
good family, and born towards the end of the fifteenth century. In con- 
sequence of certain services in the Indian Seas, he applied to the govern- 
ment for some recompense ; but being treated with neglect, he left his 
own country to seek employment in a foreign land. In company with Ruy 
Falero, an eminent astronomer, and one of his associates, he traveled into 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 801 

Spain, and explained to Charles V, the reigning monarch, his project of 
making discoveries in distant seas. The court listened to the adventurer 
with favor, and consented to fit out an expedition. 

Magellan's little squadron consisted of five ships, manned with 237 men, 
and supplied with provisions, ammunition and stores, for two years. On 
the 1st of August, 1519, they left Seville, and on the 27th of September 
sailed from Sanlucar, steering for the Canaries. They refreshed at 
Teneriffe, and early in October passed the Cape de Verd Islands. Hold- 
ing on their course, they bore along the coast of Africa, till they crossed 
the line, seventy days after their departure. In the beginning of Decem- 
ber, they came to that part of Brazil which is now called the Bay of St. 
Lucia. They subsequently anchored at the mouth of a large river, sup- 
posed to be the Kio Janeiro, where they continued a fortnight. On their 
first landing, the inhabitants flocked to the beach in great numbers, behold- 
ing, as they imagined, five sea-monsters approaching the shore. When 
the boats put out from the ships, the natives set up a great shout, conceiv- 
ing them to be young sea-monsters, the offspring of the others. 

Proceeding along the South American Coast, the squadron arrived in 
April, 1520, at a large bay, now called by the name of St. Julian. Here 
they saw a wild, gigantic race, of great size and fierceness, who made a 
roaring not unlike that of bulls. One of them came on board the admi- 
ral's ship, and was well pleased with his reception ; but happening to cast 
his eyes on a looking-glass, he was so terrified, that starting backwards, 
he beat to the ground two men who stood behind him. Others subse- 
quently came on board, and their behavior afforded great entertainment to 
the officers. One of these savages ate a basket full of ship-biscuits, and 
drank a cask of water at a meal. They wore sandals, or a kind of shoes, 
made of skins, and this caused their feet to appear like those of an animal. 
Magellan named them Patagonians, from the Spanish word pata, signifying 
a hoof, or paw. 

Magellan determined to continue here till the return of spring, as it is 
winter in the southern hemisphere during our summer. He had ordered 
the allowance of provisions to be shortened, to meet this exigence, which 
caused much discontent among the crews. A mutiny soon followed, which 
was not quelled till one of the officers was hanged, and some others were 
sent on shore to be left among the Patagonians. Five dreary months were 
passed in the harbor of St. Julian, during which, every exertion was made 
to insure the successful prosecution of the voyage. On the 24th of Au- 
gust, the squadron again set sail, the weather being fine, and proceeded 
southward, till a violent gale from the east drove one of the vessels on 
shore, but the crew was happily saved. Coasting south with the four 
remaining ships, they approached a cape, near which an opening was dis- 
covered which was found afterwards to be a strait. Upon this, Magellan 
gave orders that all other ships should carefully examine the strait, prom- 
ising to wait for them a certain number of days. While the three vessels 
were employed in this expedition, one of them was driven out of the strait 
by the reflux of the tide, when the crew, dissatisfied with their situation, 
rose on their captain, made him prisoner, and again set sail for Europe. 
After waiting several days beyond the time he had fixed, Magellan entered 
the strait or arm of the sea, which has ever since retained his name. The 
entrance lies in 52 degrees south latitude, and the strait, which is about 
51* 



802 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

110 leagues in length, is very wide in some places, and in others not 
more than half a league from shore to shore. On both sides the land was 
high, and the mountains were covered with snow, on advancing about 50 
leagues west from the entrance. 

In about six weeks they found themselves again in an open sea, the 
coast terminating westward in a cape, and the shore of the continent 
taking a northerly direction. The sight of the Pacific Ocean gave 
Magellan the utmost joy, he being the first European who sailed upon it. 
Proceeding W.N.W. he arrived at the Ladrone Islands, to which he gave 
that name on account of the thievish disposition of the natives. 

They sailed from the Ladrones on the 10th of March, 1521, and after 
visiting a number of islands, entered the port of Lebu on the 7th of April. 
From Lebu they sailed to the island of Mathan, which being governed by 
two kings, and one of them refusing to pay tribute to the king of Spain, 
Magellan prepared to reduce him. He marched into the interior of the 
island, accompanied by sixty Europeans. Here he was attacked by -three 
distinct bodies of the islanders, whose united force amounted to upwards of 
six thousand. The battle was for some time doubtful, till Magellan's 
impetuosity carrying him too far, he was killed by being wounded in the 
leg with a poisoned arrow, and stabbed through the body by a spear. 
Eight or nine of the Spaniards and fifteen of the Indians were also slain. 
After the death of the admiral, new commanders were chosen from among 
the surviving officers, and as the ships were now in a very bad condition, 
it was found necessary to make use of one to repair the other two. 

Sailing "VV.S.W. they came to the rich island of Borneo. From this 
place they sailed to Cimbubon, where they were detained forty days in 
repairing their ships and taking in wood and water. Bending their course 
hence S.E. for the Moluccas, they came to anchor in the port of Tidore 
on the 8th of November. After remaining here some time, they set sail 
in one ship alone and with fifty-nine persons on board, for Europe. To 
double the Cape of Good Hope with the greater safety, they sailed as low 
as 42 degrees S. latitude, where they were obliged to wait seven weeks 
for a wind. On doubling the cape they were much distressed by hunger 
and sickness. For two months they held on their course to the N.W. 
without touching at any port, during which time they lost twenty-ono 
persons, and the rest were on the point of starving. 

In this situation they arrived at St. Jago, one of the Cape de Verd 
Islands. Finally on the 7th of September, they entered St. Lucar in 
Spain, with their number reduced to about eighteen persons. According 
to their reckoning, they had sailed 14,000 leagues, and crossed the equator 
six times, having been absent three years wanting fourteen days. This 
was the First Voyage Round the World that had ever been made 

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. 

Mr. Drake was first apprenticed to the master of a small vessel trading 
to France and Zealand ; at the age of eighteen he went purser of a ship to 
the Bay of Biscay, and at twenty made a voyage to the coast of Guinea. 
Having obtained Queen Elizabeth's permission for an expedition against 
the Spaniards, five ships were fitted out, having on board 164 able men 
and a large quantity of provisions. This fleet sailed out of Plymouth 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 803 

Sound on the 5th of November, 1577 ; but meeting with a violent storm, 
they were obliged to put back and refit. On the 13th of December they 
sailed again, and on the 25th passed Cape Cantin on the coast of Barbary. 
After visiting numerous islands and meeting with various adventures, 
having passed the line, they at length discovered the coast of Brazil on 
the 5th of April, it being fifty-four days since they saw land. As soon as 
the people on shore saw the ships, they made large fires in different parts, 
and performed ceremonies to prevail on the gods to sink the vessels, or at 
least to prevent their landing. Sailing southward, they anchored in fort 
St. Julian, where the admiral going on shore with six men, some of the 
natives slew the gunner, whose death was revenged by the commander, 
who killed the murderer with his own hand. At this place Magellan 
having executed one of his company who conspired against his lift, Drake 
caused one of the crew named Doughty to be tried for the same offense 
against himself; and executed him on the same gibbet. 

On the 20th of August, they fell in with the strait of Magellan, which 
they entered, but found so full of intricate windings, that the same wind 
which was sometimes in their favor, was at others against them. After 
several difficulties, they entered the South Sea on the 6th of September, 
and on the next day a violent storm drove them 200 leagues south of the 
strait, where they anchored among some islands, abounding in herbs and 
water. Being now arrived at the other mouth of the strait, they steered 
for the coast of Chili. On their course they met an Indian in a canoe, 
who informed them that at St. Jago there was a large ship laden for Peru, 
The admiral rewarded him for this information, whereupon he conducted 
them to the place where the ship lay at anchor. There were only eight 
Spaniards and three negroes on board, who mistaking them for friends, 
welcomed them, and invited them to drink Chili wine. Drake accepted 
the invitation, and going on board, put them under hatches ; arriving on 
shore, he rifled the town and chapel, from which he took great quantities 
of silver and gold. Proceeding to sea, they arrived at the port of Tara- 
paxa, where some of them going on shore, found a Spaniard asleep, with 
eighteen bars of silver laying by his side, which they took without waking 
him. 

Entering the port of Lima on the 13th of February, they found twelve 
sail of ships at anchor unguarded, the crews being all on shore. Examin- 
ing these vessels they found much plate, together with rich silks and linens, 
which they took away ; but having learned that a rich ship called the Ca- 
cafuego had lately sailed from that harbor for Taila, the admiral deter- 
mined to follow her. Having come up with the chase, they gave her three 
shots, which brought away the mizzen-mast, whereupon they boarded her, 
and found thirteen chests full of rials of plate, eighty pounds-weight of 
gold, a quantity of jewels, and twenty-six tons of silver in bars. 

They subsequently took several other rich prizes, and Drake having now 
revenged himself on the Spaniards, began to think of the best way of re- 
turning to England. To return by the straits of Magellan would be to 
throw himself into the hands of the Spaniards ; he therefore determined 
to sail westward to the East Indies, and return by the Cape of Good Hope. 
But wanting wind, he sailed toward the north, and in 38 degrees N. lati- 
tude, discovered a country, which from its white cliffs he called New Albi- 
on, though it is now known by the name of California. Here they were 



804 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

received with much hospitality by the natives, and the king made Drake a 
solemn tender of his kingdom. Sailing hence, they saw the Ladrones on 
the 13th of October. The admiral held on his course without delay, and 
on the 4th of November, fell in with the Moluccas. Having arrived at a 
little island south of Celebes, they staid 26 days, in order to repair the 
ships. Setting sail hence, they ran among a number of small islands, and 
the wind shifting about suddenly, drove them upon a rock, on the evening 
of the 9th of January, 1579, where they stuck fast, till four in the after- 
noon of the next day. In this extremity they lightened the vessel by tak- 
ing out eight pieces of ordnance and three tons of cloves. On the 18th of 
June, they doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and on the 22d of July ar- 
rived at Sierra Leone, where they found a great number of elephants. 
They staid here two days, and holding on their course for Plymouth, ar- 
rived there on Monday, September 26, 1580 ; but according to their own 
reckoning, on Sunday the 25th, having gone round the world in two years, 
ten months, and a few days. The honor of knighthood was conferred on 
Drake, and a chair was made from his ship, which is still shown as a curi- 
osity at Oxford. 

HENRY HUDSON. 

The distinguished English naval discoverer, Henry Hudson, sailed 
from London in the year 1607, in a small vessel, for the purpose of discov- 
ering a north-east passage to China and Japan, with a crew of only ten 
men and a boy besides himself, and, proceeding beyond the 80th degree 
of latitude, returned to England in September. In a second voyage, the 
next year, he landed at Nova Zembla, but could proceed no farther east- 
ward. In 1609, he undertook a third voyage, under the patronage of the 
Dutch East India Company. Being unsuccessful in his attempt to find a 
north-east passage, he sailed for Davis' straits, but struck the continent of 
America in 44 deg. N. lat., and holding a southerly course, discovered the 
mouth of the river Hudson, which he ascended about fifty leagues in a boat. 
His last voyage was undertaken in 1610. He sailed, April 17th, in a 
barque named the Discovery, with a crew of twenty-three men, and came 
within sight of Greenland, June 4th. Proceeding westward he reached, 
in latitude 60 deg., the strait bearing his name. Through this he ad- 
vanced along the coast of Labrador, to which he gave the name of Nova 
Brittannia, until it issued into the vast bay, which is also called after him. 
He resolved to winter in the most southern part of it, and the crew drew 
up the ship in a small creek, and endeavored to sustain the severity of that 
dismal climate, in which attempt they endured severe privations. Hudson, 
however, fitted up his shallop for farther discoveries ; but, not being able 
to establish any communication with the natives, or to revictual his ship, 
with tears in his eyes he distributed his little remaining bread to his men, 
and prepared to return. Having a dissatisfied and mutinous crew, he im- 
prudently uttered some threats of setting some of them on shore ; upon 
which a body of them entered his cabin at night, tied his arms behind him, 
and put him in his own shallop, at the west end of the straits, with his son, 
John Hudson, and seven of the most infirm of the crew. They were then 
turned adrift, and were never more heard of. A small part of the crew, 
after enduring incredible hardships, arrived at Plymouth, in September, 
1611. 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 805 



LE MAIRE AND SCHOUTEN— FIRST VOYAGE ROUND CAPE HORN. 

A belief that to the south of the strait of Magellan there would be 
found an open sea, or some other passage leading to the South Sea, had 
many years been gaining ground, when a company of Dutch merchants 
determined to make the experiment, which, if successful, would open to 
them, as they belived, the trade to India, by a new, instead of an inter- 
dicted passage, which the strait of Magellan then was. 

Jacob le Maire was appointed principal merchant, and president of the 
ships ; and Wilhelm Schouten, an able seamen, received the charge of 
patron or master mariner. The vessels fitted out were the Eendracht, a 
ship of three hundred and sixty tons, nineteen guns, and sixty-five men, 
and a galliot, named the Home, of one hundred and ten tons, eight guns 
and twenty-two men. The president, Le Maire, and Patron Schouten, 
sailed in the former ; the latter was commanded by Jan Schouten, brother 
to the patron, with Adrian Claesz as merchant. 

June the 4th, 1615, they quitted the Texel, and in three days anchored 
in the Downs, where an English gunner was hired. On the 30th of 
August, dropped anchor in the road of Sierra Leone, where a stock of 
twenty-five thousand lemons was purchased from the natives, for a few 
beads. On the 5th of October, were in latitude four degrees seventeen 
minutes N. when a great noise was heard on board the Eendracht, and 
immediately after the sea around it became red with blood. Afterwards 
a piece of the horn of some sea animal was found sticking in the bottom 
of the ship, seven feet below the water line, having, penetrated through 
the planking, and into one of the ribs : about the same length remained 
without ; it was similar in shape and size to the end of an elephant's tooth. 

Having passed the line, they struck soundings in seventy-five fathoms 
depth, on the 4th of December, and two days after saw the American 
coast. On the 8th, anchored in Port Desire, where they took a large sup- 
ply of birds, etc. On the 19th, the Home caught fire, and was totally 
consumed. On the 13th of January, 1616, the Eendracht quitted Port 
Desire, and on the 20th, passed the latitude of the entrance of the straits 
of Magellan. On the 24th saw Terra del Fuego to the right, not more 
than a league off, and on the 29th passed to the north of some rocky 
islets: Terra del Fuego appeared to the W. N. W. and W., all hilly land 
covered with snow, with a sharp point which they called Cape Home, in 
honor of the vessel which they had lost. On the 30th, having passed to 
the south of the Cape, steered west, encountering great waves with a cur- 
rent to the westward ; and afterwards steered north. The ship continued 
to advance northward, and on the 1st of March, made the island of Juan 
Fernandez, and caught two tons of fish, but could find no anchorage. 
Steering for the East Indies they visited a number of small islands, and 
on the 5th of August came to the Isle of Goley, subject to the King of 
Tidore. Sailed again next day ; and, after being much delayed by calms, 
met, September the 7th, with a ship of their own country, anchoring the 
same day at the Island of Ternate. They were kindly received by the 
people in power ; the Eendracht had not lost one of her crew in her long 
cruisings, and they had discovered a new passage to the South Sea ; yet 
these merits did not avail them, for on the arrival of the ship at Batavia, 



806 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

she was seized and condemned, on a supposed infringement of the rights 
of the Dutch East India Company, the officers and crew being put on 
board other ships, to be conveyed to Europe. 

On the 31st of December, during the passage home, died the president, 
Jacob Le Maire, a victim to the unworthy treatment he had received — a 
worthy man and a skillful navigator ; and on the 1st of July, 1617, his 
companions arrived at Holland, by the way of Good Hope, having been 
absent two years and seventeen days. 

VOYAGE OF CAPTAIN JAMES, FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A NORTH- 
WEST PASSAGE. 

In the year 1630, several wealthy merchants of Bristol united in fitting 
out a vessel for the purpose of accurately examining the whole northern 
coast of America. The command of this vessel, which was small, only of 
seventy tons burden, but one of the strongest ships of her size that had 
ever been built, was given to Captain James. She was provisioned for 
eighteen months, and manned with only twenty-two seamen, but these 
were all excellent sailors. 

His stores having been all shipped, and the men on board, Captain James 
left Bristol in the month of April 1631. After passing the southern 
coast of Ireland, he sailed in a west-north-west-erly direction, and on the 
fourth of June discovered the coast of Greenland. Two days subsequently 
to this, his vessel was encompassed with ice, many immense pieces of which 
beat so violently against her that the captain was fearful she would have 
been staved and sunk. The boat that accompanied her was crushed to 
atoms. In one instance he was obliged to order the ship to be made fast 
to a great piece of the ice, and during a day and night to employ men 
incessantly in pushing off such masses of ice as floated against her ; but 
in this labor all their poles were broken. The wind at length blew a perfect 
hurricane, and, though the broken ice on almost all sides rose higher than 
the decks, and the vessel was beaten about in a most alarming manner, she 
suffered no injury. 

On the morning of the tenth of June, these hardy adventurers passed 
some masses of the ice that were as high as the topmost of their vessel, 
and left Cape Desolation, in Greenland, to the eastward. The weather 
was now so cold that at one time the sails and rigging were all frozen. On 
the twentieth, the ship reached the southern point of the island of Reso- 
lution, at the entrance of Hudson's Strait, but she was several times carried 
round by the current, and floating ice, and was in imminent danger of being 
crushed to pieces before she could be brought to anchor. It now began to 
snow heavily, and the wind blew a storm from the westward. This drove 
the ice from the sea into the harbor where the vessel was stationed, until it 
was choked up. For some time the ice seemed to be perfectly firm and 
immovable, but it floated out again at the ebb of the tide. The various 
dangers to which the vessel was exposed in this harbor, of being thrown 
against the rocks, crushed to pieces in the ice, and sunk, were so great 
that the captain almost gave up all hope of being able to save her. 
He describes the thundering noise of the masses of ice beating against 
each other, the rushing of the water, and the fury of the current, to have 
been tremendous. After much difficulty and the most persevering exer 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 807 

ticns, however, she was navigated into a little cove or harbor, where, bein<* 
made fast to the rocks, she was at length rendered tolerably secure. 

Captain James landed on the island, but found that although the summer 
was far advanced, the ponds were yet frozen. The ground was rocky and 
barren, and no traces of animals were visible in the snow, though it was 
evident from some hearths and remains of fire-wood which were seen, that 
human beings had not long before visited the place. Captain James 
continued here two days, and then sailed westward ; but the masses of ice 
were still almost impenetrable. They grated the sides of the vessel with 
such violence that it was feared they would burst through the planks. 
On looking out from the mast-head scarcely an acre of open sea was visi- 
ble : nothing was to be seen but a continued and irregular range of ice, 
towering in different places to an immense height. The ship was thus 
surrounded till the twenty-seventh of June, when, by a gale from the 
south-east, the ice opened, and she was enabled to make some way. 

Though exposed to incessant danger by the immense masses of ice, 
which floated on the surface of the ocean, Captain James and his associates 
proceeded still westward, and entered Hudson's Strait about the beginning 
of July. On the fifteenth of that month, they arrived betwixt Digg's 
Island and Nottingham Island, but the summer was so cold and unfavorable 
that it was now evident there would be no possibility of proceeding much 
further northward this year. About a fortnight afterwards, they were so 
fast enclosed in the ice, that notwithstanding the ship had all her sails set, 
and it blew a strong breeze, she was immovable and as firmly fixed as if 
she had been in a dry dock. On this, the captain and many of the men 
walked out of her to amuse themselves upon the ice. Several of the crew 
now began to murmur, and to express great alarm, lest they should not be 
able either to proceed or return; and lest their provisions, which were 
beginning to fall short, Avould soon wholly fail. The captain encouraged 
them as well as he was able, and though he was aware their murmuring was 
not without a reason, he affected to ridicule their fears. Among other 
contrivances to amuse them, he took a quantity of spirits upon the ice, and 
there drank the king's health, although there was not a single man in the 
ship, and though she was at that time under all her sails. This was the 
twenty-eighth of July. On the thirtieth, they made some little way through 
the. ice, part of the crew heaving the vessel along with their shoulders, 
whilst others at the same time, broke off the corners of the ice with mal- 
lets and iron crows, to clear the way. This labor was continued on the 
following day, and after much fatigue, they got the ship into thirty-five 
fathom water. All this time they were in latitude 58 deg. 45 minutes 
north, and a few days afterwards they were in an open sea free from ice. 
The Captain and his crew now joined in devout thanksgiving for their 
deliverance from the dangers to which they had been exposed. 

A few days subsequently to this, whilst the ship was under sail, she 
struck upon some rocks that were concealed by the water, and received 
three such terrible blows, that the captain was fearful her masts would 
have been shivered to pieces, and he had no doubt that a hole had been 
beaten through her sides. But such was the strength of her timbers that 
she received little injury, and in a short time, was again out of danger. 

On the twentieth of August, and in latitude 57 deg. north, they came 
within sight of land, part of the continent of North America, which the 



808 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

captain named New South Wales, in honor of Charles, Prince of Wales, 
afterwards King Charles the second : and on the third of September they 
passed a cape, to which he gave the name of Cape Henrietta Maria, after 
the Queen. In the ensuing evening, they encountered such a tempest of 
thunder, snow, rain, and wind, as none of the crew had ever before been 
oxposed to. The sea washed completely over the decks, and the vessel 
rolled so tremendously, that it was not without great difficulty all things 
could be kept fast in the hold, and betwixt the decks. 

As the winter was now approaching, Captain James began to look out 
for some harbor, where he and his companions could pass that cheerless 
season, with as little discomfort, and in as much security, as possible. Land- 
ing, on the third of October, upon an island, in the bay that has since been 
called James' Bay, he found the tracks of deer, and saw some wild fowl ; 
but not being able to discover a safe anchorage, he proceeded onward with 
the vessel, and two days afterwards moored the ship, in a place of tolera- 
ble security near the same island. It now snowed without intermission, 
and was so cold that the sails were frozen quite hard, and the cable was 
as thick with ice as a man's body. 

Several men were sent ashore to cut wood for fuel, and they collected 
as much as, it was estimated, would last two or three months. It was 
found inconvenient, particularly for some of the crew who were sick, to 
continue entirely in the vessel ; a kind of house was, therefore, erected on 
shore, under the direction of the carpenter. In the meantime the captain 
and some of the men went into the woods to see whether they could dis- 
cover any traces of human beings, that, in case they found such, they 
might be on their guard against attack. None were found. The top- 
sails were now taken down from the vessel, thawed, and dried by great 
fires, and then folded up and secured from wet between the decks. The 
main-sail was carried on shore, to be used as a covering for the house. 
In about four clays, the house was ready, and a portion of the crew slept 
in it every night, armed with muskets to defend themselves in case of. 
attack, and guarded by two buck-hounds, which had been brought from 
England, for the hunting of deer. Such of the other rigging of the ves- 
sel as could be taken down, was now removed, and placed under the decks. 
On the fourteenth of October, six of the men set out with the dogs, in 
the hope of killing some deer, the tracks of which they had previously 
seen. They wandered more than twenty miles over the snow, and 
returned the next day with one small and lean animal ; having passed a 
cold and miserable night in the woods. Others went out a few days 
afterwards, and to a still greater distance ; these were not only unsuccess- 
ful, but they lost one of their companions, who, on attempting to cross a 
small frozen lake, fell in and was drowned. The captain consequently 
gave directions that hunting to such distances should be no more attempted. 
The crew at first brought beer ashore from the ship ; but this, even in 
their house, and close by the fire, was frozen and spoiled in one night. 
After this they drank water, which they obtained from a well that they 
sunk near the house. Their time was chiefly passed in setting traps and 
hunting for foxes and other animals, and in such occupations as were 
requisite for their own preservation. 

The winter was now so far advanced, that the ship appeared, from the 
shore, like a piece of ice in the form of a ship. The snow was frozen on 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 809 

every part, and her decks and sides were covered with ice. The captain 
began to despair of ever again getting her off. Every day the men were 
employed in beating the ice from the cables, and digging it out of the 
hawsers with a calking iron; and in these operations the water would 
freeze on their clothes and hands, so as very soon to render them unequal 
to almost any exertion. 

The ship was found to beat so much, that the captain could devise no 
other means of preventing her from being shattered to pieces and de- 
stroyed, than by directing holes to be bored through her sides, and sink- 
ing her in shallow water ; where, in the ensuing spring, he might have a 
chance of again raising her. This was a fearful expedient; but, after all 
the provisions and things requisite for use on shore had been taken out of 
her, it was adopted ; although it was the general opinion of the crew that 
she could never be floated again. They, however, had so strong an 
attachment for their captain, and so much confidence in him, that, even 
in the midst of despair, they obeyed implicitly all his commands. With 
true Christian confidence, he exhorted them not to be dismayed. 'If,' said 
he, ' we end our days here, we are as near heaven as in England ; and we 
are much bound to God Almighty for having given us so large a time for 
repentance, and having thus, as it were, daily called upon us to prepare 
our souls for a better life in heaven. He does not, in the meantime, 
deny that we may use all proper means to save and prolong our lives ; 
and in my judgment, we are not so far past hope of returning to our 
native country, but that I see a fair way by which we may effect it.' He 
then said that there was timber enough in the island for them to build a 
pinnace or large boat, by which they might endeavor to effect their escape, 
in case their vessel should be destroyed. This was on the thirtieth of 
November. 

The sufferings and the hardships which these brave men encountered 
for many successive months, it is impossible to describe. Happily, they 
had a tolerable store of provisions from their ship, and had not to depend 
upon the precarious subsistence to be obtained by hunting. Their liquids 
of every kind, wine, vinegar, oil, etc., were all frozen so hard, that they 
were obliged to cut them with hatchets, and then melt them over the fire 
for use. 

In the beginning of January, the whole surface of the adjacent sea was 
so entirely frozen, that no water whatever was to be seen. Some of the 
men were obliged to be out of doors a considerable part of the day, in 
fetching timber, and in other necessary employments. Their shoes were 
all destroyed, except some that had been sunk in the ship, and which were 
now, of course, inaccessible. They were, consequently, reduced to the 
necessity of binding up their feet, as well as they could, in pieces of cloth. 
Their noses, cheeks, and hands, were sometimes frozen in blisters, which 
were as white as paper ; and blisters as large as walnuts rose on different 
parts uf their skin. Their mouths became sore, and their teeth loose. 

Timber was cut down, according to the direction of the captain, and the 
carpenter and crew worked hard at the pinnace, till nearly the end of 
March, when the carpenter became so weak and ill, that it was necessary 
to lead him to his labor. 

Though they were in the midst of a wood, yet when their fuel began to 
fail, they had great difficulty in obtaining more. Almost all the axes had 



810 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

been broken in felling timber for the pinnace, and it was peculiarly requi- 
site that care should be taken of such cutting instruments as remained, lest 
there should be none left for finishing it. And, in felling the timber now, 
the trees were so hard frozen, that it was first requisite to light large fires 
around such as were to be cut, in order to thaw the wood, before the axes 
could make any impression upon them. 

During all this season of distress, Captain James and his crew never 
omitted to perform their religious duties. They particularly solemnized 
Easter day, the 26th of April, 1632 ; and it was on this day, whilst they 
were sitting round their fire, that the captain proposed to attempt, on the 
first opening of the warm weather, to clear the ship of ice. This was con- 
sidered by some of the crew impossible ; because they believed her to be 
filled with one solid mass of ice. The attempt, however, was resolved up- 
on ; and the question was as to the implements with which it was to be 
made. These were brought into review, and were only two iron bars (one 
of which was broken), and four broken shovels, apparently very ineffectual 
instruments for such a labor. 

The time passed miserably and slowly on, till the 16th of May, when 
they had a comfortable and sunny day. Some efforts were this day made 
to clear the decks of snow. From this period the vessel began to occupy 
much of the attention of the captain and his crew. The great cabin was 
found to be free both from ice and water, and a fire was lighted to clear 
and dry it. One of the anchors, which was supposed to have been lost, 
they found under the ice, and recovered. The rudder, which had been- 
torn off by the ice, they were not able to find. By the 24th of May, they 
had labored so hard in clearing the vessel, that they came to a cask, and 
could perceive that there was some water in the hold. They pierced the 
cask, and found it full of good beer ; which was a cause of great joy to 
them. 

Their next object was to dig through the ice on the outside of the ves- 
sel, to the holes that had been cut for the purpose of sinking her. They 
succeeded in this operation ; and, through the lowest of these, a consider- 
able quantity of water flowed out. The holes were then prevented from 
admitting any more water, by having strong boards nailed on the outside. 
Five days afterwards the weather became much warmer than it had been. 
The water in the hold of the vessel tended to thaw the ice ; and, by means 
of pumps, it was gradually cleared. Several butts of beer, one of cider, 
and another of wine, were found perfectly sound and good ; as well as 
many barrels of salt beef and pork. A considerable store of shoes and 
clothing were now also found. These, when dried, were peculiarly accept- 
able. But it was a subject of sincere rejoicing, that, on examination of 
the vessel, no defect could be perceived in her ; and sanguine hopes began 
to be entertained that she might still prove capable of performing the re- 
mainder of the voyage. Not long after this, the rudder was discovered 
and got up from beneath the ice. 

The carpenter now died. He had been a man beloved by the whole 
crew, and, with the most exemplary patience, had endured a long illness, 
in the course of which, with great exertion, he had completed all the most 
difficult parts of the pinnace. Thus, although he was deeply lamented by 
his comrades, the loss of him was not so severely felt as it might otherwise 
have been. At this time nearly the whole crew were disabled, by illness, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 811 

from working ; nor did any of them recover until after the commencement 
of the warm weather. 

From the elevated parts of the land, the open water was first seen on 
the 19th of June. Four days afterwards the provisions and other articles 
that were on shore, were carried on board. A cross was next erected . 
the king's and queen's pictures were tied to the top of it; and the island 
was named Charlton Island. The rigging of the ship was now set. On 
the 13th, the sea was clear of ice ; and on the 2d of July, after the cap- 
tain and his crew had all devoutly paid thanksgiving to the Almighty for 
their providential deliverance, they weighed anchor, and proceeded on their 
voyage. 

Still, however, though in the open sea, they suffered great inconvenience 
from the beating of the floating ice against the ship. On the 22d of July, 
they again passed Cape Henrietta Maria. The ship had now become so 
leaky, that, for some time, it was found difficult to keep her clear of water 
by the pumps. After almost incredible exertions, they made their way 
northward, according to their estimate, as far as 69 deg. 35 min., when 
at length they came to an impenetrable mass of ice. It was the opinion 
of the whole crew, that in the present condition of the ship, the autumn 
now fast approaching, it would not only be imprudent, but wholly imprac- 
ticable, to make any further attempt to discover the hoped-for passage of 
the sea to the north-west. The captain, therefore, with a sorrowful heart, 
consented to relinquish his object ; and, on the 26th of August, determined 
on returing to England. In his passage homeward, the vessel encountered 
many difficulties from contrary winds and stormy weather ; but, at length, 
safely arrived at the mouth of the Severn, October 22, 1632. 

DAMPIER. 

William Dampier was born in Somersetshire, England, in the year 
1652. He lost both his parents when very young, and was bound appren- 
tice to the master of a ship at Weymouth, with whom he made a voyage to 
France and another to New England. In 1673, he served in the Dutch 
war, and was afterwards an overseer to a plantation in Jamaica. He next 
visited the bay of Campeachy as a logwood cutter, and, after once more 
visiting England, engaged in a band of Buccaneers, as they called them- 
selves, although in reality pirates, with whom he roved on the Peruvian 
coasts. He next visited Virginia, and engaged in an expedition against 
the Spanish settlements in the South Seas. They accordingly sailed in 
August, 1683, and, after taking several prizes on the coasts of Peru and 
Chili, the party experienced various fortune but no very signal success. 
Dampier, wishing to obtain some knowledge of the northern coast of Mexi- 
co, joined the crew of a captain Swan, who cruised in the hopes of meeting 
the annual royal Mannilla ship, which, however, escaped them. Swan and 
Dampier were resolved to steer for the East Indies, and they accordingly 
sailed to the Piscadores, to Bouton island, to New Holland and to Nicobar, 
where Dampier and others were left ashore to recover their health. Their 
numbers gave them hopes of being able to navigate a canoe to Achin, in 
which they succeeded, after encountering a tremendous storm, which 
threatened them with unavoidable destruction. After making several 
t :ading voyages with a Captain Weldon, Dampier entered, as a gunner, the 




it 

m % 



814 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

English factory at Bencoolen. Upon this coast he remained until 1691, 
when he found means to return home, and, being in want of money, sold 
his property in a curiously painted or tattooed Indian prince, who was 
shown as a curiosity, and who ultimately died of the small pox at Oxford. 
Danipier is next heard of as a commander, in the king's service, of a sloop 
of war of twelve guns and fifty men, probably fitted out for a voyage of 
discovery. After experiencing a variety of adventures with a discontent- 
ed crew, this vessel foundered off the Isle of Ascension, his men with diffi- 
culty reaching land. They were released from this island by an East 
India ship, in which Dampier came to England. He afterwards commanded 
a ship in the South Seas, and accompanied the expedition of Captain 
Woodes Rogers as pilot. 

CAPTAIN WOODES ROGERS. 

This voyage was undertaken chiefly by the merchants of Bristol, Eng- 
land. Captain Woodes Rogers was appointed commander in chief, and 
William Dampier first pilot of the expedition. They sailed from King- 
road, Bristol, on the 1st of August, 1708, their force consisting of the 
Duke, a ship of three hundred tons burden, thirty guns, and one hundred 
and seventy men, commanded by Rogers ; and the Duchess of two hun- 
dred and seventy tons, twenty-six guns, and one hundred and fifty-one 
men, under the command of captain Courtney. They entered the harbor 
of Cork on the 6th of August, where they enlisted a number of seamen in 
the room of about forty fellows who had run away. They set sail on the 
1st of September, with a very mixed crew, and on the morning of the 10th 
discovered a sail, to which they immediately gave chase. On coming up 
with her she proved to be a Swedish ship, and was permitted to proceed 
unmolested on her way. During the time the ship was in custody, a de- 
sign had been privately formed on board the Duke, by four inferior officers, 
to make a prize of her ; and when they found she was given up, they 
began to mutiny ; but the boatsman, being displaced, and, with ten others, 
put in irons, and a severe whipping given to some of the leaders of the 
disturbance, all was quiet again. On the 14th, however, some of the ship's 
company, headed by a daring fellow, came up to captain Rogers at the 
steerage-door, and demanded the boatswain out of irons. The captain 
gave them good words, and having taken the ringleader, as if to speak 
with him on the quarter-deck, had him suddenly seized by the help of the 
officers, and lashed by one of his own followers. On the 16th the captain 
released the prisoners from irons on their acknowledging their sorrow for 
what they had done. 

On the 17th, gained sight of the peak of Teneriffe, and the next day 
took a Spanish bark of twenty-five tons. On the 25th of September 
passed the tropic, when about sixty of the crew, who had never been this 
course before, were ducked three times, by hoisting them up halfway the 
main-yard, with a rope to which they were made fast, and sousing them 
into the water. After visiting the Cape de Verd islands, where they took 
in water and provisions, the ships again set sail on the 8th of October, in 
the evening. On the 14th, they came within sight of Brazil, and soon 
after came to anchor before the island of Grande, in eleven fathoms water. 
While they lay here another quarrel arose on board the Duchess, and 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 815 

eight of the ringleaders were put in irons. On the 25th, two men desert- 
ed and made their escape into the woods ; hut, in the night, were so ter- 
rified by the noise made by the baboons and monkeys, that they ran back, 
plunged into the water, and prayed to be taken on board again. 

The ships sailed out of the bay of Grande on the first of December, 
steering for Juan Fernandez, and on the 5th of January, encountered a 
violent storm, which drove such a quantity of water into the Duchess that 
they expected she would sink every moment. As the men were going to 
supper about nine o'clock at night, she shipped a sea at the poop, which 
beat in the bulkhead and all the cabin windows. On deck the yawl was 
staved in pieces and one or two of the men severely hurt. On the 
17th, took an observation, by which they found they had got round Cape 
Horn and were to the northward of Cape Victoria. About this time the 
scurvy began to make great havoc among the crews. They now bore 
away for the island of Juan Fernandez, which appeared in sight on the 
last day of January. On going on shore here they discovered a man 
clothed in goat-skins, whose name was Alexander Selkirk. They re- 
mained at this island till the 14th of February, having fully refreshed 
themselves, when they weighed anchor, with a fair gale at south-east. 

After taking a number of valuable prizes, on the 23d of April, captain 
Rogers with some of his men made a descent in boats and barks upon the 
town of Guyaquil, which they took with but little resistance and plundered 
of great quantities of money, jewels, and provisions. He then marched 
out of the town, and returned on board his own ship, where he was heart- 
ily greeted by those of his people whom he had left behind. They after- 
wards obtained a considerable sum as a ransom for the town, and bore 
away for the Gallapagos islands, with a strong gale at S. S. W. ; discov- 
ered land on the 17th of May, but found it barren and destitute of water. 
Continuing on their voyage, they took several rich prizes, visited Gorgona 
and the Gallapagos, and sailing for the East Indies arrived at the islands 
of Serpana and Guam. They left the latter place on the 21st of March, 
and on the 25th of May, made Bouton. They sailed from this island on 
the 8th of June, and on the 23d of July, they hove down upon Horn 
Island to careen their vessels. Having supplied themselves with such 
necessaries as they wanted, they left Batavia on the 12th of October, and 
sailed for the Cape of Good Hope. 

They came to anchor in the Cape harbor, on the 28th of December. 
The English saluted the Dutch fort with nine guns: which compliment was 
was returned with seven. At this place they waited for the convoy of the 
Dutch fleet till April, on the 5th of which month the Dutch admiral hoisted 
a blue flag, and loosed his fore-top-sail, as a signal to unmoor ; and the 
next day the whole fleet sailed with a fresh breze at S. S. E. On the 23d 
of July they arrived in the Texel, and sailing hence with seven prizes 
came to the moorings in the Downs on the 2d of October, 1711. 

CAPTAIN JOHN CLIPPERTON. 

About the beginning of the year 1718, some English merchants, fore- 
seeing war between England and Spain, resolved to fit out two ships for 
the South Seas. Two ships were accordingly provided, one called the 
Success, the other the Speedwell. The command of the former was given 



816 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to captain Clipperton, and captain Shelvock was appointed to command 
the latter. They sailed from Plymouth on the 13th of February 1719, 
■with a fair wind ; but the whole stock of wine, brandy and other liquors, 
for the use of both ships, was still on board the Speedwell. On the 15th, 
had squally weather with rain ; in the evening, unbent the best and small 
bowers in the Success, stowed their anchors, and found themselves often 
obliged to shorten sail for the Speedwell. Captain Shelvock came this 
day under the lee of the Success, and complained to Clipperton of the 
crankness of his ship, which proceeded from having too much weight aloft ; 
and, therefore, desired him to send for his wine and brandy, which would 
give him an opportunity of striking down some of his guns into the hold. 
This was never done. 

About ten o'clock at night, on the 19th, there arose a fresh breeze, so 
as to oblige both ships to take in their topsails. The gale increasing, the 
Success made a signal for the Speedwell to bring to, and by seven o'clock 
both ships were under bare poles, nor able to bear a rag of canvass during 
the night. On the 20th, the storm abated, when Clipperton made sail, 
steering S. by E., whereas Shelvock stood away to the N. W., so that 
from this day they never saw each other till they met by accident in the 
South Seas. 

The Canaries being the first place appointed for a rendezvous, Clipper- 
ton sailed thither with such expedition as to arrive on the 5th of March. 
After waiting ten days he determined to continue his voyage, lest he should 
miss his consort at the next place of rendezvous, which was the Cape de 
Verd Islands. On the 21st, they saw St. Vincent, and next morning 
anchored in the bay. They remained here ten days, but not meeting with 
their consort, proceeded on their voyage. 

On the 29th of May, found themselves off the north point of the en- 
trance of the straits of Magellan, and the next day entered the straits. 
They arrived in the South Seas on the 18th of August, and on the 7th 
of September cast anchor off the island of Juan Fernandez. They left 
this island on the 8th of October, leaving behind two deserters whom they 
had not been able to find. After taking a number of valuable prizes ; the 
Success bore away for the Gallapagos, in order to refresh ; and anchored 
in York Road on the 9th of January 1720. On the 11th of August 
anchored with a prize they had taken, at the island of Lobos de la Mar. 
While here a conspiracy among the crew was discovered and punished. 

On the 1st of November, sailed for the Bay of Conception ; and in the 
passage took a ship, laden with tobacco, sugar and cloth. They made the 
Bay on the 6th. in the afternoon, where they saw three men-of-war lying, 
with their topsails loose, who no sooner discovered them than they cut 
their cables, and stood in chase. At this time Captain Clipperton had one 
prize with him, which, as well as the Success, hauled close upon a wind ; 
on which the best sailor among the Spanish men-of-war, gave chase to the 
prize, which she soon came up with and took. The other ships crowded 
all the sail they could for some time, till the largest, having her mizen- 
top-mast carried away, fired a gun, tacked, and stood in for the shore, 
which gave the Success an opportunity of making her escape. In the 
Spanish prize Clipperton lost his third lieutenant, and twelve of his men. 

They continued cruising to the northward, and on the 4th of December 
found themselves very near the Gallapagos. On the 17th saw the island 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 817 

of Cocos, and most of the crew went on shore. On the 19th of January, 
1721, sailed from this place, and on the 25th arrived on the coast of 
Mexico, where, discovering a sail, they sent their pinnace to give chase, 
to whom he struck. On the return sf the pinnace they had the surprising 
account that this was a Spanish ship called the Jesu Maria, now com- 
manded by Captain Shelvock, who had lost his ship and most of his men, 
and taken this prize. These ships again parted, and on the 31st of May, 
Clipperton anchored in the road of Guam. On the 5th of July entered 
the port of Amoy, where the crew demanded that the prize money should 
be shared. Clipperton not complying, they applied to the chief mandarin 
of the place, requesting that he would do them justice against the captain. 
Clipperton was therefore summoned before him ; and on the mandarin's 
demanding a reason why he refused to comply with the desires of the crew, 
he produced the articles, by which it appeared that the prize-money was 
not to be shared till their return to London. The mandarin decided that 
the shares should be settled, and this distribution was accordingly made 
on the 16th of September; <£7,000 being set aside as belonging to the 
owners. This sum was immediately put on board a Portuguese East 
Indiaman, which ship was afterwards burnt, and the greater part of the 
money lost. 

Clipperton afterwards took passage for England in a Dutch ship, and 
arrived there bankrupt in health and fortune, after a long and disastrous 
voyage. 

COMMODORE ANSON. 

The expedition under Commodore Anson was fitted out by the English 
government in the year 1740, to attack the Spanish settlements in America. 
The squadron consisted of six vessels of war, and two victuallers. These 
were the 

Ships. Commanders. Guns. Men 

Centurion George Anson 60 400 

Gloucester Richard Norris 50 300 

Severn Edward Legge 50 300 

Pearl Matt. Mitchell 40 250 

Wager Dandy Kidd 28 160 

Trial Sloop John Murray 8 100 

On the 18th of September, 1740, the squadron weighed from St. 
Helens, and reached Madeira the 25th of October. Having sailed hence, 
they discovered the land of Brazil, on the 16th of December, and on the 
evening of the 19th cast anchor at the island of St. Catherines. Having 
repaired their vessels, they quitted this place on the 18th of January, 
and on the same day of the following month came to anchor in the Bay of 
St. Julian. The squadron again stood to sea on the 28th of February, 
when the Gloucester not being able to purchase her anchor, was obliged to 
cut her cable, and leave her best bower behind. Having reached the 
southern extremity of the straits of Le Maire, the wind shifted and blew 
in violent squalls, and the tide turned furiously against them, driving to 
the eastward with such rapidity, that the two sternmost vessels, the Wager 
and the Anna Pink, with the utmost difficulty escaped being dashed in 
pieces on the shore of Staten Island. 

For above three months they struggled with severe gales and terrific 
52* 



820 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

waves, and on the 1st of April, the weather, after having been a little 
more moderate, returned to its former violence ; the sky looked dark and 
gloomy, and the wind began to freshen and blow in squalls ; and there 
were all the appearances of an approaching tempest. Accordingly, on the 
3d, there came on a storm, which exceeded in violence and duration all 
they had hitherto encountered. On the 14th in the morning the weather 
clearing up a little and the moon shining out on a sudden, the Anna Pink 
made a signal for seeing land right a-head ; and it being then only two 
miles distant, they were under great apprehensions of running on shore ; 
and had not the wind suddenly shifted, or the moon shone out, every ship 
must have perished. They found this land, to their disappointment, to be 
Cape Noir, though they imagined they were ten degrees more to the west. 
On the evening of the 24th of April, the wind increased to a prodigious 
storm, and, about midnight, the weather became so thick that the whole 
squadron separated, nor met again till they reached the island of Juan 
Fernandez. To add to their misfortunes, the scurvy began to make such 
havoc, that on board the Centurion only, it carried off forty-three men in 
the month of April, and twice that number in May. 

On the 22d of May the Centurion encountered the severest storm it had 
yet experienced. Almost all the sails were split; the rigging was 
destroyed, and a mountainous wave breaking over them on the starboard 
quarter, gave the vessel such a shock, that several of the shrouds were 
broke, and the ballast and stores so strangely shifted, that she lay on her 
larboard side. The wind at length abating a little, they began to exert 
themselves to stirrup the shrouds, reeve new lanyards, and mend the sails ; 
during which they ran great risk of being driven on the island of Chiloe. 
After many difficulties they at length reached the island of Juan Fernan- 
dez, in a most desponding condition. Here many of the crew died of 
weariness and disease. 

A few days after the Centurion had arrived, the Trial Sloop appeared in 
sight, and on the 21st of June the Gloucester was discovered to leeward. 
The Anna Pink arrived about the middle of August, which, with the Trial 
and Gloucester, mentioned above, were the only vessels that ever joined 
the squadron ; for the Severn and Pearl, having parted from the commo- 
dore off Cape Horn, with difficulty reached Brazil, whence they made the 
best of their way back to Europe, while the Wager was wrecked on the 
coast. The Anna Pink being judged unfit for service, was taken for the 
use of the squadron, and her men were sent on board the Gloucester. 

About eleven in the morning of the 8th of September, they discovered 
a sail ; when the Centurion, being in the greatest forwardness, made after 
her as fast as possible. Night coming on they lost sight of the chase. 
About three in the morning of the 12th, a brisk gale springing up at W. 
S. W. obliged them to lie upon a N. W. tack, which at break of day, 
brought them within sight of a sail, at about five leagues distant. She 
appeared to be a large vessel, and upon hoisting Spanish colors, and bear- 
ing towards the Centurion, the commodore ordered everything ready for an 
engagement ; but upon coming nearer, she appeared to be a merchantman, 
without a single tier of guns, and had mistaken the Centurion for her con- 
sort. She soon surrendered, and was found to be a valuable prize. 

It appearing from letters on board the prize, that several other mer- 
chantmen were at sea, between Callao and Valparaiso, the commodore sent 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 821 

the Trial sloop, to cruise off the latter port ; and ordered the Gloucester 
to cruise off the island of Paita, till she should be joined by the Centurion. 
The Centurion and her prize weighing from the bay of Juan Fernandez, 
on the 19th of September, took her course to the eastward, proposing to 
join the Trial off Valparaiso. 

On the 24th, in the evening, they came up with the latter, having taken 
a prize of six hundred tons burden, laden with a rich cargo. On the 
27th, the captain of the Trial came on board the Centurion, bringing with 
him an instrument, subscribed by himself and all his officers, setting forth 
that the vessel was so leaky and defective, that it was at the hazard of 
their lives they staid on board ; upon which, the commodore having ordered 
the crew and every thing of value to be put on board the prize, the Trial 
was scuttled and sunk. It was now resolved to join the Gloucester off 
Paita. With this view they stood to the northward, and, on the 10th of 
November discovered a sail, which Lieutenant Brett was ordered to chase, 
with the Trial's pinnace and barge. They found her to be a Spanish ves- 
sel of two hundred and seventy tons burden. From the prisoners they 
learned that, a few days before, a vessel had entered Paita, the master of 
which told the governor he had been chased by a very large ship, which he 
imagined to be one of the English squadron, and that the governor had 
immediately sent an express to Lima, to carry the news to the viceroy, 
while the royal officer residing at Paita had been busily employed in remov- 
ing both the king's treasure and his own to Piuza, a town fourteen leagues 
within land. It was at once conjectured that the ship which had chased 
the vessel into Paita was the Gloucester ; and, as they were now discovered, 
and the coast would soon be alarmed, so as to prevent cruising to any 
advantage, the commodore resolved to endeavor to surprise the place that 
very night. 

When the ships were within five leagues of Paita, about ten o'clock at 
night, Lieutenant Brett, with the boats under his command, put off, and 
arrived without being discovered, at the mouth of the bay ; though he had 
no sooner entered it, than some of the people on board a vessel riding at 
anchor there, perceived him, and immediately getting into their boat, rowed 
towards the shore, crying out ' the English, the English dogs,' etc., by 
which the town was alarmed and the attack discovered. The town was, 
however, taken in less than a quarter of an hour from the first landing of 
the boats ; with the loss of one man killed and two wounded. 

They weighed anchor from the coast of Paita on the 16th of November, 
the squadron being increased to six sail by the prizes. On the morning of 
the 18th, they discovered the Gloucester with a small vessel in tow, which 
joined them about three in the afternoon, when they learned that captain 
Mitchell had taken two prizes, one of which had a cargo consisting of wine, 
brandy and olives, and about seven thousand pounds in specie ; and the 
other was a launch, the people on board which, when taken, were eating 
their dinner from silver dishes. Notwithstanding this circumstance, the 
prisoners alleged that they were very poor : having nothing on board, but 
cotton made up in jars, which, being removed on board the Gloucester, 
were examined, when the whole appeared to be an extraordinary piece of 
false package ; there being concealed among the cotton, doubloons and dol- 
lars, to the amount of twelve thousand pounds. 

The cargo and crews of the several vessels were afterwards divided 



822 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

between the Centurion and Gloucester. Quitting the coast of America, 
they stood for China, the 6th of May, 1742. The Gloucester, which had 
become decayed, was cleared of every thing by the 15th of August, and 
then set on fire. On the 27th they arrived at the island of Tinian, where 
they remained some time. On the night of the 22d of September, when 
it Avas excessively dark, the wind blew from the eastward with such fury, 
that those on board despaired of riding out the storm. At this time Mr. 
Anson was ill of the scurvy, and most of the hands were on shore, and all 
the hopes of safety of those on board seemed to depend on immediately 
putting to sea ; all communication between the ship and the island being 
destroyed. 

About one o'clock a strong gust, attended with rain and lightning, drove 
them to sea, where, being unprepared to struggle with the fury of winds 
and waves, they expected each moment to be their last. When at day- 
break, it was perceived by those on shore that the ship was missing, they 
concluded her lost, and many of them begged the commodore to send the 
boat round the island to look for the wreck. In the midst of their gloomy 
reflections, the commodore formed a plan for extricating them from their 
present situation ; which was by hauling the Spanish barque on shore, sawing 
her asunder, and lengthening her twelve feet ; which would enlarge her to 
near forty tons burden, and enable her to carry them all to China. 

But a discouraging circumstance now occurred, which was, that they had 
neither compass nor quadrant on the island. At length, on rummaging a 
chest belonging to the Spanish bark, they found a small compass, which 
though not much superior to those made for the amusement of school-boys, 
was to them of the utmost importance. 

When this obstacle was removed, and all things ready for sailing, it hap- 
pened on the afternoon of the 11th of October, that one of the Glouces- 
ter's men being upon a hill, saw the Centurion at a distance. She was 
soon visible to all, and the next day cast anchor in the road. On the 14th, 
a sudden gust of wind drove her to sea a second time, but in about five 
days, they returned again to anchor. On the 20th of October, they set 
fire to the bark and proa, hoisted in their boats, and got under sail, steering 
away towards the south end of the island of Macao. 

About midnight, on the 5th of November, they made the mainland of 
China, and on the morning of the 9th, a Chinese pilot came on board, and 
told them that he would carry the ship into Macao for thirty dollars, which 
being paid him they proceeded, and on the 12th entered the harbor of 
Macao. 

On the 6th of April the Centurion again stood out to sea. On the last 
day of May they came in sight of Cape Espiritu Santo, where they con- 
tinued to cruize till the 20th of June, when about sunrise the great Manilla 
ship came in sight, having the standard of Spain flying at the top-gallant- 
mast head, and to the commodore's surprise, bore down upon him. The 
engagement soon began, and lasted an hour and a half, when the galleon 
struck to the Centurion, after having sixty-seven men killed and eighty- 
four wounded. The Centurion had only two men killed and seventeen 
wounded. The prize carried five hundred men and thirty-six guns, and 
her cargo was worth £400,000 sterling. It is impossible to describe the 
transports on board, when, after all their reiterated disappointments, they 
at length saw their wishes accomplished. But their joy was very near be- 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 823 

ing suddenly damped by a very alarming accident ; for no sooner had the 
galleon struck, than one of the lieutenants coming to Mr. Anson, whispered 
him, that the Centurion was dangerously on fire near the powder-room. 
The commodore received this shocking intelligence without any apparent 
emotion, and taking care not to alarm his people, gave the necessary orders 
for extinguishing the fire, which was done, though its first appearance 
threatened the ship with destruction. 

On the 14th, the Centurion cast anchor off Bocca Tigris, forming the 
mouth of that river : and having got under sail on the 10th of October, 
1743, came to anchor in the straits of Sunda on the 3d of January, and 
continued there till the 8th, taking in wood and water, when she weighed 
and stood for the Cape of Good Hope, where, on the 11th of March, she 
came to anchor in Table Bay. Mr. Anson continued here till the 3d of 
April, 1744, when he put to sea, and on the 19th of the month, was in sight 
of St. Helena, but did not touch at it. 

On the 12th of June they got in sight of the Lizard, and on the evening 
of the 15th, to their great joy, came safe to anchor at Spithead. On his 
arrival Mr. Anson learned, that under cover of a thick fog, he had run 
through a French fleet, which was at that time cruizing in the chops of the 
channel. 

BYRON. 

In the year 1764, the Dolphin and Tamar, English ships-of-war, were 
fitted out for the purpose of prosecuting discoveries in the South Seas. 
Byron was commander-in-chief, and Captain Mouat commander under 
him. 

On the 3d of July, the commodore hoisted his broad-pendant, and they 
sailed in prosecution of the voyage. On the 13th of September they 
came to an anchor in the road of Rio de Janeiro, on the coast of Brazil, 
when the commodore paid a visit to the governor, who received him in 
state. They weighed anchor on the 16th of October, steering for Cape 
Blanco, and on the 21st of November, entered the harbor of Port Desire, 
and the commodore in his boat, attended by two other boats, went to sound 
it. He landed, and they had a sight of four beasts, near thirteen hands 
high, and in shape like a deer, which they took to be granicoes. 

On the 5th of December the ships got under sail, and on the 20th, ran 
close in-shore to Cape Virgin Mary, and came to an anchor. The commo- 
dore observed a number of men on horseback, riding to and fro, opposite 
the ship, and waving something white, which he took to be an ivitation to 
land ; and as he was anxious to know what people these were, he went in 
one boat with a party of men well armed ; the first lieutenant, with a sep- 
arate party, following in another. When they came near the shore, the 
whole appeared to amount to five hundred persons, drawn up on a stony 
point of land that ran far into the sea. Byron now advanced alone, but 
as he approached, the Indians retreated : he therefore made signs that 
one of them should come forward, which was complied with. The one who 
advanced appeared to be chief, and was over six feet in height ; round 
one of his eyes was a circle of black paint, and a white circle round the 
other ; the rest of his face was painted in streaks of various colors. He 
had the skin of a beast, with the hair inwards, thrown over his shoulders 



w 




826 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

The comnioaore and the Indian having complimented each other, in lan- 
guage equally unintelligible to either, they walked together towards the 
main body of the Indians, few of whom were shorter than the height 
abovementioned, and the women were large in proportion. 

On the 21st of December they began sailing up the Strait of Magellan, 
with a view to take in a stock of wood and water. On the 26th, came to 
anchor at Port Famine. In this place, they found drift-wood enough 
to have supplied a thousand vessels. The quantity of fish that was daily 
taken was equal to the supply of both the crews : and the commodore shot 
as many geese and ducks as furnished several tables besides his own. On 
the 4th of January 1765, they sailed in search of Falkland's Islands. 

On the 12th they saw land, and on the 14th a flat island, covered with 
tufts of grass as large as bushes. Soon after this they entered another 
harbor, to which Byron gave the name of Port Egmont. This harbor is 
represented to be the finest in the world, and capacious enough to contain 
the whole navy of England, in full security ; there is plenty of fresh wa- 
ter in every part of it, and geese, ducks, snipes, and other edible birds, 
abound in such numbers, that the sailors were tired with eating them. 
The commodore was once unexpectedly attacked by a sea-lion, and extri- 
cated himself from the impending danger with great difficulty ; they had 
many battles with this animal, the killing of one of which was frequently 
an hour's work for six men ; one of them almost tore to pieces the commo- 
dore's mastiff-dog, by a single bite. The commodore took possession of the 
harbor, and the adjacent islands, by the name of Falkland's Islands. 

On Sunday, January the 27th, they left Port Egmont. Next day the 
commodore gave the name of Berkley's Sound to a deep inlet between the 
islands. On the 6th of February stood in for Port Desire at the mouth 
of which they came to anchor, and had the pleasure of seeing the Flor- 
ida, a store-ship, which they had expected from England. On the 20th, at 
Port Famine, received orders to sail for England. 

Having narrowly escaped the dreadful effects of a storm on the 3d of 
March, at length the Dolphin was moored in a little bay opposite Cape Quod ; 
and the Tamar about six miles to the eastward of it. On the 28th the 
Tamar narrowly escaped being dashed to pieces against the rocks, by the 
parting of the cables to her best bower-anchor. The Dolphin, therefore, 
stood out again into the bay, and sent her proper assistance, after which 
they both anchored for the night ; a night the most dreadful they had known. 
The winds were so violent as perfectly to tear up the sea, and carry it 
higher than the heads of the masts : a dreadful sea rolled over them, and 
broke against the rocks, with a noise as loud as thunder. Happily they 
did not part their cables, or they must have been dashed in pieces against 
these rocks. 

The ships came to anchor on the 4th of April, in a bay which had been 
discovered, proposing to take in wood and water. While they were here, 
several of the natives made a fire opposite the ship, on which signals were 
made for them to come on board ; but as they would not, the commodore 
went on shore, and distributed some trifles which gave great pleasure. 
Four were at length prevailed on to go on board ; and the commodore, 
with a view to their diversion, directed one of the midshipmen to play on 
the violin, while some of the seamen danced. The poor Indians were ex- 
travagantly delighted ; and one of them to testify bis gratitude, took his 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 827 

canoe, and fetching some red paint, rubbed it over the face of the musician ; 
nor could the commodore, but with the utmost difficulty, escape the like 
compliment. 

They sailed from this bay on the 7th, and next day the wind blew a 
hurricane. On the 9th, passed some dangerous rocks, which in Narbor- 
ough's Voyage are called the Judges. This day a steady gale at the south- 
west carried them at the rate of nine miles an hour, so that by eight in the 
evening they were twenty leagues from the coast. On the 26th, they 
sailed westward, and bore away for the island of Massafuero and anchored 
at seven o'clock on Sunday morning. 

On the 30th of April they sailed, and on the 7th of June discovered 
land, being then in 14 deg. 5 min. south latitude, and 144 deg. 58 min. 
west longitude. The commodore steered for a small island, the appear- 
ance of which was pleasing beyond expression. Several natives ran along 
the beach, with long spears in their hands. The sailors made every possi- 
ble sign of friendship — but they retired to the woods, dragging their ca- 
noes after them. The commodore proceeded to the other island, and brought 
to, at three-quarters of a mile from the shore. The natives again ran to 
the beach, armed with clubs and spears, using threatening gestures. The 
commodore fired a cannon-shot over their heads, on which they retreated 
to the woods. This paradise in appearance, was named the Island of Dis- 
appointment. 

Quitting these on the 8th of June, they discovered an island on the day 
following, low, and covered with various kinds of trees, among which was 
the cocoa-nut, and surrounded with a rock of red coral. They now sailed 
to the westward, and soon discovered another island, distant four leagues. 
The natives pursued them in two large double canoes, in each of which 
were about thirty armed men. At this time the boats were at a consider- 
able way to leeward of the ships, and were chased by the canoes ; on 
which the commodore making a signal, the boats turned towards the Indi- 
ans, who instantly pulled down their sails, and rowed away with great ra- 
pidity. On the 12th of June, sailed to another island, and as they coasted 
along it, the natives, armed as those of the other islands, kept even with 
the ship for some leagues. This island is situated in 14 deg. 41 min. S. 
latitude, and 149 deg. 15 min. W. longitude ; and both the islands the 
commodore called King George's Islands. The bqats having returned on 
board, they sailed westward the same day ; and the next afternoon des- 
cried another island, towards which they immediately sailed, and found 
that it was well inhabited, and had a fine appearance of verdure ; but that 
a violent surf broke all along the coast. It lies in 15 deg. south latitude, 
and 161 deg. 53 min. west longitude, and received the name of the Prince 
of Wales' Island. 

On the 24th they discovered another island, which was named the Duke 
of York's Island. A terrible sea breaks round the coast, but the place it- 
self had a pleasing appearance. On the 29th sailed northward, with a 
view to cross the equinoctial line, and then sail for the Ladrone Islands. 
On the 2d of July they discovered a low flat island, abounding with the 
cocoa-nut and other trees, and affording a most agreeable prospect. A 
great number of natives were seen on the beach, many of whom, in about 
sixty canoes or proas, sailed, and formed a circle round the ships ; which 
having surveyed for a considerable time, one of the Indians jumped out of 



828 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

his boat, swam to the ship, ran up its side in a moment, sat down on the 
deck, and began laughing most violently : he then ran about the ship, pil- 
fering whatever he could lay hands on, which was taken from him as fast 
as stolen. This man having as many antic tricks as a monkey, was dressed 
in a jacket and trousers, and afforded exquisite diversion. He devoured 
some biscuit with great eagerness, and having played the buffoon for some 
time, made prize of his new dress, by jumping over the side of the ship, 
and swimming to his companions. These Indians are of a bright copper, 
with regular and cheerful features, and are tall and well made. One of 
them, who seemed to be one of some rank, wore a string of human teeth 
round his waist. Some carried a long spear, the sides of which, for the 
length of three feet, were stuck with the teeth of the shark, which are as 
keen as a razor. The officers named this place Byron's island, in honor of 
the commodore. It lies in 1 deg. 18 min. S. latitude, and 173 deg. 46 
min. E. longitude. They sailed hence on the 3d of July, and on the 28th 
had sight of the islands Saypan, Tinian, and Aiguigan, which lie between 
two and three leagues from each other. At noon, on the 31st, anchored 
at the south-west end of Tinian. The water is so wonderfully clear at this 
place, that, though one hundred and forty-four feet deep, they could see 
the bottom. The commodore went on shore, where he saw many huts, 
which had been left the preceding year by the Spaniards. The commo- 
dore remained at Tinian till the 30th of September, by which time the 
sick being tolerably well recovered, he weighed anchor and stood to the 
northward. 

On the 5th of November they came to an anchor off the island of Timoan, 
on which Byron landed the day following. The inhabitants, who are Ma- 
lays, no sooner saw the boat approaching the shore, than many of them 
came to the beach, each having a dagger by his side, a spear in one 
hand, and a long knife in the other. The boat's crew, however, made no 
hesitation to land, and bartered a few handkerchiefs for a goat, a kid, and 
a dozen of fowls. 

Nothing Avorth notice happened till the 14th, when a sloop being seen 
at anchor in the harbor of an island, named Pulo Toupoa, Byron having 
anchored in the same harbor, and observed that the vessel hoisted Dutch 
colors, sent an officer on board, who was received with great politeness. 
The commodore sailed 4he following day, and held his course till the 19th, 
when he spoke with an English snow, bound from Bencoolen to Malacca 
and Bengal, in the East India Company's service. At this time their 
biscuit was filled with worms, and rotten, and their beef and pork were un- 
fit to eat. The master of the snow being apprized of the circumstance, 
sent Byron two gallons of arrack, a turtle, twelve fowls and a sheep. Dur- 
ing their run hence to Prince's Island, in the strait of Sunda, they were 
so abundantly supplied with turtle, by boats from the Java shore, that the 
common sailors subsisted wholly on that fish. They staid at Prince's Isl- 
and till the 19th, when they sailed for the Cape of Good Hope. On the 
13th of February they came to anchor, and were treated with great polite- 
ness by the governor. 

They sailed on the 7th of March, and, on the 25th, crossed the equinoc- 
tial line. About this time an accident happening to the rudder of the 
Tamar, and it being impossible to make a perfect repair of it at sea, the 
captain was ordered to bear away for Antigua; in consequence of which 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL, 829 

they parted company on the 1st of April ; and the Dolphin, without meet- 
ing with any other material occurrence, came to an anchor in the Downs, 
on the 9th of May, 1766, after having been little more than twenty-two 
months in the circumnavigation of the globe. 

CAPT. WALLIS. 

In 1766, Capt. Wallis, of London, having been appointed to command 
the ship Dolphin, destined for a voyage round the world, received orders 
to take under his command the Swallow sloop, and Prince Frederick store- 
ship. They sailed on the 22d of August, and, on the 7th of September, 
came to anchor in the road of Maderia. 

On the 12th, they sailed thence, and by the 12th of November, were in 
30 degrees of south latitude, when they found the weather so cold as to 
have recourse to their thick jackets. On the 16th of December, being 
very near Cape Virgin Mary, they saw several men riding on the shore. 
The captain went ashore, and gave them combs, buttons, knives, scissors, 
beads, etc., and pleased the women greatly by the distribution of some 
ribbons. The tallest among these people was six feet seven inches ; but 
the general height was from five feet ten to six feet. They were muscular 
and well made, but their hands and feet very small, in proportion to the 
rest of their bodies. The captain took eight of them into the boats : when 
they came into the ship, they expressed no surprise at the novelties which 
they beheld, till a looking-glass being observed, they acted many antic ges- 
tures before it. The marines being exercised before them, they were ter- 
rified at the firing of the muskets, and one of them falling down, shut his 
eyes, and lay without motion, as if to intimate that he knew the destructive 
nature of these weapons. 

On the 21st, they turned into the Strait of Magellan, and on the 26th, 
anchored in Port Famine Bay; and the sick were sent on shore. On the 
28th, the empty water-casks were landed. When they arrived here, 
many of the people were very sick with the scurvy ; but, by the plentiful 
use of vegetables, and bathing in the sea, they all recovered in a short 
time. 

They sailed on the 18th, and on the 3d of February came to anchor in 
York Road. The next day, Captain Wallis, with a party, went on shore 
near Bachelor's River. There is a cataract near this river, the noise of 
which is tremendous, as it falls more than four hundred yards, partly over 
a very steep descent, and partly in a perpendicular line. On the 1st of 
March sailed again, and anchored in a place called Swallow harbor, whence 
they sailed the next morning ; and, on the following day, the Swallow, 
being driven among breakers, made signals of distress ; but was happily 
relieved by a breeze from the shore. On the 10th of April the two ships 
sailed in company ; and, on the 11th, lost sight of each other, and did not 
meet again during the whole voyage. 

This day the Dolphin cleared the Strait of Magellan, in which she had 
labored with innumerable difficulties, and escaped most imminent dangers, 
in a passage of almost four months, viz: from December the 17th, 1776, 
to the 11th of April following. The Spaniards, it seems, built a town 
here in 1581, which they named Phillipville, and left in it a colony of four 
hundred persons. They were all starved to' death except twenty-four; 



830 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and the place was called Port Famine, from the melancholy fate of thess 
unfortunate men. 

The long wished for relief was now fast approaching, for on Saturday, 
the 6th, the man at the mast-head cried, ' Land in the west-north-west.' 
As no anchorage was to be found, the captain steered for the other island, 
giving the name of Whitsun Island to this, because it was discovered on 
the eve of Whitsunday. Having approached the second, the lieutenant 
was sent on shore, with two boats, to take possession of the island and to 
call it Queen Charlotte's Island. The boats returned loaded with cocoa- 
nuts and scurvy-grass, after having found two wells of excellent water. 
Provisions for a week were now allotted for an officer and twenty men, 
who were left on shore to take in water ; the sick were landed for the 
benefit of the air ; and a number of hands were appointed to climb the 
cocoa-trees, and gather the nuts. 

An adjoining island, lying in nineteen degrees twenty minutes south 
latitude, and one hundred thirty-eight degrees thirty minutes west longi- 
tude, received the name of Egmont Island. On the 11th, they observed 
about sixteen persons on an island, which was called Gloucester Island. 
This day they likewise discovered another, which was called Cumberland 
Island; and on the day following, a third, which received the name of 
Prince William Henry's Island. On the 17th, again discovered land, but 
could find no place in which the ship might anchor. This was named 
Osnaburgh Island, and having soon discovered high land, they came to 
anchor because the weather was foggy ; but it no sooner cleared away, 
than they found the ship encompassed by hundreds of people. They 
sailed along the shore, while the canoes made towards the land. On the 
21st, the ship came to anchor. 

The boats having been sent to sound along the coast, were followed by 
large double canoes, three of which ran at the cutter, staved in her 
quarter, and otherwise damaged her ; the Indians, at the same time, 
armed with clubs, endeavoring to board her. The crew now fired ; and 
wounding one man dangerously, and killing another, they both fell into the 
sea. The ship made sail the following day, and was piloted round a reef, 
into a harbor, where she was moored. On the 24th, she sailed further up 
the harbor, followed by many canoes. In the evening, a number of very 
large canoes advanced, laden with stones ; on which the captain ordered 
the strictest watch to be kept. Soon after a large canoe advanced, in 
which was an awning, on the top of which sat one of the natives, holding 
some yellow and red feathers in his hand. He delivered the feathers ; 
and, while a present was preparing, he put back from the ship, and threw 
the branch of a cocoa-nut tree in the air. This appeared the signal for an 
onset, for the canoes, approaching the ship, threw volleys of stones into 
every part of her. On this two guns, loaded with small shot, were fired, 
and the people on guard discharged their muskets. The number of Indi- 
ans now round the ships was full two thousand ; and though they were at 
first disconcerted, they soon recovered their spirits, and renewed the 
attack. Thousands were observed on shore, embarking as fast as the 
canoes could bring them off; orders were therefore given for firing the 
cannon, some of which were brought to bear upon the shore. The scat- 
tered canoes soon got together again, and threw stones of two pounds 
weight from slings by which a number of seamen »Yere wounded. A.t this 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 831 

time severa. canoes approached the bow of the ship, in one of which was 
an Indian, who appeared to have an authority over the rest ; a gun was 
therefore leveled at his canoe, the shot of which split it in two pieces, 
which put an end to the contest; the canoes rowed off with the utmost 
speed, and the people on shore ran and concealed themselves behind the 
hills. Next day a lieutenant was despatched, with all the boats manned 
and armed, and having hoisted a pennant on a staff, he took possession of 
the place by the name of King George the Third's Island. 

Three days after this, the gunner conducted to the ship a lady of a 
portly figure and agreeable face, whose age seemed to be upwards of forty. 
Her whole behavior indicated the woman of superior rank. The captain 
presented her with a looking-glass and some toys, and gave her a hand- 
some blue mantle, which he tied round her with ribbands. Haviujj intima- 
ted that she would be glad to see the Captain on shore, on Sunday, the 
12th, he landed, and was met by his fair friend, who was attended by a 
numerous retinue. As they advanced, great numbers of Indians crowded 
to meet them. Many advanced to meet her, whom she caused to 
kiss the captain's hand, while she signified that they were related to her. 
Her house was above three hundred and twenty feet in length, and about 
forty in breadth. The captain, lieutenant, and purser, who had been ill, 
being seated, the lady helped four of her female attendants to pull of their 
coats, shoes and stockings; which being performed, the girls smoothed 
down the skin, and rubbed it lightly with their hands for more than half 
an hour ; and the gentleman received great benefit from the operation. 
Orders had been given that the captain should be carried ; but as he chose 
to walk, she took hold of his arm, and when they came near any wet or 
dirty place, she lifted him over, with as much ease as a man would a child. 
On the 15th, a large party in all the boats rowed round the island. The 
island was found to be every where very pleasant, and to abound with 
various necessaries of life. On the 17th, Captain Wallis received another 
visit from the lady whom he called his queen. On the 21st, she repeated 
the visit, and presented him with some hogs. The captain having sent a 
party on shore on the 25th, to examine the country minutely, caused a 
tent to be erected to observe an eclipse of the sun, and when it was ended, 
took his telescope to the queen's house to show her the use of it ; and her 
surprise is not to be expressed, on beholding several objects which she 
was very familiar with, but which were too distant to be seen by the 
naked eye. She made signs to be informed if he held his resolution as 
to the time of his departure, and being answered in the affirmative, her 
tears witnessed the agitation of her mind. The captain presented her 
with several articles of use and ornament, which she received in silent 
sorrow. After some time a breeze springing up, the queen and her atten- 
dants took their final leave, with many tears. 

The place where the ship had lain was called Port Royal Harbor, and 
is situated in 17 degrees 30 minutes south latitude, and 150 degrees 
west longitude. The Dolphin sailed from Otaheite on the 27th of July, 
1767, and passed the Duke of York's Island. On the 28th, they discov- 
ered land, which was called Sir Charles Saunder's Island. On the 30th 
again made land, which received the name of Lord How's Island, on 
which smoke was seen, but no inhabitants. Their next discovery was 
some dangerous shoals, to which Captain Wallis gave the name of the 



832 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Scilla Islands. They now steered westward till the 13th of August, 
when they saw two small islands, one of which was named Keppel's 
Isle, and the other Boscawen's Island. On the 16th they again discov- 
ered land, to which the officers gave the name of Wallis' Island. 

On the 18th of September they discovered the island of Saypan, 
and soon afterwards that of Tinian, off which they anchored on the day 
following. Tents were erected for the sick, who were sent on shore with 
all expedition. By the 15th of October the fruit and water were carried 
on board, and all the sick being recovered, on the next day they left 
the bay, and sailed to the west. 

On the 3d of November they discovered three islands, which were 
named Sandy Isle, Small Key, and Long Island ; which islands are in 
19 degr^ 20 minutes north latitude, and 247 degrees 20 minutes west 
longitude. They now altered their course, and, on the 13th, saw the 
island of Timoun, Aros, and Pesang. On the 16th they crossed the 
equinoctial line, and came again into south latitude. The next day they 
saw the islands of Pulo Tote, and Pulo Weste, and the Seven Islands. 
On the 22d saw the coast of Sumatra ; and came to an anchor in the 
road of Batavia, on the 30th of November, 1767. From this place they 
sailed on the 8th of December, without losing a single man, and having 
only two on the sick list. 

On the 24th of January they encountered a dreadful storm, which tore 
the sails to pieces, broke a rudder-chain, and carried several of the booms 
overboard ; yet during this storm they observed a number of birds and 
butterflies. On the 30th they saw land ; and came to anchor in Table 
Bay, at the Cape of Good Hope, on the 4th of February. Sailed on the 
17th of March, anchored in the bay of St. Helena. On the 28th crossed 
the equinoctial line, and on the 24th of next month saw the Cape of Pico. 

No material incident happened from this time to the end of the voyage; 
and on the 20th of May, 1768, the Dolphin came to anchor in the Downs. 

DE BOUGAINVILLE. 

A settlement having been commenced by the French on Falkland's 
Islands, in the month of February, 1764, the Spaniards demanded them 
as an appendage to the continent of South America ; and France having 
allowed the propriety of the demand, Mons. de Bougainville was ordered 
to yield possession of the islands to the Spaniards. 

On the 5th of December he sailed from the harbor of Brest, in the 
frigate La Boudeuse, having on board the Prince of Nassau Seighen, three 
gentlemen who went as volunteers, eleven officers in commission, and 
warrant-officers, seamen, soldiers, servants and boys to the number of two 
hundred. On the evening of the 29th of January, they had sight of Rio- 
de-la-Plata, and on the morning of the 31st came to anchor in the Bay of 
Montevideo, where the two Spanish ships, which were to take possession 
of Falkland Islands, had been at anchor for some weeks. They sailed 
with these ships on the 28th of February, 1767 ; and on the 1st of April 
Bougainville, in the name of the French king, surrendered the islands to 
Don Puente, the Spanish governor, who received them for his most 
Catholic majesty, with the ceremony of hoisting the Spanish colors, and 
the firing of guns from the ships and on shore. 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 833 

Falkland Islands lie in about 52 degrees south latitude, and 60 degrees 
west longitude. From the entrance of the Straits of Magellan, and from 
the coast of Patagonia, their distance is about 250 miles. The harbors 
are large, and well defended by small islands most happily disposed ; and 
even the smallest vessels may ride in safety in the creeks, while fresh 
water is easily to be obtained. After waiting at these islands till the 2d 
of June, 1767, in expectation of the Etoile store-ship from Europe, 
Bougainville steered for Rio Janeiro, at which place he had appointed the 
Etoile to join him. They had fine weather from the 2d to the 20th of 
June, on which day they had sight of the mountains on the main land of 
Brazil, and entered Rio Janeiro the day following. At the same time a 
canoe was despatched from the captain of the Etoile, with information of 
the safe arrival of that vessel, which now lay in the port; and on the 14th 
of July, both vessels sailed, and on the 31st came to anchor in the-'Bay of 
Montevideo. As it was necessary that Bougainville should remain in his 
present station till the equinox was passed, his first care was to build a 
hospital for the sick, and to take lodgings at Montevideo. 

On the 14th of November, 1767, they sailed from Montevideo, with a 
fine gale of wind at north. On the 16th, and the five following days, the 
sea ran high, and the wind was contrary. The 2d of December they had 
sight of Cape Virgins, with a fair wind. They now 'saw a number of 
albatrosses and petrels, the last of which are said to be a sign of bad 
weather whenever they are seen. They made their best efforts to reach 
the entrance of the Straits of Magellan ; and Bougainville was seven weeks 
and three days in passing through it, the whole length of which, from Cape 
Virgin Mary to Cape Pillar, he computes at about 340 miles. 

On the 22d of March, land was discovered, and when they had coasted 
one of the islands for about two miles, they had sight of three men, who 
advanced hastily towards the shore. They at first imagined that these 
were part of the crew of some European ship which had been wrecked on 
the coast, but discovered their conjecture ill-founded, for the people retired 
to the woods, from which, in a short time, issued a number of them, sup- 
posed to be near twenty, with long staves in their hands, which they held 
up with an air of defiance. This done, they retreated to the woods. 
These islanders were of a copper complexion and very tall. 

During the night between the 22d and 23d they had much rain, ac- 
companied with violent thunder, while the wind blew almost a tempest. 
At day-break land was discovered, which was called Harp Island, and in 
the evening a cluster of islands, eleven of which were seen, received the 
name of the Dangerous Archipelago. A steep mountain, which appeared 
to be encompassed by the sea, was discovered on the 2d of April, and 
received the name of Boudoir, or Boudeuse Peak, from Bougainville's ship. 
Bearing to the northward of this peak they had sight of land, which 
extended farther than the eye could reach. 

As Bougainville coasted the island, he was charmed with the appearance 
of a noble cascade, which, falling immediately from the summit of a moun- 
tain into the sea, produced a most elegant effect. On the shores very 
near to the fall of this cascade, was a little town, and the coast appeared 
to be free from breakers. It was the wish of our adventurers to have cast 
their anchor within view of such an enchanting prospect ; but, after 
repeated soundings, they found that the bottom consisted only of rocks, 
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836 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and they were, therefore, under a necessity of seeking another anchoring 
place, where the ships were safely moored. 

They remained at Otaheite until the 16th of April, when they departed, 
and in the beginning of May three islands were discovered. On the 
following day another island was seen to the westward of the ship's course. 
To the islands the commodore gave the general name of the Archipelago 
of the Navigators. On the morning of the 11th, another island was dis- 
covered, which received the name of the Forlorn Hope. 

The ships now steered a westerly course, and early on the morning of 
the 22d two islands were discovered, one of which received the name 
Aurora, from the early hour on which it was first seen, and the other that 
of Whitsuntide Isle, from the day which gave birth to it being so named. 
In the afternoon, mountainous lands, at thirty miles distance, were seen, 
appearing, as it were, over and beyond the Island of Aurora. On the 23d 
it was discovered that this was a separate island, the appearance being 
lofty, its descent steep, and the whole clothed with trees. From this time 
to the 27th, they passed many islands, on one of which they observed a 
fine plantation of trees, between which there were regular walks, resem- 
bling those of an European garden. They now quitted this great cluster 
of islands, which received the general name of Archipelago of the great 
Cyclades, which, it is conjectured, occupies no less than three degrees of 
latitude, and five of longitude. 

From the 14th to the 18th of June they discovered a number of islands. 
On July the 2d a cape was discovered, which was called Cape l'Averdi, 
on which were mountains of an astonishing height. Two more islands 
were seen on the 6th, and, as the wood and water were expended, and 
disease reigning aboard, the commodore resolved to land here, and on the 
following afternoon the ships came to anchor. 

In the afternoon of the 24th a favorable breeze enabled the ships to get 
out to sea. On the 31st a number of Indian boats attacked the Etoile 
with a volley of stones and arrows ; but a single discharge of the musketry 
got rid of these troublesome companions. On the 4th of August two 
islands were seen. On the 5th a third island was seen, and then the 
northern point of New Britain which lies only forty-one minutes south of 
the land. On the 7th a flat island was seen, covered with trees, abounding 
with cocoa-nuts. Fishing-boats in multitudes surrounding the island; 
but the fisherman took no notice of the ships. This received the name of 
the Island of Anchorets. From this time till the end of the month innu- 
merable small islands were observed every day. 

Early in the morning of the 31st our voyagers had sight of the island of 
Ceram, which runs in a parallel east and west, abounds in lofty mountains, 
and is partly cleared, and partly in its original state. At midnight a 
number of fires attracted their attention to the island of 'Boero, where there 
is a Dutch factory, at the entrance of the Gulf of Cagei, which the French 
had sight of at day-break. Their joy on this occasion is not to be expres- 
sed, for at this time not half of the seamen were able to perform any duty, 
and the scurvy had raged so violently, that no man on board was perfectly 
clear of it. 

They sailed on the 7th September and on the 13th the ships were sur- 
rounded with Indian boats, bringing parroquets, cockatoos, fowls, eggs, 
and bananas, which the natives sold for Dutch money, or exchanged for 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 887 

knives. By day-light on the 19th they were within about a league of the 
Coast of Celibes, which in this part is described as one of the finest coun- 
tries in the world. On the morning of the 26th the coast of Java appeared 
with the rising sun. Having come to an anchor for the night, the ships 
sailed early in the morning of the 27th and on the next day came to an- 
chor in the port of Batavia. 

The ships sailed thence on the 16th of October, 1768, and cleared the 
straits of Sunda on the 19th in the afternoon. By this time the crew were 
all perfectly recovered of the scurvy, but a few remained ill of the bloody 
flux. On the 20th the ships were in sight of the Isle of France, and, on 
the 8th of November, the Boudeuse anchored in the port of that island ; 
the Etoile, which had been unavoidably left behind, anchoring in the same 
port on the following day. 

They sailed from this the 12th of December, 1768, leaving the Etoile 
behind them to undergo some necessary repairs. Without encountering 
any singular accident they had sight of the Cape of Good Hope on the 18th 
of January, and came to anchor in Table Bay on the following morning. 
Bougainville quitted this on the 17th, anchored off St. Helena on the 4th 
of February, and on the 25th, joined the Swallow, commanded by Captain 
Cartert. Nothing material happened from this time till they had sight of 
the Isle of Ushant, where a violent squall of wind had nearly blasted the 
hopes of the voyage. On the 15th the commander bore away for St. Ma- 
loes, which he entered on the following day, after an absence of two years 
and four months from his native country ; during all which time he had 
buried only seven of his crew, a circumstance that will be deemed truly 
astonishing, when we reflect on the variety of dangers they had encount 
ered and the amazing changes of climate they had experienced. 

CAPTAIN JAMES COOK. 

James Cook was born in a mud hut at Marton, in the north riding of 
Yorkshire, 27th October 1728. His father was an agricultural servant, 
who, with his wife, bore a most unexceptionable character for honesty and 
industry. The village school-mistress taught the boy to read ; but at eight 
years of age his father, through his good conduct, was appointed to be 
bailiff of a farm near Great Ay ton, belonging to Thomas Skottowe, Esq., 
who at his own expense put James to a day-school in that town, where he 
was taught writing and the first rules in arithmetic. The predilection of 
the lad inclined him for the sea ; but as this stood contrary to the wishes 
of his parents, he was soon after his twelfth year apprenticed to William 
Sanderson, a general dealer in haberdashery, grocery, hardware, etc., at 
Staith, upon the coast, about ten miles north of Whitby. The youth's 
mind, however, continued more occupied upon maritime affairs than any- 
thing else, and though he faithfully discharged his duty to his master, he 
longed to be at sea. An opportunity occurred to favor his desires. Mr. 
Sanderson canceled his indentures, and left him to pursue his inclinations. 
Thus freed, he bound himself to Messrs John and Henry Walker, who 
owned the Freelove, in which Cook embarked. She was principally en- 
gaged in the coal trade, but made a voyage or two to the north ; and 
when his time was out, the youngster still continued to serve as a fore- 
mast-man till he was made mate of one of Mr. John Walker's ships. 



838 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

During this period he evinced no particular marks of genius. His associ- 
ates, however, were not exactly the class of persons to observe the real 
bent of his mind ; they thought him taciturn, and sometimes sullen ; but 
this doubtless arose from his studious habits, and endeavors to acquire 
knowledge. As for practical seamanship, there could be no better school 
than a collier. 

When in his twenty-seventh year, war broke out between England and 
France, and Cook, who was then in the Thames, tried to escape the press- 
gang, which was sweeping the river of every seaman that could be picked 
up. This restraint, however, did not meet his views ; he looked upon the 
service of his country as honorable, and at once entered for the Eagle, of 
60 guns, commanded by Captain Hamer, who, a few months afterwards, 
was superseded by Captain (subsequently Sir Hugh) Palliser. The young 
man's steady conduct and seaman-like qualities soon attracted this officer's 
attention. His knowledge of the coasts was excellent ; and Mr. Skottowe 
having applied to Mr. Osbaldeston, M. P. for Scarborough, to exert his 
influence to raise Cook to the quarter-deck, by the joint interest of this 
gentleman, with Captain Palliser, a warrant as master was obtained on 
10th May 1759, James being then in his thirty-first year. He joined the 
Grampus, but she had a master already ; he was then appointed to the 
Garland, but she was abroad ; and eventually he sailed in the Mercury, 
to join the fleet under Sir Charles Saunders, then engaged in conjunction 
with General Wolfe in the reduction of Quebec. Here the peculiar tal- 
ents of Mr. Cook were called into active operation. The buoys in the 
navigation of the St. Lawrence had all been removed by the French at 
the first appearance of the English fleet, and it was essentially necessary 
that a survey should be made of the channels, and correct soundings ob- 
tained, to enable the ships to keep clear of the numerous shoals. By the 
recommendation of his old commander, Captain Palliser, this onerous duty 
was confided to Mr. Cook, who readily undertook it in a barge belonging 
to a 74. This could only be executed in many parts during the darkness 
of the night, on account of the enemy ; and he experienced a narrow 
escape one night when detected, his boat having been boarded by Indians 
in the pay of the French, and carried off in triumph, he and his compan- 
ions getting away just in time to save their lives and scalps. Through 
Mr. Cook's judicious arrangements, the fleet reached the island of Orleans 
in safety ; and he afterwards surveyed and made a chart of the St. Law- 
rence, which, together with sailing directions for that river, were published 
in London. 

On his return from Quebec, Mr. Cook was appointed master of the North- 
umberland, under Lord Colville, who was stationed as commodore at Halifax. 
Here he enjoyed much leisure during the winter, but instead of frittering 
it away in the frivolous or worse amusements of a seaport, he diligently 
employed it in studies suitable to his profession. No sailor can possibly 
advance beyond the rank of an ordinary seaman unless he be acquainted 
with the theory as well as the practice of navigation; and to gain this 
knowledge, he must attain a proficiency in mathematics. Aware of this, 
Cook began by gaining a knowledge of Euclid's Elements of Plane Geom- 
etry ; and then of the higher branches of mathematical study, including 
nautical astronomy. By these means he soon learned to take observations, 
to calculate a ship's progress, and to ascertain the degree of latitude and 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 839 

longitude at any given spot on the trackless ocean. In short, he became 
an accomplished mariner, ready for any office of trust. Besides improving 
himself in these useful branches of education, he possessed sufficient tact 
to cultivate urbanity of manner, and to gain the confidence and esteem of 
his acquaintance. This "was a point of some consequence ; for intellectual 
acquirements, without a polite and high moral bearing, are of small avail 
in the general intercourse of the world, and, personally, may do more 
harm than good. It is gratifying to know that Cook aimed at gentlemanly 
behavior not less than skill in his profession ; and to this commendable effort 
— which the most humble may practice — is perhaps owing not a little of 
his future success in life. 

In 1762 the Northumberland was ordered to Newfoundland, to assist in 
the recapture of that island ; and here the talents and assiduity of our 
hero were again conspicuous. Greatly improved by his winter's studies, 
he was now still more able to make nautical surveys, and these he carried 
on to a considerable extent on the coast of Newfoundland ; laying down 
bearings, marking headlands and soundings, and otherwise placing on 
record many facts which proved highly advantageous to future voyagers, 
especially those engaged in fishing speculations. 

Towards the close of this year (1762) Mr. Cook returned to England, 
and was married at Barking, in Essex, to Miss Elizabeth Batts, who has 
been spoken of as a truly amiable and excellent woman. In the following 
year, through the intervention of Captain (afterwards Admiral) Graves, 
the governor of Newfoundland, who was well acquainted with Cook's worth, 
he was appointed to survey the whole coast of that island, which he accom- 
plished with great ability, as well as Miquelon and St. Pierre, which had been 
ceded to the French. Cook then returned to England, but did not remain 
long. His constant friend, Sir Hugh Palliser, assumed the command at 
Newfoundland, and took Mr. Cook with him, bearing the appointment of 
marine surveyor, and a schooner was directed to attend upon him in his 
aquatic excursions. His charts and observations, particularly on astrono- 
my, brought him into correspondence with the members of the Royal 
Society ; and some scientific observations on the eclipse of the sun were 
inserted in the 57th volume of the Philosophical Transactions. 

Here may be said to close the first chapter in Cook's life. We have 
traced him from the humble home of his father, an obscure peasant, 
through the early part of his career, till his thirty-fourth year, at which 
time he had gained a footing among the most learned men in England. 
The youthful aspirant will observe that this enviable point had not been 
reached without patient study. Cook could have gained no acquaintance- 
ship with members of the Royal Society, nor could he have placed him- 
self in the way of promotion, had he been contented to remain an illiterate 
seaman. 

First Voyage Round the World. * Prepared by diligent self-culture, 
Cook was ready for any enterprise which circumstances might produce. 
The project of a voyage of discovery, involving certain important astro- 
nomical observations, fortunately came under discussion while he was in a 
state of hesitation as to his future movements. The principal object of 
the expedition was to observe a transit of the planet Venus over the face 
of the sun, which could only be done somewhere in the Pacific or Southern 



840 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ocean. The transit was to happen in June 1769. The Royal Society, 
interested as in the phenomenon for the sake of science, applied to George 
III to fit out an expedition suitable to take the observations. The request 
was complied with ; and no other man being so well calculated to take the 
command it was given to Cook. The appointment was quite to the mind 
of our hero, and he was soon ready for sea. He received the commission 
of a lieutenant from his majesty, and the Endeavour, of 370 tons, was 
placed at his disposal. About this time Captain Wallis returned from his 
voyage of discovery, and reported Otaheite (now called Tahiti) to be the 
most eligible spot for the undertaking. That island was therefore fixed 
upon for the observation. Mr. Charles Green undertook the astronomical 
department, and Mr. Banks (afterwards Sir Joseph) and Dr. Solander, 
purely through love of science, and at great expense to themselves, 
obtained permission to accompany the expedition. 

The Endeavour was victualed for eighteen months, armed with 12 car- 
riage guns and 12 swivels, and manned with a complement of 84 seamen. 
Every requisite preparation was made for such a voyage that human fore- 
sight could suggest ; trinkets and other things were put on board to trade 
with the natives ; and on the 26th of August 1768, they sailed from Ply- 
mouth Sound for the hitherto but little explored South Seas. On the 13th 
September they anchored in Funchal roads, Madeira, and here commenced 
the researches and inquiries of the men of science. From hence they 
departed on the night of the 18th ; and falling short of water and provisions 
on the Brazil coast, they put into the beautiful harbor of Rio Janeiro on 
the 13th November. The viceroy of this fine city could make nothing of 
the scientific intentions of the English, and was exceedingly troublesome 
and annoying. When told that they were bound to the South Seas to 
observe the transit of Venus, he could form no other conception of the 
matter than that it was the passing of the north star through the south pole. 
Numerous difficulties were thrown in the way of the departure of the voy 
agers after they had victualed and watered ; and when they sailed, shots 
were fired at them from the fort of Santa Cruz, a heavy battery at the 
entrance of the harbor ; and on inquiry, Mr. Cook ascertained that the 
pass for the Endeavour had not been sent from the city. A spirited remon- 
strance was made, and the viceroy apologised. 

On the 7th December the voyagers finally quitted this place, and on the 
14th January 1769, entered the Straits of Le Maire, where the sea was 
running tremendously high, and on the following day anchored in the Bay 
of Good Success. Although the season was extremely inclement, yet the 
love of botany induced Mr. Banks, Dr. Soland2r, Mr. Monkhouse the sur- 
geon, and Mr. Green the astronomer, to ascend the mountains in search of 
plants. They took with them their attendants and servants, with two sea- 
men ; and after suffering severe hardships from the cold and the torpor it 
produced, they got back to the ship on the second day, leaving two black 
men, who had accompanied them, dead from the extreme severity of the 
weather. They could not be got on, but lay down to rest, and slept the 
sleep of death. Dr. Solander with great difficulty was saved ; for although 
the first to warn others against the danger of reposing, yet he was event- 
ually himself so overcome, that great exertion was required to force him 
along. They found the inhabitants on the coasts of these straits a wretched 
set of beings, with scarcely any covering; dwelling in hovels made of 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 841 

sticks and grass, that offered no obstruction to the entrance of the wind, 
the snow, and the rain. They wandered about, picking up a scanty sub- 
sistence wherever they could, though they had not a single implement to 
dress their fish Avhen caught, or any other food : still they appeared con- 
tented ; and the only things they coveted from the English were beads and 
useless trinkets. 

On the 26th January the Endeavour took her departure from Cape 
Horn, and before March 1st had run 660 leagues. Several islands were 
discovered in their progress, most of which were supposed to be inhabited ; 
and their beautiful verdure and delightful appearance were highly gratify- 
ing to the sea-worn mariners. On the 11th of April they came in sight 
of Otaheite, and two days after anchored in Port Royal (Matavai), where 
the scientific gentlemen landed, and fixed upon a spot to serve them for 
an observatory. The natives displayed much friendship ; but, to prevent 
collision, Mr. Cook drew up a code of regulations by which communication 
and traffic were to be carried on. A tent was erected on the site pro- 
posed — the natives keeping outside a marked boundary — and a midshipman 
with thirteen marines were placed over it as guards. As soon as this was 
accomplished, the party proceeded to examine the interior of the island ; 
but soon after their departure, one of the natives snatched away the mus- 
ket of the sentry. The marines were ordered to fire, and the thief was 
shot dead. This greatly alarmed the natives ; but in a day or two they 
again became familiarized and friendly. Mr. Cook proceeded to erect a 
fort round the observatory, and mounted six swivel guns, Avhich caused 
apprehensions among the chiefs ; but the natives assisted in the works ; and 
the commander displayed his sense of justice by publicly flogging the 
butcher for having attempted or threatened the life of a wife of one of the 
chiefs, who was particularly favorable to the English. On the first stroke 
of the lash, the natives earnestly solicited that the man should be forgiven ; 
but Mr. Cook deemed the example essential, and inflicted the whole pun- 
ishment, greatly to the pain and regret of the compassionate Indians, many 
of whom shed tears. 

As soon as the fort was completed, and the astronomical instruments 
were landed, they sought for the quadrant by which the transit was to be 
observed, but it was nowhere to be found. Diligent search was made, and 
a reward offered, but without success ; and it was feared that the object of 
their long and arduous voyage would remain unaccomplished. At length, 
through the judicious intervention of Mr. Banks, the quadrant was 
recovered from the natives who had stolen it, and with great joy set up in 
its place. The approach of the time of observation produced anxiety and 
excitement ; and hoping that the atmosphere would be clear and favorable, 
as well as to make assurance sure, Mr. Cook established two other observ- 
atories — one on the island of Eimeo, under Mr. Banks, and the other to 
the eastward of the main observatory, under Mr. Hicks (the master). 

The morning of the 3d June was ushered in with a cloudless sky, and at 
the fort the transit was observed in the most satisfactory manner. The 
success of their enterprise was highly gratifying to the voyagers ; but their 
pleasure was somewhat damped by the violence which at times was engen- 
dered between the natives and the seamen, the former of whom proved to 
be dexterous thieves. But Mr. Cook would not allow the plunderers to be 
fired upon, as he considered the issue of life and death to be of too impor- 



842 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

tant a nature to be intrusted to a sentinel, without any form of trial cr 
show of equity ; nor did he deem a petty theft as meriting so severe a 
punishment. On one occasion, however, he seized upon all their fishing 
canoes, fully laden ; and though from motives of humanity he gave up the 
fish, yet he detained the vessels, under a hope that several articles which 
had been pilfered would be restored. But in this he was mistaken ; for 
nothing of value was given up, and ultimately he released the canoes. 
Mr. Cook and Mr. Banks circumnavigated the island, and visited many 
villages, where they renewed acquaintance with the several chiefs. Ex- 
ploring parties were also sent into the interior ; and Mr. Banks planted 
the seeds of water-melons, oranges, lemons, limes, and other plants and 
trees which he had collected for the purpose (some of which are now in 
rich perfection) ; and it was ascertained that parts of the island manifested 
appearances of subterranean fire. 

On the 7th July the carpenters began to dismantle the fort preparatory 
to departure, and on the 13th the ship weighed anchor. Tupia, one of the 
principal natives, and chief priest of the country, with a boy of thirteen, 
having obtained permission from Mr. Cook to embark for England, they 
took an affecting and affectionate leave of their friends. Few places pos- 
sess more seductive influences than Otaheite. The climate is delightful, 
the productions of the earth bountiful and almost spontaneous, and the 
people, though addicted to pilfering, simple, kind-hearted, and hospitable. 

After quitting Otaheite, the Endeavour visited the islands Huaheine, 
Ulietea, Otaha, and Bolabola, where Mr. Cook purchased various articles 
of food. They also anchored at Owharre, and exchanged friendly gifts 
with the natives ; and presents of English medals, etc., with inscriptions, 
were made to the king Oree. Ulietea had been conquered by the king of 
Bolabola, but he received the English with considerable courtesy. These 
visits occupied rather more than three weeks ; and Ulietea, Otaha, Bolabo- 
la, Huaheine, Tabai, and Mawrua, as they lay contiguous to each other, 
were named by Mr. Cook the Society Islands. 

In their intercourse with the natives of these places (all of which more 
or less resembled the manners and habits of the Otaheitans), they were 
greatly assisted by Tupia, who was very proud of the power possessed by 
his new friends. On the 9th August, the Endeavour quitted Ulietea, and 
on the 13th made the island Oheteoa, where they attempted to land ; but 
the natives displayed so much hostility, that Mr. Cook deemed it best to 
desist, and proceed on his way to the southward in search of a supposed 
continent. On the 25th they celebrated the anniversary of their departure 
from England, and on the 30th they observed a comet ; it was just above 
the horizon, to the eastward, at one A. M. ; and about half-past four, when 
it passed the meridian, its tail subtended an angle of forty-five degrees. 
Tupia declared that its appearance would be the signal for the warriors of 
Bolabola to attack the Ulieteans and drive them to the mountains. The 
vessel was now proceeding in a south-westerly direction from the Pacific 
towards New Zealand, Cook designing to return by way of the Cape of 
Good Hope, and thus circumnavigate the globe. On the 6th October land 
was discovered, which proved to be a part of New Zealand ; where, having 
anchored, an attempt was made to open a communication with the natives, 
but without effect. Their hostile menaces and actions were all of a deci- 
dedly warlike nature, and it was only when they felt the superiority of fire- 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 843 

arms, of which they seemed to have been in ignorance, that they desisted 
from attacks. Tupia addressed them to be peaceable, and they understood 
his language ; but he could not prevail upon them to put confidence in the 
English. A conflict took place, in which some of the New Zealanders 
were rather unnecessarily killed, and three boys were taken prisoners, who 
were treated with much kindness. As the place afforded nothing that the 
voyagers wanted, Mr. Cook named it Poverty Bay. The Boys were dis- 
missed, and the treatment they had experienced induced some of the In- 
dians to come off to the ship ; but it appeared almost impossible to concili- 
ate any one of them for long. Armed parties in large canoes assembled, 
and paddled off to the Endeavour, under pretext of trading, but in reality 
to plunder ; and in various instances it was deemed essentially necessary 
to fire upon them. They also seized Tayeto, Tupia's boy, but were com- 
pelled to relinquish their prey through the effects of a musket ball ; and 
the lad, taking advantage, leaped from the canoe, in which he had been 
held down, and swam back to the ship. Whilst standing along the coast, 
they fell in with the largest canoe they had yet seen : her length was 68£ 
feet, her breadth 5 feet, and her depth 3 feet 6 inches. About this time 
the Endeavour narrowly escaped being wrecked on the rocks that lay some 
distance from the land ; but by the skill and judgment of Mr. Cook, the 
danger was avoided. On the 9th November, Lieutenant Cook, accompa- 
nied by Mr. Green, landed with the necessary instruments to observe the 
transit of Mercury over the sun's disc, and this they performed to their 
entire satisfaction. 

On the 5th December, whilst turning out of the Bay of Islands, it fell 
calm ; and the Endeavour drifted so close to the shore, that notwithstand- 
ing the incessant roar of the breakers, they could converse with the natives 
on the beagli. The pinnace was got out to tow the vessel's head round ; 
but none expected to escape destruction, when a light land-breeze sprang 
up, and gradually they got clear from their perilous situation — the ground 
was too foul to anchor. About an hour afterwards, just as the man heav- 
ing the lead sang out ' seventeen fathoms,' she struck on a sunken rock 
with force ; but the swell washed her over, and she was again in deep 
water. On the 30th December they made the land, which they judged to 
be Cape Maria, Van Diemens ; and on the 14th January, 1770, anchored 
in a snug cove in Queen Charlotte's Sound, to refit the ship and clean her 
bottom. Here they caught a great quantity of fish by means of the seine 
— at one time not less than three hundred weight at two hauls. They 
also found an excellent stream of fresh-water. In one of their researches 
they discovered an Indian family ; and it is related that they had indispu- 
table proofs of the custom of eating human flesh. The place they were 
in is described as very delightful ; and Mr. Cook took several opportuni- 
ties of obtaining views from the high hills, and examining the nearest 
coast. The inhabitants were friendly disposed, and everywhere received 
the English with hospitality. Mr. Cook selected a favorable spot, on 
which he erected a pole, and having hoisted the union jack, named the 
place Queen Charlotte's Sound, in honor of her majesty. Coins and 
spike-nails were given to the Indian spectators ; and after drinking the 
queen's health in wine, the empty bottle was bestowed upon the man who 
had carried it when full, with which he was much delighted. 

On the 5th February he quitted this part of New Zealand, and pro- 



844 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ceeded to explore three or four islands in that locality, giving names to 
capes, headlands, rocks, etc. But this was not accomplished without con- 
siderable peril, on account of the strength of the currents. To one place 
he gave the name of Admiralty Bay, where he took in wood and filled his 
water-casks, and sailed again on the 31st March, intending to return home 
by way of the East Indies. On the 19th April they came in sight of 
New Holland (or New South Wales, as it is now called), and anchored in 
Botany Bay on the 28th, where they landed ; but contrary to the will of 
two or three Indians, who attacked the English with their lances, but on 
the firing of muskets, fled. The voyagers left beads and trinkets in the 
huts of the natives, and during the time they remained at that place they 
were untouched. The inhabitants seemed utterly regardless of the ship, 
though they could never have seen such a spectacle before. Here they 
caught a fish called a string-ray, which, after the entrails were taken out, 
weighed 336 pounds. 

Mr. Cook prosecuted his discoveries in New South "Wales with zeal 
and energy over a tract of 1300 miles; but on the 10th June, near 
Trinity Bay, the Endeavour struck on a reef of coral rocks, and was com- 
pelled to start her water, throw her guns overboard, and use every mode 
to lighten the vessel ; but with four pumps at work, they could not keep 
her free ; and every soul, though struggling hard for life, yet prepared 
for that death which now appeared to be inevitable. Upon these rocks 
the ship remained for nearly forty-eight hours, her sheathing ripped oif, 
and the very timbers nearly rubbed through : by great exertion, however, 
she was got afloat at high tide, and it was found that she made no more 
water than when aground ; and the men, by working incessantly at the 
pumps, kept her afloat. At the suggestion of Mr. Monkhouse, a sail was 
fothered (that is, pieces of oakum and other light materials were slightly 
stitched to it), and being hauled under the ship's bottom, the loose pieces 
were sucked into the leaks, and in a great measure stopped the holes, so 
that they were enabled to keep the water in the hold under with only one 
pump. On the morning of the 17th, after running aground twice, they 
got into a convenient harbor for repairing their damages ; and here, when 
the vessel was hove down, they found a large piece of rock in the ship's 
bottom, firmly jammed in the hole it had made, so as to exclude the sea, 
and which, if it had fallen out, must have proved fatal to all. 

About this time the scurvy broke out amongst them, and attacked indis- 
criminately both officers and men ; but the quantity of fish that was caught, 
allowing each man two pounds and a-half per day, together with turtle 
and herbs, somewhat checked its progress. Three of the turtle caught 
weighed together 791 pounds. The natives took but little notice of the 
voyagers at first, but afterwards became familiar ; and on one occasion, 
when refused something which they wanted, one of them seized a fire- 
brand, and going to windward of the place where the armorer was at 
work, set fire to the high grass, so that every part of the smith's forge 
that would burn was destroyed. A musket ball was fired at them, and 
they ran away. The fire was repeated in the woods shortly afterwards, 
but without injury, as the stores and powder that had been landed were 
already on board. The hills all round burned fiercely for several nights. 
It must here be mentioned, that the injuries sustained by the vessel 
proved destructive to many valuable specimens that had been collected by 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 845 

Mr. Banks, which had been put for security in the bread-room, but the 
salt-water saturating a great portion, they were utterly spoiled. The 
place where they refitted was named by Mr. Cook Endeavour River. Its 
entrance for many miles was surrounded with shoals, and the channels 
between them were very intricate. On the 4th August they quitted their 
anchorage, and it was not till the 24th that they got clear of the reefs and 
sandbanks. After another narrow escape from being wrecked, they made 
New Guinea on the 3d September, where they anchored, and went on 
shore ; but the hostility of the natives, who resembled those of New South 
Wales, prevented intercourse. The latter used a sort of combustible 
material that ignited, without any report. The land looked rich and luxu- 
rious in vegetation, and the cocoa-nut, the bread-fruit, and the plantain 
trees, flourished in the highest perfection. Mr. Cook made sail to the 
westward, contrary to the wish of his people, who wanted to cut down the 
trees to get their fruit, but which, through humanity to the natives, he 
would not permit. In pursuing their voyage, they fell in with islands 
which were not upon the charts, and passed Timor and others, intending to 
run for Java: on the 17th they saw a beautiful island, and found Dutch 
residents, with cattle and sheep. The crew of the Endeavour had suffered 
many privations and hardships, and the scurvy was making havoc among 
them, so that they complained of their commander not having put in at 
Timor; but now they obtained nine buffaloes, six sheep, three hogs, thirty 
dozen of fowls, etc., with several hundred gallons of palm syrup. This 
was the island Savu, and the natives are spoken of as highly pure in their 
morals and integrity, and their land a perfect paradise. 

On the 21st Mr. Cook again sailed, and on the 1st of October came 
within sight of Java, and on the 9th brought up in Batavia Roads, where 
they found the Harcourt East Indiaman, and once more enjoyed the 
pleasure of communicating with their countrymen, and obtaining news 
from home. As it was deemed necessary to reexamine the Endeavour's 
bottom, preparations were made for the purpose. Tupia and his boy 
Tayoeta were almost mad with delight on viewing the display of European 
manners on shore ; but sickness assailed all who resided in the city, and 
the two Indians became its victims. In about six weeks there were buried 
Mr. Spearing, assistant to Mr. Banks, Mr. Parkinson, artist, Mr. Green, 
astronomer, the boatswain, the carpenter and his mate, Mr. Monkhouse 
and another midshipman, the sailmaker and his assistant, the ship's cook, 
the corporal of marines, and eleven seamen. 

On the 27th of December the Endeavour, being completed, stood out to 
sea, and on the 5th of January 1771, anchored at Prince's Island, but 
sailed again on the 15th for the Cape of Good Hope, where they arrived 
on the 15th of March. On the 14th April Mr. Cook resumed his voyage 
home, touched at St Helena (1st May to 4th), made the Lizard on the 
10th of June, and anchored the next day in the Downs, where Mr. Cook 
left her. 

The arrival of Mr. Cook, and the publication of sketches of his voyage, 
produced earnest desires to ascertain the full extent of his discoveries. 
Unknown parts had been explored ; vast additions were made to geograph- 
ical and scientific knowledge ; the productions of various countries, togeth- 
er with the manners, habits, and customs of the natives, excited universal 
curiosity and deep interest ; so that, when Dr. Hawkesworth's account of 



84(5 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the voyage, from the papers of Mr. Cook and Mr. Banks, was published, 
it was eagerly bought up at a large price. The astronomical observations 
threw much information on the theory of the heavenly bodies ; navigation 
had eminently proved its vast capabilities : it had been in a great measure 
determined that no southern continent existed, or at least that neither 
New Zealand nor New South Wales were parts of such a continent ; and 
most interesting accounts were given of the places visited and the perils 
encountered. 

Mr. Cook was promoted to the rank of commander ; the Royal Society 
honored him with especial favor and notice ; and his society was courted 
by men of talent and research, eager for information. His worthy patrons, 
Sir Charles Saunders and Sir Hugh Palliser, were gratified to find their 
recommendations had been so well supported ; the Earl of Sandwich, then 
at the head of the Admiralty Board, paid him considerable attention ; and 
his majesty George III, treated him with more than ordinary consideration. 
Captain Cook enjoyed sufficient to make him proud ; but he was too hum 
ble in mind, too modest in disposition, and too diffident in manners, to 
cherish one atom of unbecoming self-estimation. 

Second Voyage Round the World. The idea of the existence of a 
southern continent, or as the learned called it, Terra Anstralis Incognita, 
had existed for more than two centuries ; and though Cool: had sailed over 
many parts where it was said to be situated, without seeing land, yet his 
first voyage did not altogether destroy the expectation that it might yet be 
found. Besides, his discoveries in the South Seas had whetted the pub- 
lic appetite for still further knowledge on the subject. The king, well 
pleased with what had been done, wished more to be accomplished ; and 
accordingly, two stout ships built at Hull were purchased — the Resolution, 
of 462 tons, commanded by Captain Cook, with a complement of 112 per- 
sons; and the Adventure, of 836 tons, commanded by Tobias Furneaux, 
with a crew including officers, of 81 souls. These appointments took place 
on the 28th of November 1771, and the most active exertions were imme- 
diately called into operation to fit them for the undertaking. Experience 
had taught Captain Cook what was the most essential and requisite for 
?uch a voyage ; not only for the comforts and preservation of his people 
irom scurvy, not only for commerce with the natives, but cattle and seeda 
of various kinds, and numerous things which philanthropy suggested, were 
shipped for the purpose of spreading the advantages of propagation and 
fertility amongst the South Sea islands ; the benefits of which have since 
been experienced by other voyagers in an eminent degree. The Admiral- 
ty engaged Mr. W. Hodges as landscape painter; Mr. J. R. Forster 
and son were appointed to collect specimens of natural history ; and 
Mr. Wales in the Resolution, and Mr. Bayley in the Adventure, were 
sent by the Board of Longitude to superintend astronomical observations, 
for which they were furnished with admirable instruments and four 
excellent time-pieces. 

The instructions given to Captain Cook were — ' To circumnavigate the 
whole globe in high southern latitudes, making traverses from time to time 
into every part of the Pacific Ocean that had not undergone previous 
investigation, and to use his best endeavors to resolve the much agitated 
question of the existence of a southern continent.' 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 847 

On the 13th July 1772, the two vessels quitted Plymouth, and after 
touching at Madeira for wine, and at the Cape de Vercls for water, crossed 
the line with a brisk south-west wind, and anchored in Table Bay, Cape 
of Good Hope, on the 30th October. Here Captain Cook ascertained 
that the French were prosecuting discoveries in the South Seas, and that, 
eight months before, two French ships had sailed about forty miles along 
land in the latitude of 48 degrees, but had been driven off by a gale of 
wind. He also learned that two others had recently left the Mauritius for 
a similar purpose. On the 22d November Captain Cook took leave of 
Table Bay, and pursued his voyage for Cape Circumcision, but encounter- 
id very severe gales, which destroyed much of the live stock, and the 
people experienced great inconvenience from the intensity of the cold. 
The judicious management of the commander, however, prevented any 
fatal result. Warm clothing was given to the men ; the decks below were 
kept well dried and ventilated, as well as warmed ; and an addition was 
made to the issue of grog. On the 10th December they fell in with im- 
mense icebergs, some two miles in circuit at the edge of the water, and 
about sixty feet in height, over which the sea was breaking with tremendous 
violence. On the 14th the ships were stopped by a field of low ice, to 
which no end could be seen, either, east, west, or south. On the 18th 
they got clear of this obstruction, but continued amongst the fields and 
bergs, with heavy gales of wind, till the 1st January 1773, when it was 
clear enough to see the moon, which they had only done once before since 
quitting the Cape. The fogs had been so impenetrable as to obscure the 
heavens. Various indications had induced a belief that land was not far 
distant, and Captain Cook had as near as possible pursued a course for the 
supposed Cape Circumcision. By the 7th January they had reached the 
latitude of 67 degrees 15 minutes south, where they found the ice closely 
packed from east to west-south-west, and further progress debarred, unless 
by running the hazard of getting blocked up as the summer in this part 
of the world was rapidly passing away. The captain therefore desisted 
from penetrating further to the south, and returned northerly, to look for 
the asserted recently-discovered land of the French. On the 1st Febru- 
ary they were in latitude 48 degrees 30 minutes south, and longitude 58 
degrees 7 minutes east, where it was stated to have been seen ; but noth- 
ing of the kind presented itself to view. He traversed this part of the 
ocean with similar results ; and during a dense fog, parted company with 
the Adventure. On the 23d they were in latitude 61 degrees 52 minutes 
south, and longitude 95 degrees 2 minutes east ; the weather thick and 
stormy, and the ship surrounded by drifting ice. Captain Cook therefore 
stood to the north in a hard gale with a heavy sea, which broke up the 
mountains of ice, and rendered them, by their numbers, still more danger- 
ous, especially in the long dark nights. On the 13th and 14th March the 
astronomers got observations which showed the latitude to be 58 degrees 
22 minutes south, and the longitude 136 degrees 22 minutes east, whilst 
the watches showed the latter to be 134 degrees 42 minutes east. Captain 
Cook had become convinced he had left no continent south of him, and 
consequently shaped a course for New Zealand, to refresh his men, refit 
his ship, and look for the Adventurer. He made the land, and anchored 
in Dusky Bay on the 26th March, after having been 117 days at sea, and 
traversed 3660 leagues without seeing any land ; whilst during the whole 



848 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

time, through the arrangements and supplies of Captain Cook, scarcely a 
single case of scurvy occurred. From Dusky Bay they removed to an- 
other anchorage, where fish were plentifully caught, and the woods abound- 
ed with wild fowl ; timber and fire- wood were close at hand, and a fine 
stream of fresh water within a hundred yards of the ship's stern. This 
place was named Pickersgill harbor, in honor of the lieutenant who discov- 
ered it. The workmen erected tents for the forge, the carpenters, the 
sail-makers, coopers, and others, and a spot was selected for an observa- 
tory. Some tolerably good beer was manufactured from the branches and 
leaves of a tree resembling the American black spruce, mixed with the 
inspissated juice of wort and molasses. 

On the 28th some of the natives visited them, and though at first shy, a 
friendly intercourse was subsequently established. Captain Cook surveyed 
Dusky Bay, where in retired spots, he planted seeds, and left several 
o^ese. They also caught a number of seals, from which they procured a 
supply of oil. On the 11th May they quitted this place for Queen Char- 
lotte's Sound, and on the 17th it fell perfectly calm, and they had an 
opportunity of seeing no less than six waterspouts, one of which passed 
within fifty yards of the Resolution. The next day they made the Sound, 
where the Adventure had already arrived, and great was the joy of meet- 
ing. On the 4th June they celebrated the birthday of George III, and 
a chief and his family, consisting of ninety persons, were shown the gar- 
dens which had been made, which they promised to continue in cultivation. 
A male and female goat were put on shore on the east side of the Sound, 
and a boar and two sows near Cannibal Cove, which it was hoped would 
not be molested. 

On the 17th June the ships sailed, and on the 29th July the crew of 
the Adventure manifested rather alarming symptoms of a sickly state. The 
cook died, and about twenty of her best men were incapable of duty through 
scurvy and flux ; whilst at this period only three men were sick in the Res- 
olution, and but one of these with the scurvy. The difference was attribu- 
ted to the people of the former ship not having fed much upon celery, 
scurvy-grass, and other greens, whilst at Queen Charlotte's Sound. On 
the 1st of August they were in the supposed position of Pitcairn's Island, 
laid down by captain Carteret in 1767 ; but as its longitude was incorrectly 
stated, they did not see it, but must have passed it about fifteen leagues to 
the westward. August 6th, the ships got advantage of the trade-winds at 
south-east, being at that time in latitude 19 deg. 36 min. south, and longi- 
tude 131 deg. 32 min. west. The captain directed his course west-north- 
west, passed a number of islands and rocks, which he named the Dangerous 
Archipelago, and on the 15th of August came in sight of Osnaburgh Island, 
or Maitea, which had been discovered by captain Wallis, and sail was im- 
mediately made for Otaheite, which they saw the same evening. 

On the 17th the ships anchored in Oaiti-piha Bay, and the natives 
immediately crowded on board with fruit and roots, which were exchanged 
for nails and beads; and presents of shirts, axes, etc., were made to sev- 
eral who called themselves chiefs. Their thieving propensities, however, 
could not be restrained ; and some articles of value having been stolen, 
Captain Cook turned the whole of them out of the ship, and then fired 
musketry over their heads, to show them the hazard which they ran. It 
is worthy of remark, that though Tupia was well known to the islanders, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 849 

yet very few inquired what had become of him ; and those who did, on 
being informed that he was dead, expressed neither sorrow, suspicion, nor 
surprise ; but every one anxiously asked for Mr. Banks and others who 
had accompanied Captain Cook in his former voyage. With respect 
to the Otaheitans, considerable changes had occurred. Toutaha, the 
regent of the great peninsula of that island, had been slain in the bat- 
tle about five months before the Resolution's arrival, and Otoo was now 
the reigning chief. Several others friendly to the English had fallen ; 
but Otoo manifested much friendship for them. A few days subsequent 
to their anchoring in the bay, a marine died ; the rest of the men, who 
labored under sickness and scorbutic weakness, very soon recovered, 
through the supplies of fresh meat and vegetables. 

On the 24th the ships got under weigh, and the next' evening an- 
chored in Matavai Bay, where the decks became excessively crowded by 
natives, who had visited them the voyage previous. On the following day 
Captain Cook went to Oparre to see Otoo, whom he describes as a fine 
well-made man, six feet high, and about thirty years of age. He was not, 
however, very courageous, for he declined accompanying the captain on 
board the Resolution, as he was 'afraid of the guns.' The observatory 
was fitted up, the sick were landed, as well as a guard of marines, and the 
natives brought hogs and fruits to barter. Some disturbance that took 
place through two or three marines behaving rudely to the women, caused 
at the time considerable alarm ; but the men were seized and punished, 
and tranquillity restored. 

Everything being ready for sea, on the 1st of September the ships 
quitted Matavai Bay, and visited the other islands. At Owharre, the 
chief brought the presents he had received from Captain Cook on the pre- 
vious voyage, to show that he had treasured them. He also behaved very 
generously, in sending the best fruits and vegetables that could be pro- 
cured for the captain's table. The intercourse with the natives was pro- 
ceeding very quietly, when, on the 6th, without any provocation, a man 
assailed Captain Cook with a club at the landing-place ; and Mr. Sparr- 
man, who had gone into the woods to botanise, was stripped and beaten. 
The Indians expressed great contrition for this outrage ; and the king, on 
being informed of it, not only wept aloud, but placed himself under the 
entire control of the English, and went with them in search of the stolen 
articles. His subjects endeavored to prevent this, but his sister encour- 
aged him, and not meeting with success, Oree insisted on being taken on 
board the Resolution to remain as a hostage. He dined with Captain 
Cook, and was afterwards landed by that officer, to the great joy of the 
people, who brought in hogs and fruits, and soon filled two boats. The 
next day the ships unmoored, and put to sea for Huaheine, where they 
remained a short time, and received on board a native named Omai, who 
afterwards figured much in England. 

The inhabitants of the Society Islands generally manifested great tim- 
idity ; on some occasion they offered human sacrifices to a supreme being. 
The voyagers quitted this part of the world on the 17th, and sailed to 
the westward, and gave the name of Harvey's Island to land they discov- 
ered on the 23d. It was in 19 degrees 18 minutes south, and 158 de- 
grees 4 minutes west. By October 1st they reached Middleburg, and 
were welcomed with loud acclamations by the natives. Barter commenced ; 
54* 



850 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

but the people ashore seemed more desirous to give than receive, and 
threw into the boats whole bales of cloth, without asking or waiting for any- 
thing in the return. After leaving some garden seeds, and other useful 
things, the ships proceeded to Amsterdam, where they met a similar recep- 
tion ; but Captain Cook putting a stop to the purchase of curiosities and 
cloth, the natives brought off pigs, fowls, and fruits in abundance, which 
they exchanged for spike nails. The island was extensively cultivated ; 
there appeared to be not an inch of waste ground ; and the fertility of the 
soil was excellent. Captain Cook paid a visit to the head chief, who was 
seated, and seemed to be in a sort of idiotic stupor, nor did he take the 
slightest notice of the captain or any one else. The inhabitants of these 
islands are described as being of good shape, regular features, brisk and 
lively ; particularly the women, who were constantly merry and cheerful. 
Most of the people had lost one or both of their little fingers, but no 
reason could be gathered as to the cause of amputation. 

The voyage was renewed on the 7th October, and on the 21st they 
came in sight of New Zealand, eight or ten leagues from Table Cape, when 
Captain Cook presented the chief with two boars, two sows, four hens, two 
cocks, and a great variety of seeds — wheat, peas, beans, cabbage, turnips, 
onions, &c, and a spike nail about ten inches in length, with which latter 
he seemed to be more delighted than with all the rest put together. After 
beating about the coast in a variety of tempestuous weather, the Resolu- 
tion anchored in Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte's Sound, on the 3d November ; 
but the Adventure was separated from them in a heavy gale, and was nev- 
er seen or heard of during the remainder of the voyage. In this place 
they made the best use of the means they possessed to repair the damage 
they had sustained, but, on examining the stock of bread, ascertained that 
4992 pounds were totally unfit for use, and other 3000 pounds in such a 
state of decay that none but persons situated as our voyagers were could 
have eaten it. On inquiry after the animals left on the island by Captain 
Cook, most of them were preserved in a good condition, with the exception 
of two goats that a native had destroyed. The articles planted in the gar 
dens were in a flourishing condition. To his former gifts the captain now 
added many others, and placed them in such situations that they were not 
likely to be disturbed. Whilst lying here, complaint was made that some 
of the Resolution's men had plundered a native hut. The thief was dis- 
covered, tied up to a post, and flogged in the presence of the chiefs and 
their people, who expressed themselves satisfied with the punishment in- 
flicted. It was a great principle with Cook to set an example of strict 
honesty. 

In this second voyage the captain gained indisputable proofs that the 
New Zealanders were eaters of human flesh ; but he firmly believed that 
it was the flesh of captives, or those who had been killed in battle. 

Captain Cook quitted New Zealand on the 26th November, his ship's 
company in good health and spirits, and nowise daunted at the prospects 
of hardships they were about to endure in again searching for a southern 
continent or islands in high latitudes. They were not long before they 
once more encountered fields and islands of ice, and when in latitude G7 
degrees 5 minutes, they were nearly blocked up. On the 22d of Decem- 
ber they attained the highest latitude they could venture — this was 67 de- 
grees 31 minutes south, and in longitude 142 degrees 54 minutes west ; 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 851 

but no land was discovered. The crew of the Resolution were attacked 
by slight fever, caused by colds, but on coming northward, it was cured in 
a few days ; and on the 5th January 1774, when in 50 degrees south, 
there were not more than two or three persons on the sick list. 

After traversing the ocean as far south as it was prudent to go, all the 
scientific men expressed their belief that ice surrounded the pole without 
any intervening land ; the Resolution consequently returned to the north- 
ward to look for the island of Juan Fernandez. About this time Captain 
Cook was seized with a dangerous and distressing disease, and it was sev- 
eral days before the worst symptoms were removed. On his amending, 
there being no fresh provisions on board, and his stomach loathing the salt 
food, a favorite dog of Mr. Forster was killed and boiled, which afforded 
both broth and meat, and upon this fare he gained strength. The Resolu- 
tion on the 11th March, came in sight of Easter Island, situated in 27 
degrees 5 minutes south, and 109 degrees 46 minutes west, where they 
remained a few days, and found the inhabitants very similar in appearance 
and character to the people of the more western isles. The place, how- 
ever, afforded scarcely any food or fuel, the anchorage was unsafe, and 
the only matters worthy of notice were some rudely-carved gigantic statues 
in the interior. Captain Cook left Easter Island to pursue a course for 
the Marquesas, and got sight of them on the 6th April. During the 
passage the captain had a recurrence of his disorder, but it was neither 
so violent nor so long in duration as before. The ship was anchored in 
Resolution Bay, at the island of St. Christina, where thievery was practic- 
ed equally as much as at the Society and other isles; and one of the 
natives was unfortunately killed whilst in the act of carrying away the iron 
stanchion of the gangway. They had now been nineteen weeks at sea, 
entirely on salt provisions; but still, owing to the anti-scorbutic articles 
and medicines, and the warmth and cleanliness preserved, scarcely a man 
was sick. Here they obtained fresh meat, fruits, yams, and plantains, but 
in small quantities ; and the captain having corrected, by astronomical 
observations, the exact position of these islands, once more made sail for 
Otaheite. During the passage they passed several small islands, and dis- 
covered four others, which Cook named after his old commander, Sir Hugh 
Palliser. On the 22d April the anchor was again let go in Matavai Bay, 
where the usual process was gone through of erecting the observatory to 
try the rates of the watches ; but no tent was required for the sick, as 
there was not a man ill on board. 

During the stay of Captain Cook at this island, where refreshments of 
all kinds were readily obtained, and particularly in exchange for some red 
feathers that had been brought from Amsterdam, the old friendships were 
renewed with Otoo and other chiefs ; there was a constant interchange of 
visits ; and on one occasion the Otaheitans got up a grand naval review. 

The large canoes in this part of the world are extremely graceful and 
handsome in display, particularly the double war canoes, with flags and 
streamers, paddling along with great swiftness, and performing their evo- 
lutions with considerable skill. No less than 160 of the largest double 
war canoes were assembled, fully equipped, and the chiefs and their men, 
habited in full war costume, appeared upon the fighting stages, with their 
clubs and other instruments of warfare ready for action. Besides these 
large vessels, there were 170 smaller double canoes, each of these last 



852 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

having a mast and sail, and a sort of hut or cabin on the deck. Captain 
Cook calculated that the number of men embarked in them could not be 
fewer than 7760, most of them armed with clubs, pikes, barbed spears, 
bows and arrows, and slings for throwing large stones ; in fact, strongly 
resembling the representations of engagements with galleys in the Mediter- 
ranean described some centuries before. The spectacle at Otaheite was 
extremely imposing, and greatly surprised the English. 

Whilst lying at Matavia Bay, one of the islanders was caught in the 
act of stealing a water-cask. Captain Cook had him secured and sent on 
board the Resolution, where he was put in irons, and in this degraded 
situation was seen by Otoo and other chiefs, who entreated that the man 
might be pardoned. But the captain would not comply with their requests ; 
he told them that ' any act of dishonesty amongst his own people was 
severely punished, and he was resolved to make an example of the thief 
he had caught.' Accordingly, the culprit was taken ashore to the tents, 
the guard turned out, and the offender being tied to a post, received two 
dozen lashes, inflicted by a boatswain's mate. Towha, one of the chiefs, 
then addressed the people, and recommended them to abstain from steal- 
ing in future. To make a further impression on them, the marines were 
ordered to go through their exercise, and load and fire with ball. 

A few days afterwards one of the gunner's mates attempted to desert, 
and it was soon ascertained that he had formed an attachment on shore, 
and if he had got away, the natives would have concealed him up the 
country. Indeed the temptations for remaining in this beautiful country 
were very great. Every requisite to sustain existence was abundant, the 
scenery splendid, the earth spontaneously fertile, the waters abounding 
with fish — in short, a few hours' exertion was sufficient to obtain a week's 
supply ; and in a climate replete with health, a European might have 
rendered others subservient to his will, and lived without labor of any kind. 

They next anchored in Owharre harbor, at Huaheine, and the former 
amicable intercourse was repeated. The stock of nails and articles of 
traffic being much reduced, the smiths were set to work to manufacture 
more. Whilst lying here, the voyagers had an opportunity of witnessing 
a theatrical representation, principally founded on an actual occurrence. 
A young girl had quitted Otaheite and her friends to accompany a seaman 
to Ulieta, and she was now present to see the drama. It described her as 
running away from her home, the grief of her parents, and a long string 
of adventures, which terminated in her return to her native place, where 
her reception was none of the most gentle that can be conceived. The 
poor girl could hardly be persuaded to wait for the conclusion, and she 
cried most bitterly. 

They parted from the inhabitants with much regret, and having called 
at Ulieta, they sailed past Howe Island, and discovered another nearly 
surrounded with reefs, to which the name of Palmerston was given. On 
the 20th July fresh land was seen, on which they went ashore, but found 
the natives fierce and hostile. The firing of muskets did not deter them ; 
and one came close enough to throw a spear at the captain, which passed 
over his shoulder. The captain presented his piece, but it missed fire, 
and the daring fellow was saved. They named this Savage Island. It 
lies in latitude 19 degrees 1 minute south, longitude 169 degrees 37 
minutes west. From thence, after passing a number of small isle ts, they 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 853 

anchored on the 26th on the north side of Anamocka, Rotterdam, and 
commenced trade for provisions. But here, as at the other islands, fre- 
quent disputes and conflicts took place with the inhabitants on account of 
their thievish propensities. Here they ascertained that a chain of islands, 
some of which they could see, existed in the neighborhood, forming a 
group within the compass of three degrees of latitude, and two of longi- 
tude, and which Captain Cook named the Friendly Isles ; which designa- 
tion they certainly merited, for the social qualities and conduct of the 
natives. 

Pursuing their course westward, they came, on the 1st July, to a small 
island, which, on account of the great number of turtle, was named after 
that amphibious creature ; and on the 16th they saw high land ; and after 
coasting it for two other days, they anchored in a harbor in the island of 
Mallecollo, to which the captain gave the name of Port Sandwich. At 
first the natives were hostile, but they were soon conciliated through the 
bland manners of Cook, and were found strictly honest in all their deal- 
ings. In fact, they are described as totally different to any they had yet 
visited. They were very dark, extremely ugly, and ill-proportioned, and 
their features strongly resembled those of a monkey. 

Soon after getting to sea, various other islands were seen and named ; 
and an affray took place with some of the natives, in which two of them 
were wounded. A promontory near where the skirmish occurred they 
called Traitor's Head. After cruising about amongst the great number 
of islands in this locality, making observations and taking surveys, they 
steered towards New Zealand, to wood and water, previous to a renewal 
of their search southward ; and on the 4th September discovered land, and 
entered a pleasant harbor on the following day, where they were well re- 
ceived. On the 13th they weighed again, and surveyed the coast, by 
which they ascertained that the island was very extensive ; and, from cer- 
tain peculiarities, Cook named it New Caledonia. Botany here received 
great accessions. Many plants were collected hitherto unknown : and 
both geography and natural history afforded much research to the scien- 
tific men. A small island, on which were growing some pine trees, re- 
ceived the name of Pine Island ; and another was called Botany, from 
the great variety of specimens obtained. 

The Resolution, in proceeding for New Zealand, touched at an unin- 
habited island, abounding with vegetation, which was named Norfolk Island, 
and on the 18th October anchored in Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte's Sound, 
where she refitted and the captain completed his survey. Captain Cook 
had buried a bottle near the Cove when he w T as here before, and in digging 
now it was not to be found. It was therefore supposed that the Adventure 
had anchored here, and her people had removed it. On the 10th Novem- 
ber they took their departure ; and having sailed till the 27th in different 
degrees of latitude, from 43 degrees to 54 degrees 8 minutes south, Cap- 
tain Cook gave up hopes of falling in with any more land in this ocean. 
He therefore resolved to steer for the west entrance of the Straits of Mag- 
ellan, in order to coast along the south side of Terra del Fuego, round 
Cape Horn to the Straits of Le Maire. On the 17th December he reached 
his first destination, and here the scenery was very different from what 
they had before beheld. Lofty rocky mountains entirely destitute of veg- 
etation, craggy summits, and horrible precipices ; the whole aspect of the 



854 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

country barren and savage. Yet near every harboi they were enabled to 
procure fresh-water and fuel ; and there were plenty of wild fowl and geese. 
The inhabitants were wretchedly poor and ignorant. 

On the 25th January 1778, having coasted it as far as 60 degrees south, 
the land presenting the same uncouth appearance, covered with ice and 
snow, and the ship exposed to numerous storms, and the people to intense 
cold, the course was altered to look for Bouvet's Land ; but though they 
reached the spot where it was laid down on the charts, and sailed over and 
over it, yet no such place could be discovered ; and after two days' search 
more to the southward, Cook came to the conclusion that Bouvet had been 
deceived by the ice, and once more bent his thoughts towards home — es- 
pecially as the ship stood in need of repairs, and her sails and rigging 
were nearly worn out — and consequently steered for the Cape of Good 
Hope, where he heard of the Adventure, and anchored in Table Bay on 
the 22d of March. From thence he sailed on the 27th of April, touched 
at St. Helena on the 15th of May, and remained till the 21st, and then 
got under weigh for Ascension, where he arrived on the 28th ; and from 
thence shaped a course for the remarkable island Fernando de Noronha, 
which he reached on the 9th of June ; and pursuing his way for the west- 
ern islands, anchored in Fayal Roads on the 14th of July, where Mr. 
Wales the astronomer determined the position of the Azores by a series of 
observations. The Resolution ultimately entered Portsmouth on the 30th; 
and Captain Cook landed after an absence of three years and eighteen days, 
having sailed 20,000 leagues in various climates — from the extreme of heat 
to the extreme of cold. But so judicious had been the arrangements for 
preserving health, and so carefully had Captain Cook attended to the ven- 
tilation between decks, and the mode of promoting warmth, as well as the 
food, etc., of the people, that he lost only one man by sickness. It may 
naturally be supposed that the wear and tear of the ship was great, her 
rigging scarcely trustworthy, and her sails unfit to meet a fresh breeze ; 
yet so careful were the officers of the masts and yards, that not a spar of 
any consequence was carried away during the whole voyage. 

The fame of Captain Cook as a navigator, coupled with his marked hu- 
manity as a man, now exalted him in public estimation far beyond what he 
had before experienced ; and the utmost anxiety prevailed to obtain intelli- 
gence relative to his discoveries, etc. The king, to testify his approbation, 
made him a post captain nine days subsequent to his arrival ; and three 
days afterwards, a captaincy in Greenwich Hospital was conferred upon 
him, to afford an honorable and competent retirement from active service. 
On the 29th of February 1776, he was elected a member of the Royal 
Society, and in a short time he was honored with the gold medal ; Sir John 
Pringle, in presenting it, uttering a well-merited eulogium on the worthy 
receiver. The account of his second voyage was written by Captain Cook 
himself, and manifests a plain manly style, giving facts rather than embel 
lishments. 

Cook's Last Voyage. The discovery of a supposed north-west pass 
age from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific oceans had for many 
years been ardently sought for both by the English and the Dutch. Fro- 
bisher in 1576 made the first attempt, and his example was in succeeding 
times followed by many others. But though much geographical informa- 
tion had been gained in the neighborhood of Hudson's Bay, Davies' Straits, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 855 

Baffin's Bay, and the coast of Greenland, yet no channel whatever was 
found. By act of parliament, .£20,000 was offered to the successful indi- 
vidual. But though Captain Middleton in 1741, and Captains Smith and 
Moore in 1746, explored those seas and regions, the object remained unat- 
tained. The Honorable Captain Phipps (afterwards Earl Mulgrave) was 
sent out in the Racehorse, accompanied by Captain Lutwidge in the Car- 
case (Lord Nelson was a boy in this latter ship), to make observations, 
and to penetrate as far as it was practicable to do so. They sailed on the 
2d of June 1773, and made Spitzbergen on the 28th ; but after great ex- 
ertions, they found the ice to the northward utterly impenetrable. Once 
they became closely jammed, and it was only with great difficulty they 
escaped destruction. On the 22d of August, finding it impossible to get 
further to the northward, eastward, or westward, they made sail, according 
to their instructions, for England, and arrived off Shetland on the 7th of 
September. 

Notwithstanding these numerous failures, the idea of an existing passage 
was still cherished ; and earl Sandwich continuing at the head of the Ad- 
miralty, resolved that a further trial should be made, and captain Cook 
offered his services to undertake it. They were gladly accepted, and on 
the 10th of February, 1776, he was appointed to command the expedition 
in his old but hardy ship, the Resolution, and captain Clerke, in the Discov- 
ery, was ordered to attend him. In this instance, however, the mode of 
experiment was to be reversed, and instead of attempting the former routes 
by Davis' Straits or Baffin's Bay, etc., Cook, at his own request, was in- 
structed to proceed into the South Pacific, and thence to try the passage 
by the way of Behring's Straits ; and as it was necessary that the islands 
in the southern ocean should be revisited, cattle and sheep, with other ani- 
mals, and all kinds of seeds, were shipped for the advantage of the na- 
tives. 

Every preparation having been made, the Resolution quitted Plymouth 
on the 12th of July (the Discovery was to follow), taking Omai, the na- 
tive brought from the Society Isles, with him. Having touched at Tener- 
iffe, they crossed the equator September 1st, and reached the Cape on the 
18th of October, where the Discovery joined them on the 10th of November. 
Whilst lying in Table Bay, the cattle were landed ; and some dogs getting 
into the pens, worried and killed several of the sheep, and dispersed the 
rest. Two fine rams and two ewes were lost ; but the two latter were re- 
covered ; the others could not be got back. Captain Cook here made an 
addition to his stock, and, besides other animals, purchased two young stal- 
lions and two mares. 

November 30th the ships sailed again, and encountered heavy gales, in 
which several sheep and goats died. On the 12th of December they saw 
two large islands, which Cook named Prince Edward's Islands ; and three 
days afterwards several others were seen ; but having reached Keguelen's 
Land, they anchored in a convenient harbor on Christmas day. On the 
north side of this harbor one of the men found a quart bottle fastened to a 
projecting rock by stout wire, and on opening it, the bottle was found to 
contain a piece of parchment, on which was an inscription purporting that 
the land had been visited by a French vessel in 1772-3. To this Cook 
added a notice of his own visit ; the parchment was then returned to the 
bottle, and the cork being secured with lead, was placed upon a pile of 




BARON VONHUMBOLD1. 



858 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

stones near to the place from which it had been removed. The whole coun 
try was extremely barren and desolate ; and on the 30th they came to the 
eastern extremity of Kerguelen's Land. To his great chagrin, whilst ex 
ploring the coast, captain Cook lost through the intense cold two young 
bulls, one heifer, two rams, and several of the goats. 

On the 24th of January, 1777, they came in sight of Van Diemen's 
Laud, and on the 26th anchored in Adventure Bay, where intercourse was 
opened with the natives, and Omai took every opportunity of lauding his 
friends the English. Here they obtained plenty of grass for the remain- 
ing cattle, and a supply of fresh provisions for themselves. On the 30th 
they quitted their port, convinced that Van Diemen's Land was the south 
em point of New Holland. Subsequent investigations, however, have 
proved this idea to be erroneous ; Van Diemen's Land being an island sep- 
arated from the mainland of Australia by Bass' Straits. 

On the 12th of February captain Cook anchored at his old station in 
Queen Charlotte's Sound, New Zealand ; but the natives were very shy in 
approaching the ships, and none could be persuaded to come on board. 
The reason was, that on the former voyage, after parting with the Resolu- 
tion, the Adventure had visited this place, and ten of her crew had been 
killed in an unpremeditated skirmish with the natives: It was the fear of 
retaliatory punishment that kept them aloof. Captain Cook, however, soon 
made them easy upon the subject, and their familiarity was renewed ; but 
great caution was used, to be fully prepared for a similar attack, by keep- 
ing the men well armed on all occasions. Of the animals left at this isl- 
and in the former voyages, many were thriving ; and the gardens though 
left in a state of nature, were found to contain cabbages, onions, leeks, 
radishes, mustard, and a few potatoes. The captain was enabled to add 
to both. At the solicitation of Omai he received two New Zealand lads on 
board the Resolution, and by the 27th was clear of the coast. 

After landing at a number of islands, and not finding adequate supplies, 
the ships sailed for Anamocka, and the Resolution was brought up in ex 
actly the same anchorage that she had occupied three years before. The 
natives behaved in a most friendly manner, and but for their habits of 
stealing, quiet would have been uninterrupted. Nothing, however, could 
check this propensity, till captain Cook shaved the heads of all whom he 
caught practicing it. This rendered them an object of ridicule to their 
countrymen, and enabled the English to recognize and keep them at a 
distance. Most of the Friendly Isles were visited by the ships, and eve- 
rywhere they met with a kind reception. On the 10th of June they reached 
Tongataboo, where the king offered captain Cook his house to reside in. 
Here he made a distribution of his animals amongst the chiefs, and the im- 
portance of preserving them was explained by Omai. A horse and mare, 
a bull and cow, several sheep and turkeys, were thus given away ; but 
two kids and two turkey-cocks having been stolen, the captain seized three 
canoes, put a guard over the chiefs, and insisted that not only the kids and 
turkeys should be restored, but also everything that had been taken away 
since their arrival. This produced a good effect, and much of the plunder 
was returned. 

Captain Cook remained at the Friendly Islands nearly three months, 
and lived almost entirely during that period upon fresh provisions, occa- 
sionally eating the produce of the seeds he had sown there in his former 



DEP4RTME3T OF TRAVEL. 859 

visits. On the 17th July they took their final leave of these hospitable 
people, and on the 12th August reached Otaheite, and took up a berth in 
Oaiti-piha Bay, which it was discovered had been visited by two Spanish 
ships since the Resolution had last been there. 

Animals of various kinds had been left in the country by the Spaniards, 
and the islanders spoke of them with esteem and respect. On the 24th 
the ships went round to Matavai Bay, and Captain Cook presented to the 
king, Otoo, the remainder of his live stock. There were already at Otoo's 
residence a remarkably fine bull and some goats that had been left by the 
Spaniards, and to these the captain added another bull, three cows, a horse 
and mare, and a number of sheep ; also a peacock and hen, a turkey-cock 
and hen, one gander and three geese, a drake and four ducks. The 
geese and ducks began to breed before the English left the island. 

They here witnessed a human sacrifice, to propitiate the favor of their 
gods in a battle they were about to undertake. The victim was generally 
some strolling vagabond, who was not aware of his fate till the moment 
arrived, and he received his death-blow from a club. For the purpose of 
showing the inhabitants the use of the horses, Captain Cook and Clerke 
rode into the country, to the great astonishment of the islanders ; and 
though this exercise was continued every day by some of the Resolution's 
people, yet the wonder of the natives never abated. 

On the return of Omai to the land of his birth, the reception he met 
with was not very cordial ; but the affection of his relatives was strong and 
ardent. Captain Cook obtained the grant of a piece of land for him on 
the west side of Owharre harbor, Huaheine. The carpenters of the ships 
built him a small house, to which a garden was attached, planted with 
shaddocks, vines, pine apples, melons, etc., and a variety of vegetables ; 
the whole of which were thriving before Captain Cook quitted the island. 
When the house was finished, the presents Omai had received in England 
were carried ashore, with every article necessary for domestic purposes, as 
well as two muskets, a bayonet, a brace of pistols, etc. 

The two lads brought from New Zealand were put on shore at this 
place, to form part of Omai's family; but it was with great reluctance that 
they cpuitted the voyagers, who had behaved so kindly to them. 

Whilst lying at Huaheine, a thief, who had caused them great trouble, 
not only had his head and beard shaved, but, in order to deter others, both 
his ears were cut off. On the 3d November the ships went to Ulietea, 
and here, decoyed by the natives, two or three desertions took place ; 
and as others seemed inclined to follow the example, Captain Clerke pur- 
sued the fugitives with two armed boats and a party of marines ; but 
without effect. Captain Cook experienced a similar failure : he therefore 
seized upon the persons of the chief's son, daughter, and son-in-law, whom 
he placed under confinement till the people should be restored ; which 
took place on the 28th, and the hostages were released. One of the 
deserters was a midshipman of the Discovery, and the son of a brave offi- 
cer in the service. Schemes were projected by some of the natives to 
assassinate Captain Cook and Captain Clerke ; but though in imminent 
danger, the murderous plans failed. 

At Bolabola, Captain Cook succeeded in obtaining an anchor which had 
been left there by M. Bouganville, as he was very desirous of converting 
the iron into articles of traffic. They left this place on the 8th Decern- 



860 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

ber, crossed the line, and on the 24th stopped at a small island, which he 
named Christmas Island, and where he planted cocoa-nuts, yams, and 
melon seeds, and left a bottle enclosing a suitable inscription. 

On the 2d January, 1778, the ships resumed their voyage northward, 
to pursue the grand object in Behring's Straits. They passed several 
islands, the inhabitants of which, though at an immense distance from 
Otaheite, spoke the same language. Those who came on board displayed 
the utmost astonishment at everything they beheld ; and it was evident 
they had never seen a ship before. The disposition to steal was equally 
strong in these as in the other South Sea islanders, and a man was killed 
who tried to plunder the watering party ; but this was not known to Cap- 
tain Cook till after they had sailed. They also discovered that the prac- 
tice of eating human flesh was prevalent. To a group of these islands 
(and they were generally found in clusters) Captain Cook gave the name 
of the Sandwich Islands, in honor of the noble earl at the head of the 
Admiralty. 

The voyage to the northward was continued on the 2d February, and 
the long-looked-for coast of New Albion was made on the 7th March, the 
ships being then in latitude 44 degrees 33 minutes north ; and after sail- 
ing along it till the 29th, they came to an anchor in a small cove lying in 
latitude 49 degrees 29 minutes north. A brisk trade commenced with the 
natives, who appeared to be well acquainted with the value of iron, for 
which they exchanged the skins of various animals, such as bears, wolves, 
foxes, deer, etc., both in their original state and made up into garments. 
But the most extraordinary articles were human skulls, and hands not 
quite stripped of the flesh, and which had the appearance of having been 
recently on the fire. Thieving was practiced at this place in a more sci- 
entific manner than they had before remarked ; and the natives insisted 
upon being paid for the wood and other things supplied to the ships ; with 
which Captain Cook scrupulously complied. This inlet was named King 
George's Sound ; but it was afterwards ascertained that the natives called 
it Nootka Sound. After making every requisite nautical observation, the 
ships being again ready for sea on the 26th, in the evening they departed, 
a severe gale of wind blowing them from the shore. From this period 
they examined the coast, under a hope of finding some communication with 
the Polar Sea ; and one river they traced as high as latitude 61 degrees 
30 minutes north, and which was afterwards named Cook's River. 

They left this place on the 6th June, notwithstanding all their watch- 
fulness and vigilance, no passage could be found. The ships ranged across 
the mouth of the straits in about latitude 60 degrees, where the natives of 
the island by their manners, gave evident tokens of their being acquainted 
with Europeans — most probably Russian traders. They put in at Oona- 
alaska and other places, which were taken possession of in the name of 
the king of England. On the 3d August Mr. Anderson, surgeon of the 
Resolution, died from a lingering consumption, under which he had been 
suffering more than twelve months. He was a young man of considerable 
ability, and he possessed an amiable disposition. 

Proceeding to the northward, Captain Cook ascertained the relative 
position of the two continents, Asia and America, whose extremities he 
observed. On the 18th they were close to a dense wall of ice, beyond 
which they could not penetrate, the latitude at this time being 70 degrees 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 861 

44 minutes north. The ice here was from ten to twelve feet high, and 
seemed to rise higher in the distance. A prodigious number of sea-horses 
were crouching on the ice, some of which were procured for food. Captain 
Cook continued to traverse these icy seas till the 29th ; he then explored 
the coasts in Behring's Strait both in Asia and America ; and on the 2d of 
October again anchored at Oonalaska to refit ; and here they had commu- 
nication with some Russians, who undertook to convey charts and maps, 
etc., to the English Admiralty ; which they faithfully fulfilled. On the 
26th the ships quitted the harbor of Samganoodah, and sailed for the 
Sandwich Islands ; Captain Cook purposing to remain there a few months, 
and then to return to Kamschatka. In latitude 20 degrees 55 minutes, 
the island of Mowee was discovered on the 26th of November ; and on the 
30th they fell in with another, called by the natives Owhyhee ; and being 
of large extent, the ships were occupied nearly seven weeks in sailing 
round it, and examining the coast ; and they found the islanders more 
frank and free from suspicion than any they had yet had intercourse with ; 
so that on the 16th January 1779, there were not fewer than a thousand 
canoes about the two ships, most of them crowded with people, and well 
laden with hogs and other productions of the place. A robbery having 
been committed, Captain Cook ordered a volley of musketry and four 
great guns to be fired over the canoe that contained the thief; but this 
seemed only to astonish the natives, without creating any great alarm. 
On the 17th the ships anchored in a bay called by the islanders Karaka- 
kooa. The natives constantly thronged to the ships, whose decks conse- 
quently, being at all times crowded, allowed of pilfering without fear of 
detection ; and these practices, it is conjectured, were encouraged by the 
chiefs. A great number of the hogs purchased were killed and salted down 
so completely, that some of it was good at Christmas 1780. On the 26th 
Captain Cook had an interview with Terreeoboo, king of the island, in 
which great formality was observed, and an exchange of names. The 
natives were extremely respectful to Cook ; in fact, they paid him a sort of 
adoration, prostrating themselves before him ; and a society of priests 
furnished the ships with a constant supply of hogs and vegetables, without 
requiring any return. On the 3d February, the day previous to the ships 
sailing, the king presented them with an immense quantity of cloth, many 
boat-loads of vegetables, and a whole herd of hogs. The ships sailed on 
the following day, but on the 6th encountered a very heavy gale, in which, 
on the night of the 7th, the Resolution sprung the head of her foremast in 
such a dangerous manner, that they were forced to put back to Karaka- 
kooa Bay in order to get it repaired. Here they anchored on the morning 
of the 11th, and every thing for a time promised to go well in their inter- 
course with the natives. The friendliness manifested by the chiefs, 
however, was far from solid. They were savages at a low point of culti- 
vation, and theft and murder were not considered by them in the light of 
crimes. Cook, aware of the nature of these barbarians, was anxious to 
avoid any collision, and it was with no small regret that he found that an 
affray had taken place betwen some seamen and the natives. The cause 
of the disturbance was the seizure of the cutter of the Discovery as it lay 
at anchor. The boats of both ships were sent in search of her, and Cap- 
tain Cook went on shore to prosecute the inquiry, and if necessary, to 
seize the person of the king, who had sanctioned the theft. 



862 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

The narrative of what ensued is affectingly tragical. Cook left the 
Resolution about seven o'clock, attended by the lieutenant of marines, a 
sergeant, a corporal, and seven private men. The pinnace's crew were 
likewise armed, and under the command of Mr. Roberts ; the launch was 
also ordered to assist his own boat. He landed with the marines at the 
upper end of the town of Kavoroah, where the natives received him with 
their accustomed tokens of respect, and not the smallest sign of hostility 
was evinced by any of them ; and as the crowds increased, the chiefs 
employed themselves as before in keeping order. Captain Cook requested 
the king to go on board the Resolution with him, to which he offered few 
objections ; but in a little time it was observed that the natives were arm- 
ing themselves with long spears and daggers, and putting on the thick 
mats which they used by way of armor. This hostile appearance was 
increased by the arrival of a canoe from the opposite side of the bay, 
announcing that one of the chiefs had been killed by a shot from the Dis- 
covery's boat. The women, who had been conversing familiarly with the 
English, immediately retired, and loud murmurs arose amongst the crowd. 
Captain Cook perceiving the tumultuous proceedings of the natives, ordered 
Lieutenant Middleton to march his marines down to the boats, to which 
the islanders offered no obstruction. The Captain followed with the king, 
attended by his wife, two sons, and several chiefs. One of the sons had 
already entered the pinnace, expecting his father to follow, when the king's 
wife and others hung round his neck, and forced him to be seated near a 
double canoe, assuring him that he would be put to death if he went on 
board the ship. 

Whilst matters were in this position, one of the chiefs was seen with a 
dagger partly concealed under his cloak lurking about Captain Cook, and 
the lieutenant of marines proposed to fire at him ; but this the captain 
would not permit ; but the chief closing upon them, the officer of marines 
struck him with his firelock. Another native grasping the sergeant's 
musket, was forced to let it go by a blow from the lieutenant. Captain 
Cook, seeing the tumult was increasing, observed, that ' if he were to 
force the king off, it could only be done by sacrificing the lives of many 
of his people ;' and was about to give orders to reembark, when a man 
flung a stone at him, which he returned by discharging small shot from 
one of the barrels of his piece. The man was but little hurt ; and brand- 
ishing his spear, with threatenings to hurl it at the captain, the latter, 
unwilling to fire with ball, knocked the fellow down, and then warmly ex- 
postulated with the crowd for their hostile conduct. At this moment a 
man was observed behind a double canoe in the act of darting a spear at 
Captain Cook, who promptly fired, but killed another who was standing by 
his side. The sergeant of marines, however, instantly presented, and 
brought down the native whom the captain had missed. The impetuosity 
of the islanders Avas somewhat repressed ; but being pushed on by those 
in the rear, who were ignorant of what was passing in front, a volley of 
stones was poured in amongst the marines, who, without waiting for orders, 
returned it with a general discharge of musketry, w T hich was directly suc- 
ceeded by a brisk fire from the boats. Captain Cook expressed much 
surprise and vexation : he waved his hand for the boats to cease firing, 
and to come on shore to embark the marines. The pinnace unhesita- 
tingly obeyed ; but the lieutenant in the launch, instead of pulling in 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 863 

to the assistance of his commander, rowed further off at the very moment 
that the services of himself and people were most required. Nor was 
this all the mischief that ensued ; for, as it devolved upon the pinnace to 
receive the marines, she became so crowded, as to render the men inca- 
pable of using their firearms. The marines on shore, however, fired ; 
but the moment their pieces were discharged, the islanders rushed en 
masse upon them, forced the party into the water, where four of them 
were hilled, and the lieutenant wounded. At this critical period Captain 
Cook was left entirely alone upon a rock near the shore. He, however, 
hurried towards the pinnace, holding his left arm around the back of his 
head, to shield it from the stones, and carrying his musket under his 
right. An islander, armed with a club, was seen in a crouching posture 
cautiously following him, as if watching for an opportunity to spring for- 
ward upon his victim. This man was a relation of the king's, and remark- 
ably agile and quick. At length he jumped forward upon the captain, 
and struck him a heavy blow on the back of his head, and then turned 
and fled. The captain appeared to be somewhat stunned. He staggered 
a few paces, and, dropping his musket, fell on his hands and one knee ; but 
whilst striving to recover his upright position, another islander rushed 
forward, and with an iron dagger stabbed him in the neck. He again 
made an effort to procceed, but fell into a small pool of water not more 
than knee-deep, and numbers instantly ran to the spot, and endeavored to 
keep him down ; but by his struggles he was enabled to get his head above 
the surface, and casting a look towards the pinnace (then not more than 
five or six yards distant), seemed to be imploring assistance. It is assert- 
ed that, in consequence of the crowded state of the pinnace (through the 
withdrawal of the launch) the crew of that boat were unable to render 
any aid : but it is also probable that the emergency of this unexpected 
catastrophe deprived the English of that cool judgment which was requi- 
site on such an occasion. The islanders, perceiving that no help was 
afforded, forced him under water again, but in a deeper place ; yet his 
great muscular power once more enabled him to raise himself and cling to 
the rock. At this moment a forcible blow was given with a club, and he 
fell down lifeless. The savages then hauled his corpse upon the rock, 
and ferociously stabbed the body all over, snatching the dagger from each 
others' hands to wreak their sanguinary vengeance on the slain. The 
body was left some time exposed upon the rock ; and as the islanders gave 
way, through terror at their own act and the fire from the boats, it might 
have been recovered entire. But no attempt of the kind was made ; and 
it was afterwards, together with the marines, cut up, and the parts distrib- 
uted amongst the chiefs. The mutilated fragments were subsequently 
restored, and committed to the deep with all the honors due to the rank 
of the deceased. Thus (February 14, 1779) perished in an inglorious 
brawl with a set of savages, one of England's greatest navigators, whose 
services to science have never been surpassed by any man belonging to 
his profession. It may almost be said that he fell a victim to his human- 
ity ; for if, instead of retreating before his barbarous pursuers with a view 
to spare their lives, he had turned revengefully upon them, his fate might 
have been very different. 

The death of their commander was felt to be a heavy blow by the officers 
and seamen of the expedition. With deep sorrow the ships' companies left 



864 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Owhyhee, where the catastrophe had occurred, the command of the Reso- 
lution devolving on Captain Clerke, and Mr. Gore acting as commander of 
the Discovery. After making some farther exploratory searches among 
the Sandwich Islands, the vessels visited Kamschatka, and Behring's 
Straits. Here it was found impossible to penetrate through the ice either 
on the coast of America or that of Asia, so that they returned to the south- 
ward ; and on the 22d August 1779, Captain Clerke died of Consumption, 
and was succeeded by Captain Gore, who in his turn gave Lieutenant King 
an acting order in the Discovery. After a second visit to Kamschatka, the 
two ships returned by way of China, remained some time at Canton, 
touched at the Cape, and arrived at the Nore, 4th October 1780, after an 
absence of four years, two months, and twenty-two days, during which the 
Resolution lost only five men by sickness, and the Discovery did not lose 
a single man. 

By this, as well as the preceding voyages of Cook, a considerable addi- 
tion was made to a knowledge of the earth's surface. Besides clearing up 
doubts respecting the Southern Ocean, and making known many islands 
in the Pacific, the navigator did an inestimable service to his country in 
visiting the coasts of New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, New Zealand, 
and Norfolk Island — all now colonial possessions of Britain, and which 
promise at no distant day to become the seat of a large and flourishing 
nation of Anglo- Australians — the England of the southern hemisphere. 

The intelligence of Captain Cook's death was received with melancholy 
regrets in England. The king granted a pension of £200 per annum to 
his widow, and £25 per annum to each of the children ; The Royal Society 
had a gold medal struck in commemoration of him; and various other 
honors at home and abroad were paid to his memory. ' Thus, by his own 
persevering efforts,' as has been well observed by the author of the Pursuit 
of Knowledge Under Difficulties, ' did this great man raise himself from 
the lowest obscurity to a reputation wide as the world itself, and certain to 
last as long as the age in which he flourished shall be remembered by his- 
tory. But better still than even all this fame — than either the honors 
which he received while living, or those which, when he was no more, his 
country and mankind bestowed upon his memory — he had exalted himself 
in the scale of moral and intellectual being ; had won for himself, by his 
unwearied striving, a new and nobler nature, and taken a high place 
among; the instructors and best benefactors of mankind. 

CAPTAINS PORTLOCK AND DIXON. 

This voyage was undertaken for the purposes of commerce ; princi- 
pally, indeed, for the fur-trade, on the north-west coast of America, which 
had been strongly recommended by Captains Cook and King in their last 
voyage. Two vessels were fitted out for this purpose, the King George 
and Queen Charlotte, by a society of merchants and others, the former 
commanded by Nathaniel Portlock, the latter by George Dixon, both of 
whom had been with Captain Cook ; the King George having sixty men, 
the Queen Charlotte thirty. 

September 20th, 1785, they quitted St. Helens, and, proceeding to 
Guernsey, left it on the 25th. October 16th saw the Canary Islands, and 
24th the Gape de Verde group, anchoring for a short time in Port Praya 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 865 

Bay, in St. Jago. Proceeding south, they anchored in Port Egmont, 
Falkland's Islands, January 5th, 1786, where, taking in water, they made 
sail for States Bay, in Terra del Fuego. Having made a good offing 
from Cape Horn, they had tolerable weather ; and continuing their route 
without touching at any place, or meeting any thing worthy of notice, 
dropped anchor 26th May in Karakooa Bay, in Owhyhee, Sandwich 
Islands. 

The natives crowded them very much, bartering a variety of articles ; 
but were nevertheless extremely troublesome. It was the general opinion, 
that it would be impossible to water the vessels without a strong guard, 
which they could not well spare ; while the people were probably jealous 
that these vessels had come to revenge the death of Captain Cook. 
Next day they stood out of the bay, lying-to three leagues off, to carry 
on trade for hogs, plantains, etc. etc., which proved so serviceable that 
the sick, of whom there were several, began rapidly to recover. June 
1st anchored in a bay in Woahoo, another of the islands, and were re- 
ceived civilly by the inhabitants. They now stood for another of the 
islands, named Oneehow ; and, on the 8th, anchored in Yam Bay, where 
supplies of fruit, vegetables, and pigs, were willingly afforded by the 
principal chief Abbenooe, who seemed strongly their friend, from recol- 
lecting Captain Portlock along with Cook. They took leave of him, with 
regret, on the 13th, standing for the coast of America. 

July 19th made the entrance of Cook's River ; and, while looking for 
good anchorage, were astonished by the report of a great gun ; when, 
soon afterwards, a party of Russians came on board, attended by some 
Indians ; but none understanding the language of either, no satisfactory 
information could be gained from them. Most of the natives had fled 
from their huts, alarmed perhaps by the Russians ; several bears were 
seen, but none near enough to fire at. Two veins of kennel-coal were 
found, which burned very well, and the place was, therefore, called Coal 
Harbor. An elderly chief paying Captain Dixon a visit, informed him 
that they had a battle with the Russians, in which the latter were worsted, 
and added, that from the difference of dress, he knew they were of a 
different nation. 

Quitting this place, they tried for some time to get into Prince "Wil- 
liam's Sound ; but, by a series of unfavorable winds, failed in this pursuit. 
September 23d, they stood away for the Sandwich Islands to pass the 
winter, and return in the spring. November 14th saw the summit of the 
high mountain in Owhyhee covered with snow, and employed two or three 
following days in coasting it, the natives bringing off a variety of articles 
to barter for iron and trinkets. The first mate of the King George re- 
porting, that a bay they intended to anchor in did not admit of good 
anchorage, this design was dropped. During the time they lay to, hogs, 
fowls, wild-geese, bread-fruit, plantains, and several other things were 
procured in considerable quantities ; the natives dealing pretty fairly, but 
committing a variety of thefts, even before their faces, with a dexterity 
almost inimitable. For several days they continued lying to off the 
islands of Mowee and Morotoi, procuring refreshments and receiving visits 
till the 30th, when both ships bore away for King George's Bay, in 
Whoaboo, where they anchored in safety, after experiencing a variety of 
winds from all points of the compass. 
55* 



866 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA 

Here they found every thing tabooed, or forbidden, so that it became 
necessary to court the king's favor ; for which purpose a present was 
sent to him, and another to a priest, their acquaintance on the former 
occasion, who paid them a visit, handing up a fig and plantain, which in 
these islands are signs of friendship. This was soon followed by a visit 
from Taheeterre, the king, followed by all the chiefs, who took off the 
taboo. The priest was remarkable for drinking large quantities of the 
ava, or yava-juice, for which he had two men in constant attendance 
chewing the root, which, with their spittle, forms this singular and (to us) 
nauseous beverage. The yava is a root resembling liquorice in shape and 
color. None but the chiefs and priests have permission to use it, and 
these are never at the trouble of chewing it themselves ; but, as above 
observed, employ servants ; these begin with chewing a sufficient quantity, 
and when well masticated, it is put into a wooden bowl kept for the pur- 
pose, to which a small quantity of water is added ; the whole is then 
strained through a cloth, and, like wine in Europe, it thus forms not merely 
the drink, but the delight of all parties, feasts, rejoicings, and, in short, 
every public assemblage of the leading people. Its effects, however, are 
very pernicious ; it is partly intoxicating or rather stupifying ; and, by 
its constant use, the old priest was exceedingly debilitated, and his body 
covered with a white scurf, resembling leprosy, which is a common symp- 
tom throughout the South Sea islands of its frequent use. 

The taboo was again put on without any explanation being given, though 
several canoes nevertheless came off, but without any women, as had 
been formerly the case. Afterwards it was understood that one of them 
had been detected in the King George eating pork, which being a heinous 
offense, she was taken as soon as she came on shore, and offered a sacri- 
fice to the gods : human sacrifices, it appears, are here, a3 in most parts 
of the South Sea islands, frequently presented, and it is unquestionably 
the most inhuman and barbarous custom among them. 

December 19th weighed, and two days afterwards anchored between 
Attoui and Wyema, where, after paying and receiving some visits, their 
former friend Abbenooe came on board with two canoes loaded with pro- 
visions, and remained for two or three days, seemingly very well pleased 
with his new abode. The king also made his appearance ; he was stout 
and well made, about forty-five years of age, and possessed of more 
understanding and good nature than any of his subjects. January 5th 
caught a shark in the King George, thirteen and a half feet long, eight 
and a half broad, and six feet in the liver ; forty-eight young ones in her, 
about eight inches each in length } two whole turtles of sixty pounds each : 
several small pigs, and a quantity of bones ; so that the numbers and 
the voracity of this fish may be conceived. From this time to the 10th 
they were employed in purchasing wood, water, provisions, curiosities, and 
every thing else they wanted ; and now, quitting the anchorage, proceeded 
to yam Bay, in Oneehow, where, after making a few -excursions, they de- 
parted once more for Wymoa Bay, Attoui. 

On the 3d March weighed, and made sail for the coast of America, and 
©n the 24th April saw Montager Island, coming to anchor in the harbor, 
where there is sufficient shelter from the prevailing winds. The weather 
continued very variable, several unsuccessful attempts being made to get 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 867 

into Prince William's Sound, and only a single straggling inhabitant being 
seen now and then, so that there was no opportunity to trade. 

Captain Dixon now made an excursion in his boats up the Sound, and 
receiving some hints from the natives of a vessel being there, continued 
his search for several days, and at length got on board a vessel called 
the Nootka, from Bengal, commanded by Mr. Meares, which had win- 
tered in Snug-corner Cove. The scurvy had made dreadful havoc among 
them, nearly all the officers and many of the crew having died of this 
frightful disorder, so that at length the Captain was the only person on 
board able to walk the deck. Along with his first mate he soon after- 
wards visited the ships, met with a hearty reception, and received such 
assistance as he wanted and as the others could afford. From him they 
learned that few or no furs could be obtained here ; that several vessels 
from India had been already on this coast for the purposes of trade ; and 
that two or three were expected next month in the same pursuit, which 
immediately determined our voyagers to separate and push for different 
parts of the coast, in order to be before their expected rivals ; the Queen 
Charlotte to proceed to King George's Sound, and Messrs. Hayward and 
Hill to Cook's River in the King George's long-boat, the latter to remain 
where she was for the present. 

On the 13th May several canoes visited them, in one of which was a 
chief of great consequence, named Sheenaawa, whose party, like most 
others, were determined thieves, exerting their ingenuity and tricks for 
this purpose in an extraordinary degree. They danced, sung, laughed, 
and diverted the attention of the seamen in every possible way, while 
slyly their hands were seizing every thing on the decks, so that literally 
they were smiling in their faces and robbing them at the same time. In 
the meantime the Queen Charlotte and the long-boat sailed, while the 
King George shifted to Hinchinbroke Cove. Some of the boats were 
sent out to trade, which were tolerably successful ; but they also suffered 
from continual thefts, which were sometimes accompanied by menaces, if 
they attempted to resist the plunderers. 

June 9th the Nootka left her former anchorage, where she had been 
frozen in, and came close to the King George, when the crew of the lat- 
ter were partly employed in rendering her assistance. Two days after- 
wards the long-boat returned from Cook's River with a very good cargo, 
and was again sent off with orders to return by the 20th of July. On the 
19th the Nootka sailed. Next day the surgeon took the invalids on shore 
for an excursion, who, by the use of spruce-beer, which they now brewed 
in abundance, were rapidly recovering. In the evening observed two 
Indian boats and several canoes, in which were about twenty-five natives, 
who came alongside next morning. Their chief, named Taatucktelling- 
nake, was paralytic on one side, had a long beard, and seemed about sixty 
years of age; his country was called Cheeneecock, situated towards the 
south-west part of the Sound. July 11th hauled the seine frequently, 
when not less than two thousand salmon were caught at each haul ; and 
so great were their numbers, that ships prepared for the purpose might 
have obtained any quantity they wished. The long-boat returned on the 
21st, though without so much success as formerly. On the 26th sailed 
from this place. The natives in general are short in stature, with flat 
faces and noses, ill-formed legs, but good teeth and eyes ; they wear their 



868 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

hair, which is black and straight, very long, but cut it short on the death 
of a relation, this seeming their only method of mourning. They are 
attentive to their women, but jealous of them. Their thieving habit? 
seem fixed, the most dexterous being most in esteem, and receiving the 
greatest applause for the exertion of his talents ; he is also distinguished 
by a fantastical dress, which, while it excites the notice of the spectators, 
gives the owner additional opportunities of exerting his fingers at then 
expense. 

By the 3d of August had made little progress, from the shifting of the 
wind. On the 8th, two large boats visited them, with twenty-five men 
women, and children on, board, who, very different from their other visi 
tors, seemed very honest, and who were invited to dinner in the cabin, 
when they relished the English cookery so well, that the dishes were 
quickly obliged to be replenished. These departed in the evening well 
pleased with their entertainment, promising to return with the means of 
trading with their new friends. 

On the 11th a new tribe visited them from the eastward, with about 
the same number of persons as the last ; four days after the long-boat 
returned, having had pretty good success, notwithstanding some acts of 
hostility which they had been compelled to retaliate upon the Indians. 
Another party, from the north-west, were extremely addicted to thieving, 
nothing could escape them ; and, when detected, were very impudent, and 
often threatened those they robbed. The men were of the size of Euro- 
peans, of a fierce and savage aspect, using daggers and long spears, easily 
provoked and ready to indulge their anger. 

August 22d weighed and made sail from this coast, having done as 
much as it seemed likely they could do in the way of trade. September 
28th made Owhyhee, the principal of the Sandwich group, when several 
canoes came off, with whom a brisk trade for hogs and other refreshments 
was carried on. At Attoui they found the Nootka and Queen Charlotte 
had been there and left letters for the King George. After procuring 
what necessaries they wanted, Captain Portlock directed his course for 
China with his cargo of furs ; on the 4th November saw Saypan and 
Tinian, two of the Ladrone Islands ; and on the 21st anchored in Macao 
Roads, where Captain Dixon was found, whose transactions shall now be 
noticed. 

After separating, the Queen Charlotte coasted it for some time, till, 
seeing an appearance of an inlet, a boat was despatched which found an 
excellent harbor, where she soon after anchored. Several canoes came 
off, from whom some skins were procured, but by no means so many as 
they had at first reason to expect. The number of inhabitants was about 
seventy; the harbor, which is good, was named Port Mulgrave, and is 
situated in 59 degrees 32 minutes north latitude ; 140 degrees west 
longitude. The language of these people is quite different from that of 
Prince William's Sound, or Cook's River, being extremely uncouth and 
difficult to pronounce. The mode in which they dispose of their dead is 
remarkable ; the head is separated from the body, and both are wrapped 
in furs, the former being put into a box, the latter into an oblong chest, 
which are afterwards preserved and disposed of in a fanciful way. 

June 4th quitted this place, and kept beating to the southward ; a har- 
bor was perceived at a distance, which, upon examination by the boats, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 869 

was found to extend to a considerable distance, with a number of coves 
here and there, very well calculated for anchorage ; it was named Nor- 
folk Sound. The people were at first civil and well-behaved; but soon 
became troublesome and thievish, like almost all their brethren on this 
coast. Trade here was not very brisk. July 1st saw an island, and 
were soon surrounded by Indians, who, after gratifying their curiosity in 
examining the vessel, began to trade, and soon parted with all their skins. 
Several fresh tribes visited them almost daily, who, delighted with Euro- 
pean articles of barter, were content to leave their furs behind in ex- 
change. The residence of one was strongly fortified, resembling a nippah 
or fortified place, in New Zealand; and, from some circumstances which 
transpired, Dixon was tempted also to believe they were also like the New 
Zealanders, cannibals. Proceeding to the eastward, eleven canoes came 
alongside on the 24th with one hundred and eighty persons ; but curiosity 
was the prevailing motive, as they had nothing to sell ; and, five days 
after, no less than two hundred men, women, and children, in eighteen 
canoes, came off to indulge their curiosity ; a number that, on this coast, 
is rarely found in one community. Their chief had the most savage aspect 
of any yet seen, his whole appearance sufficiently marking him as the 
leader of a tribe of cannibals. His stature was above the common size, 
his body spare and thin, and, though seemingly lank and emaciated, his 
step was bold and firm, his limbs strong and muscular ; his eyes, which 
were large and goggling, seemed ready to start from their sockets; his 
forehead deeply wrinkled, as well by age as an habitual frown, which, 
joined to a long visage, hollow cheeks, high cheek-bones, and natural 
ferocity of temper, rendered him a most formidable figure. 

August 8th, made sail for the Sandwich Islands. September 2d made 
Owhyhee, and, after procuring refreshments, stood on for Whahoo, being 
visited the next day by Abbenooe and the king, by whose commands they 
received abundant supplies of wood, water, and provisions, of which they 
were in extreme want, several of the crew being nearly dead with the 
scurvy. Attoui was their next destination, where the chiefs inquired par- 
ticularly after their friend Po-pote (Captain Portlocke,) and were desirous 
of contributing all in their power to the assistance of the ship, every one 
supplying the Captain with a liberality as unbounded as it was unexpected, 
but which did not go unrewarded ; saws, hatchets, nails, and other iron 
instruments being given to the men, and buttons, beads, and a variety of 
ornaments to the women. 

September 18th made sail for China, and anchored in Macao Roads the 
9th November, where being joined as already noticed, by the King George, 
their meeting was extremely agreeable. Captain Portlock was very much 
surprised in Canton with his old friend Tiaana, from the Sandwich Islands, 
who was no less pleased at seeing him, embracing the Captain in the most 
cordial and affectionate manner. 

During his stay, Tiaana was introduced to every place worthy of notice ; 
he was usually dressed in a cloak and fine feather cap, and, to show that 
he was a person of consequence, carried a spear in his hand. Afterwards, 
at the persuasion of Mr. Ross, he wore a fight satin waistcoat and a pair 
of trousers. He frequently attended places of public worship, behaving 
with the greatest decorum, and joining the congregation in the ceremonies 
of kneeling or standing, as if he had been all his life regularly accustomed 



870 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

to them. Some of the customs of the Chinese displeased him exceedingly, 
and, during the voyage, was nearly throwing the pilot overboard for some 
real or imaginary offense ; he was, however, of a kind disposition, display- 
ing frequent instances of humanity as well as generosity. Being once at 
an entertainment, given by one of the Captains at Macao, his compassion 
was strongly excited after dinner by seeing a number of poor people, in 
Sampans, crowding round the vessel and asking alms ; he solicited his 
host's permission to give them some food, remarking it was a great shame 
to let poor people want victuals, and that in his country there were no beg- 
gars. In compliance with his importunities, the broken meat was collec- 
ted under his care, and he distributed it in the most equal and impartial 
manner. Tiaana was six feet two inches high, exceedingly well-made, but 
inclined to corpulency ; he had a pleasing animated countenance, fine 
eyes, and otherwise expressive as well as agreeable features. He was 
universally liked, and, previous to his departure for Attoui, the gentlemen 
at Canton furnished him with bulls, cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, turkeys, 
etc. etc., besides all kinds of seeds which could be useful in his island, 
with directions how to rear and propagate them. The best skins of their 
cargoes were disposed of to the East India Company for fifty thousand 
dollars, while the inferior ones were sold to the Chinese, both vessels 
receiving in return cargoes of tea. February 6th, 1788, weighed and 
made sail down the river, quitting Macao finally a day or two afterwards. 
On the 20th saw the island of Pulo Sapata, four leagues distant ; and, 
25th, the islands of Aramba ; three days afterwards Mr. Lander, surgeon 
of the Queen Charlotte, died, having been ill for some time, and attended 
by his brother surgeon, Mr. Hoggan, of the King George. On the 80th 
of March the ships agreed to separate, and make the best of their way to 
St. Helena, where the King George arrived the 13th June, and the 
Queen Charlotte on the 18th. The former at length reached England, 
without any occurrence worthy of remark, on the 22d August ; and the 
latter the 17th September. Nor was the voyage unfortunate ; for though 
no great gain was made, yet nothing was lost, which, in a new commercial 
speculation, is not an uncommon occurrence. 

MONSIEUR DE LA PEROUSE. 

France becoming jealous of the renown acquired by the English circum- 
navigators, determined to send out an expedition, which, in its scientific 
equipments, should vie with them in every respect. Two ships were ap- 
pointed to this service, the Boussole and Astrolabe, the former commanded 
by La Perouse, the latter by M. de Langle, both captains in the navy, and 
men of considerable attainments, besides being assisted by men of science 
and artists. The voyage is interesting as far as it goes ; but, unfortunate- 
ly, the ships, after quitting Botany Bay, in 1788, have never since been 
heard of, to the regret of all lovers of science and humanity, on account 
not only of the acquirements but amiable character of the commanders. 

On the first of August, 1785, they quitted Brest, and, on the 13th, 
reached Madeira ; they saw Teneriffe on the 19th, and on the 16th of Octo- 
ber, the island of Trinidada, barren, rocky, and with a violent surf breaking 
on the shores, where refreshments not being obtainable, the commander 
steered for St. Catharine's on the Brazil coast. 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 871 

Thi3 island is extremely fertile, producing all sorts of fruit, vegetables, 
and corn, almost spontaneously. It is covered with trees of everlasting 
green, but they are so curiously interwoven with plants and briars, that it 
is impossible to pass through the forests without opening a path with a 
hatchet ; to add to the difficulty, danger is also to be apprehended from 
snakes whose bite is mortal. The habitations are bordering on the sea. 
The woods are delightfully fragrant, occasioned by the orange-trees, and 
other odoriferous plants and shrubs, which form a part of them. 

On the 14th of January the navigators struck ground on the coast of 
Patagonia. On the 25th, La Perouse took bearings a league to the south- 
ward of Cape San Diego forming the west point of the straits of Lemaire. 
On the 9th of February, he was abreast of the straits of Magellan. Ex- . 
amining the quantity of provisions he had on board, La Perouse discovered 
he had very little flour and bread left in store ; having been obliged to 
leave a hundred barrels at Brest. The worms had also taken possession 
of the biscuits, and consumed or rendered useless a fifth part of them. 
Under these circumstances, La Perouse preferred Conception to the island 
of Juan Fernandez. The Bay of Conception in Chili is a most excellent 
harbor ; the water is smooth, and almost without any current, though the 
tide rises six feet three inches. 

At daybreak, on the 15th of March, La Perouse made the signal to pre- 
pare to sail. On the 17th, about noon, a light breeze sprung up, with 
which he got under way. On the 8th of April, about noon, they saw Easter 
Island. The Indians were alarmed, except a few who had a kind of slight 
wooden club. Some of them assumed an apparent superiority over the oth- 
ers, which induced La Perouse to consider the former as chiefs, but he 
soon discovered that these selected persons were the most notorious offenders. 
Having but a few hours to remain upon the island, and wishing to employ 
his time to the best advantage, La Perouse left the care of the tent, and 
other particulars, to his first lieutenant M. d'Escures. A division was 
then made of the persons engaged in the Adventure ; one part, under the 
command of M. de Langle, was to penetrate into the interior of the island 
to encourage and promote vegetation, by disseminating seed, etc., in a 
proper soil ; and the other division undertook to visit the monuments, plan- 
tations, and habitations, within the compass of a league of the establishment. 
The largest of the rude busts upon one of the terraces is fourteen feet six 
inches in height, and the breadth and other particulars appeared to be pro- 
portionate. 

Returning about noon to the tent, La Perouse found almost every man 
without hat or handkerchief; so much had forbearance encouraged the au- 
dacity of the thieves, that he also experienced a similar depredation. An 
Indian, who had assisted him in descending from a terrace, rewarded him- 
self for his trouble by taking away his hat. Some of them had dived under 
water, cut the small cable of the Astrolabe's boat, and taken away her 
grapnel. A sort of chief, to whom M. de Langle made a present of a 
male and female goat, received the animals with one hand, and robbed him 
of his handkerchief with the other. 

On the 28th of May, they saw the mountains of Owhyhee, covered with 
snow, and afterwards those of Mowee, which are less elevated. About one 
hundred and fifty canoes were seen putting off from the shore, laden with 
fruit and hogs, which the Indians proposed to exchange for pieces of iron 



872 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of the French navigators. Most of them came on board of one or the oth- 
er of the vessels, but they proceeded so fast through the water that they 
filled along-side. The Indians were obliged to quit the ropes thrown them, 
and leaping into the sea, swam after their hogs, when taking them in their 
arms, they emptied their canoes of the water, and resumed their seats. 

After having visited a village, M. de Langle gave orders that six sold- 
iers, with a sergeant, should accompany him : the others were left upon 
the beach, under the command of M. de Pierrevert, the lieutenant ; to 
them was committed the protection of the ship's boats, from which not a 
single sailor had landed. The party reembarked at eleven o'clock in very 
good order, and arrived on board about noon, where M. de Clonard had re 
ceived a visit from a chief, of whom he had purchased a cloak, and a hel- 
met adorned with red feathers ; he had also purchased a hundred hogs, a 
quantity of potatoes and bananas, plenty of stuffs, mats, and various other 
articles. On their arrival on board, the two frigates dragged their anchors ; 
it blew fresh from the south-east, and they were driving down upon the 
island of Morokinne, which was, however, at a sufficient distance to give 
them time to hoist in their boats. La Perouse made the signal for weigh- 
ing, but before they could purchase the anchor, he was obliged to make 
sail, and drag it till he had passed Morokinne, to hinder him from driving 
past the channel. 

A fair wind accompanied the navigators on their departure from the 
Sandwich Islands. Whales and wild geese convinced them that they were 
approaching land. Early in the morning of the 23d they descried it ; a 
sudden dispersion of the fog opened to them the view of a long chain of 
mountains covered with snow. They distinguished Behring's Mount St. 
Elias, on the north-west coast of America. Having taken in as much 
wood and water as was required, the navigators esteemed themselves the 
most fortunate of men, in having arrived at such a distance from Europe 
without having a sick person among them, or any one afflicted with the 
scurvy ; but a lamentable misfortune now awaited them. At the entrance 
of this harbor perished twenty brave seamen, in two boats, by the surf. 
On the 30th of July, at four in the afternoon, La Perouse got under way. 
This bay or harbor, to which he gave the name of Port des Francois, is 
situated in 58 deg. 37 min. north latitude, and 139 deg. 50 min. west 
longitude. In different excursions, he says, he found the high-water mark 
to be fifteen feet above the surface of the sea. The climate of this coast 
is infinitely milder than that of Hudson's Bay, in the same degree of lati- 
tude. Pines were seen of six feet in diameter, and one hundred and forty 
feet in height. Vegetation is vigorous during three or four months of the 
year. The men wear different small ornaments, pendant from the ears and 
nose, scarify their arms and breasts, and file their teeth close to their gums, 
using, for the last operation, a sand-stone, formed into a particular 6hape. 
They paint the face and body with soot, ochre, and plumbago, mixed with 
train-oil, making themselves most horrid figures. When completely dressed, 
their flowing hair is powdered, and plaited with the down of sea-birds ; but, 
perhaps, only the chiefs of certain distinguished families are thus decora- 
ted. Their shoulders are covered with a skin, and on the head, is gener- 
ally worn a little straw hat, plaited with great taste and ingenuity. Some- 
times, indeed, the head is decorated with two horned bonnets of eagles' 
feathers. Their head-dresses are extremely various, the grand object in 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 873 

view being only to render themselves terrible, that they may keep theu 
enemies in awe. Some Indians have skirts of otters' skins. A great chief 
wore a skirt composed of a tanned skin of the elk, bordered by a fringe 
of beaks of birds, which, when dancing, imitated the noise of a bell ; a 
common dress among the savages of Canada, and other nations in the east- 
ern parts of America. The passion of these Indians for gaming is aston- 
ishing, and they pursue it with great avidity. The sort of play to which 
they are most devoted, is a certain game of chance ; out of thirty pieces 
of wood, each distinctly marked like the French dice, they hide seven : 
each plays in succession, and he who guesses nearest to the whole number 
marked upon the seven is the winner of the stake, which is usually a hatch- 
et or a piece of iron. 

At length, after a very long run, on the 11th of September, at three in 
the afternoon, the navigators got sight of Fort Monterey, and two three- 
masted vessels which lay in the road. The commander of these two ships 
having been informed, by the viceroy of Mexico, of the probable arrival of 
the two French frigates, sent them pilots in the course of the night. Lo- 
retto, the only presidency of Old California, is situated on the east coast 
of this peninsula and has a garrison of fifty-four troopers, who furnish de- 
tachments to fifteen missions ; the duties of which are performed by Domi- 
nican friars. About four thousand Indians, converted and residing in 
these fifteen parishes, are the sole produce of the long labors of the different 
religious orders which have succeeded each other. A small navy was es- 
tablished by the Spanish government in this port, under the orders of the 
viceroy of Mexico, consisting of four corvettes of twelve guns, and one go- 
letta. They are destined to supply with necessaries the presidencies of 
North California ; and they are sometimes despatched as packet-boats to 
Manilla, when the orders of the court require the utmost expedition. 

The company were received with all possible politeness and respect ; the 
president of the missions, in his sacerdotal vestment, with the holy water 
in hand, waited to receive them at the entrance of the church, which 
was splendidly illuminated as on their highest festivals : he then conducted 
them to the foot of the high altar, where Te Deum was sung in thanksgiv- 
ings for their arrival. Before they entered the church they passed a 
range of Indians : the parish church, though covered with straw, is neat, 
and decorated with paintings, copied from Italian originals. The Indians, 
as well as the missionaries, rise with the sun, and devote an hour to prayers 
and mass, during which time a species of boiled food is prepared for them : 
it consists of barley meal, the grain of which has been roasted previous to 
its being boiled. It is cooked in the centre of the square, in three large 
kettles. This repast is called atole by the Indians, who consider it as de- 
licious : it is destitute of salt and butter, and must consequently be insipid. 
The women have little more to attend to than their housewifery, their chil- 
dren, and the roasting and grinding of several grains : the latter operation 
is long and laborious, as they employ no other means than that of crushing 
it in pieces with a cylinder upon a stone. 

The Indians of the rancheries, or independent villages, are accustomed 
to paint their bodies red and black, when they are in mourning ; but the 
missionaries have prohibited the former, though they tolerate the latter, 
these people being singularly attached to their friends. The ties of family 
are less regarded among them than those of friendship : the children show 




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RIVER-BED CLAIM ON THE TURON. 




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880 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

no filial respect to the father, having been obliged to quit his cabin as soon a? 
they were able to proeure their own subsistence. 

A Spanish commissarj at Monterey, named M. Vincent Vassadre y 
Vega, brought orders to the governor to collect all the otter-skins of his 
missions and presidencies, government having reserved to itself the exclu- 
sive commerce of them ; and M. Fages assured La Perouse that he could 
annually furnish twenty thousand of them. The Spaniards were ignorant 
of the importance of this valuable peltry till the publication of the voyages 
of Captain Cook ; that excellent man has navigated for the general benefit 
of every nation ; his own enjoys only the glory of « the enterprise, and that 
of having given him birth. 

New California, though extremely fertile, cannot boast of having a single 
settler; a few soldiers, married to Indian women, who dwell in the forts, 
or who are dispersed among the different missions, constituting the whole 
Spanish nation in this district of America. The Franciscan missionaries 
are principally Europeans ; they have a convent in Mexico. 

On the evening of the 22d every thing was on board, and leave had 
been taken of the governor and missionaries. On the morning of the 
24th they sailed. On the 3d of November the frigates were surrounded 
with noddies, terns, and man-of-war birds; and on the 4th they made an 
island which bore west. This small island is little more than a rock of 
about five hundred toises in length. La Perouse named it Isle Necker. 
About an hour past one in the morning La Perouse saw breakers at two 
cables' length ahead of the ship ; the sea being so smooth, the sound of 
them was hardly heard ; the Astrolabe perceived them at the same time, 
though at a greater distance than the Boussole ; both frigates instantly 
hauled, with their heads to the south-east ; La Perouse gave orders for 
sounding ; they fiad nine fathoms rocky bottom ; soon after ten and twelve 
fathoms, and in a quarter of an hour got no ground with sixty fathoms. 
They just escaped the most imminent danger to which navigators can be 
exposed. 

The island of Assumption, to which the Jesuits have attributed six leagues 
of circumference, from the angles now taken, was reduced to half, and 
the highest point is about two hundred toises above the level of the sea. 
A more horrid place cannot be conceived. It was a perfect cone, as black 
as a coal, and very mortifying to behold, after having enjoyed, in imagina- 
tion, the cocoa-nuts and turtles expected to be found in some one of the 
Marianne Islands. Having determined the position, he continued his 
course towards China ; and on the 1st of January 1787, found bottom in 
sixty fathoms ; a number of fishing-boats surrounded him the next day. 
On the 2d of January our navigators made the White Rock. In the even- 
ing they anchored to the north-ward of Ling-sing Island, and the follow- 
ing day in Macao Road. Macao, situated at the mouth of the Tigris, is 
capable of receiving a sixty-four gun-ship into its road, at the entrance of 
the Typa ; and in its port, below the city, ships of seven hundred tons 
half laden. 

The climate of the road of Typa is, at this season of the year, precari- 
ous ; most of the crews were afflicted with colds, accompanied with a 
fever ; which yielded to the salutary temperature of the island of Luconia, 
when they approached it on the 15th of February. Wanting wood, which 
he knew was dear at Manilla, La Perouse came to a resolution of remain- 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 881 

ing twenty-four hours at Marivella to procure some, and early the next 
morning all the carpenters of the two frigates were sent on shore with the 
long boats ; the rest of the ship's company, with the yawl, were reserved 
for a fishing-party ; but they were unsuccessful, as they found nothing but 
rocks and very shallow water. 

On the 28th the navigators came to an anchor in the port of Cavite, 
in three fathoms, at two cables' length from the town Cavite, situated 
three leagues to the south-west of Manilla, was formely a place of impor- 
tance. Manilla is erected on the Bay which also bears its name, and lies 
at the mouth of a river, being one of the finest situations in the world : 
all the necessaries of life may be procured there in abundance, and on 
reasonable terms ; but the cloths, and other manufactures of Europe, are 
extravagantly dear. La Perouse confidently asserts, that a great nation, 
without any other colony than the Philippines, which would establish a 
proper government there, might view all the European settlements in Africa 
and America without envy or regret. These islands contain about 
3,000,000 of inhabitants, and that of Luconia consists of about a third of 
them. These people seem not inferior to Europeans ; they cultivate the 
land with skill, and among them have ingenious goldsmiths, carpenters, 
joiners, masons, blacksmiths, etc. La Perouse says he has visited them 
at their villages, and found them affable, hospitable, and honest. 

On the 9th of April, according to the French reckoning, and the 10th 
as the Manillese reckon, our navigators sailed and got to the northward of 
the island of Luconia. On the 21st they made the island of Formosa ; 
and experienced, in the channel which divides it from that of Luconia, 
some very violent currents. On the 22d they set Lamy Island, at the 
south-west point of Formosa, about three leagues distant. The tack they 
then stood on conveyed them upon the coast of Formosa, near the entrance 
of the bay of Old Fort Zealand, where the city of Taywan, the capital of 
that island, is seated. 

The whole of the next day a dead calm occurred, in mid channel, be- 
tween the Bashee Islands, and those of Botol Tabacoxima. It is probable 
that vessels might provide themselves in this island with provision, wood, 
and water. La Perouse preserved the name of Kumi Island, which Father 
Gambil gives it in his chart. In the night of the 25th our navigators 
passed the strait of Corea, sounding very frequently, and as this coast ap- 
peared more eligible to follow than that of Japan, they approached within 
two leagues of it, and shaped a course parallel to its direction. On the 
27th they made the signal to bear up, and steer east, and soon perceived, 
in the north-north-east, an Island not laid down upon any chart, at the 
distance of about twenty leagues from the coast of Corea. He named it 
Isle Dagelet, from the name of the astronomer who first discovered it. 
The circumference is about three leagues. 

On the 30th of May, La Perouse shaped his course east towards Japan, 
and on the 2d of June saw two Japanese vessels, one of which passed 
within hail of him. It had a crew of twenty men, all habited in blue cas- 
socks. This vessel was about one hundred tons burden, and had a sin- 
gle high mast stepped in the middle. The Astrolabe hailed her as she 
passed, but neither the question nor the answer was comprehended. At 
different times of the day seven Chinese vessels of a smaller construction 
were seen, which were better calculated to encounter bad weather. 
56* 



882 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

During the seventy-five days since our navigators sailed from Manilla, 
they had run along the coasts of Quelpert Island, Corea, and Japan ; 
but as these countries were inhabited by people inhospitable to stran- 
gers, they did not attempt to visit them. They were extremely impatient 
to reconnoitre this land, and it was the only part of the globe which had 
escaped the activity of Captain Cook. The geographers who had drawn 
the strait of Tessoy erroneously determined the limits of Jesso, of the 
Company's land, and of Staten Island ; it, therefore, became necessary 
to terminate the ancient discussions by indisputable facts. The lati- 
tude of Baie de Ternai was the same as that of Port Acqueis, though 
the description of it is very different. The plants which France pro- 
duces carpeted the whole of this soil. Roses, lilies, and all European 
meadow-flowers were beheld at every step. Pine-trees embellished the 
tops of the mountains ; and oaks, gradually diminishing in strength 
and size towards the sea, adorned the less elevated parts. Traces of 
men were frequently perceived by the havoc they had made. By 
these, and many other corroborating circumstances, the navigators 
were clearly of opinion, that the Tartars approach the borders of the 
sea, when invited thither by the season for fishing and hunting ; that they 
assemble for these purposes along the rivers, and that the mass of people 
reside in the interior of the country, to attend to the multiplication of 
their flocks and herds. M. de Lange, with several other officers who had 
a passion for hunting, endeavored to pursue their sport, but without suc- 
cess, yet they imagined that by silence, perseverance, and posting them- 
selves in ambush in the passes of the stags and bears, they might be able 
to procure some of them. This plan was determined on for the next day, 
but, with all their address and management it proved abortive. It was 
therefore generally acknowledged that fishing presented the greatest pros- 
pect of success. Each of the five creeks in the Baie de Ternai afforded a 
proper place for hauling the seine, and was rendered more convenient by 
a rivulet, near which they established their kitchen. They caught plenty 
of trout, salmon, cod-fish, harp-fish, plaice, and herrings. 

At eight in the morning of the 7th, he made an island which seemed of 
great extent ; he supposed, at first, that this was Segalien Island, the 
south part of which some geographers had placed two degrees too far to 
the northward. The aspect of this land was extremely different from that 
of Tartary ; nothing was to be seen but barren rocks, the cavities of which 
retained the snow. To the highest of the mountains La Perouse gave the 
appellation of Peak Lamanon. M. de Lange, who had come to anchor, 
came instantly on board his ship, having already hoisted out his long boat 
and small boats. He submitted to La Perouse whether it would not be 
proper to land before night, in order to reconnoitre the country, and 
gather some necessary information from the inhabitants. By the assis- 
tance of their glasses, they perceived some cabins, and two of the islanders 
hastening towards the woods. 

Our navigators were successful in making the natives comprehend that 
they requested a description of their country, and that of the Mantchous ; 
one of the old sages rose up, and, with great perspicuity pointed out the 
most essential and interesting particulars with the end of his staff. His 
sagacity in guessing the meaning of the questions proposed to him was as- 
tonishing, though, in this particular, he was surpassed by another islander 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 883 

of about thirty years of age. The last-mentioned native informed our 
navigators that they had a commercial intercourse with the people who in- 
habit the banks of Segalien river, and he distinctly marked, by strokes of 
a pencil, the number of days it required for a canoe to sail up the river to 
the respective places of their general traffic. The bay in which they lay 
at anchor was named Baie de Langle, as Captain de Langle was the first 
who discovered it, and first landed on its shore. They spent the remainder of 
the day in visiting the country and its inhabitants. They were surprised 
to find among a people composed of hunters and fishermen, who * were 
strangers to the cultivation of the earth, and without flocks or herds, 
such gentle manners, and such a superiority of intellect. The attention 
of the inhabitants of the Baie de Langle was attracted by the arts and 
manufactures of the French, they judiciously examined them, and debated 
among themselves the manner of fabricating the several articles. They 
were not unacquainted with the weaver's shuttle. A loom of their con- 
struction was carried to France, by which it appeared that their methods 
of making linens was similar to that of the Europeans ; but the thread of 
it is formed of the bark of the willow-tree. Though they do not cultivate 
the soil, they convert the spontaneous produce of it to the most useful and 
necessary purposes. 

At daybreak, on the 4th of July, La Perouse made the signal for get- 
ting under way ; early on the 19th, he saw the land of an island from 
north-east-by-north, as far as east-south-east, but so thick a fog prevailed 
that none of the points could be particularly discovered. The bay, which 
is the best in which he had anchored since his departure from Manilla, he 
named Baie d. Estaing. M. de Langle, who first landed in the island, 
found the islanders assembled round three or four canoes, laden with smoked 
fish : he was there informed that the men who composed the crews of the 
canoes were Mantchous, and had quitted the banks of the Segalien river 
to become purchasers of these fish. In the corner of the island, within a 
kind of circus planted with stakes, each surmounted with the head of a 
bear, the bones of animals lay scattered. As these people use no firearms, 
but engage the bears in close combat, their arrows being only capable of 
wounding them, this circus might probably be intended to perpetuate the 
memory of certain great exploits. Having entertained conjectures relative 
to the proximity of the Coast of Tartarty, La Perouse at length discovered 
that his conjectures were well-founded ; for when the horizon became a 
little more extensive, he saw it perfectly. In the evening of the 22d he 
came to anchor in thirty-seven fathoms, about a league from land. He 
was then abreast of a small river, to the northward of which he saw a re- 
markable peak ; its base is on the shore, and its summit on all sides pre- 
serves a regular form. La Perouse bestowed on it the title of Peak la 
Martiniere. 

On the 28th, in the evening, our navigators were at the opening of a 
bay which presented a safe and convenient anchorage. M. de Langle 
reported to La Perouse that there was excellent shelter behind four islands; 
he had landed at a village of Tartars, where he was kindly received, and 
where he discovered a watering place abounding with the most limpid ele- 
ment. From M. de Langle's report, La Perouse gave orders to prepare 
for anchoring in the bottom of the bay, which was named Baie de Castris. 

In this bay the French navigators first discovered the use of the circle 



884 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

of lead or bone, which these people, and the inhabitants of Segalien Island, 
wear on the thumb like a ring ; it greatly assists them in cutting and strip- 
ping the salmon with a knife, which is always hanging to their girdle. 
Their village was built upon low marshy land, which must doubtless be 
uninhabitable during the winter, but on the opposite side of the gulf, an 
other village appeared on a more elevated situation. It was seated at the 
entrance of a wood, and contained eight cabins, larger and better con- 
structed than the first. Not far from these cabins, they visited three yourts, 
or subterranean houses. They were sufficiently capacious to accommodate 
the inhabitants of the whole eight cabins during the severity of the inclem- 
ent season. On the borders of this village several tombs presented them- 
selves, which were larger and more ingeniously fabricated than the houses ; 
each of them contained three, four, or five biers, decorated with Chinese 
stuffs, some pieces of which were brocade. Bows, arrows, and the other 
most esteemed articles of these people, were suspended in the interior of 
these monuments, the wooden door of which was closed by a bar, supported 
at each end by a prop. 

The women are wrapped in a large robe of nankeen, or salmon's skin, 
curiously tanned, descending as low as the ankle-bone, sometimes embell- 
fened with a border of fringe manufactured of copper, and producing 
sounds like those of little bells. Those salmon which furnish a covering 
for the fair, weigh thirty or forty pounds, and are never caught in summer ; 
those which were taken by the French visiters did not exceed three or four 
pounds in weight ; but that disadvantage was fully compensated by the extra- 
ordinary number, and the extreme delicacy of their flavor. 

Q<: the 2d of August, La Perouse sailed with a light breeze. On the 
19th Cape Troun was perceived to the southward, and Cape Uries to the 
south-east-by-east ; its proper direction, according to the Dutch chart : their 
situation could not possibly have been determined with more precision by 
modern navigators. In the evening of the 6th, they made the entrance of 
Avatcha Bay, or St. Peter and St. Paul. The light-house, erected by the 
Russians on the east point of the entrance, was not kindled during the 
night ; as an excuse for which the governor declared the next day, that all 
their efforts to keep it burning had been ineffectual ; the wind had constantly 
extinguished the flame, which was only sheltered by four planks of wood 
very indifferently cemented. 

The government of Kamtschatka had been materially changed since the 
departure of the English, and was now only a dependency of that of 
Ochotsk. These particulars were communicated to our navigators by 
lieutenant Kaborof, governor of the harbor of Saint Peter and Saint 
Paul, having a sergeant and forty soldiers under his command. M. de 
Lessops, who acted as interpreter, and who perfectly understood the Rus- 
sian language, wrote a letter, in La Perouse's name, to the governor of 
Ochotsk, to whom La Perouse also wrote in French himself. He told him 
that the narrative of Cook's last voyage had spread abroad the fame of 
the hospitality of the Kamtschadale government ; and he flattered him- 
self that he should be as favorably received as the English navigators, as 
his voyage, like theirs, was intended for the benefit of all maritime nations. 

The Kamtschadales are of an imitative genius, and fond of adopting 
the customs of their conquerors. They have already abandoned the yourts, 
in which they were formerly accustomed to burrow like badgers, breathing 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 885 

foul air during the whole of the winter. The most opulent among them 
now build isbas, or wooden houses, like those of the Russians : they are 
divided into three small rooms, and are conveniently warmed by a brick 
stove. The inferior people pass their winters and summers in balagans, 
resembling wooden pigeon-houses, covered with thatch, and placed upon 
the tops of posts twelve or thirteen feet high, to which the women, as well 
as men, find a ladder necessary for their ascension. But these latter 
buildings will probably soon disappear ; for the Kamtschadales imitate the 
manners and dresses of the Russians. It is curious to see in their little 
cottages, a quantity of cash in circulation ; and it may be considered as 
a still greater curiosity, because the practice exists among so small a 
number of inhabitants. Their consumption of the commodities of Russia 
and China are so few, that the balance of trade is entirely in their favor, 
in consequence of which it is necessary to pay them the difference in 
roubles. The Kamtschadales, says La Perouse, appeared to me to be the 
same people as those of the Bay of Castries, on the coast of Tartary ; 
they are equally remarkable for their mildness and their probity, and their 
persons are not very dissimilar. 

The approach of winter now warned our navigators to depart ; the 
ground, which, on their arrival on the 7th of September, was adorned 
with the most beautiful verdure, was as yellow and parched up on the 25th 
of the same month, as in the environs of Paris at the conclusion of 
December. La Perouse therefore gave preparatory orders for their de- 
parture, and, on the 29th, got under way. M. Kasloff came to take a 
final leave of him, and dined on board. He accompanied him on shore, 
with M. de Langle, and several officers, and was liberally entertained with 
a good supper, and a ball. 

Induced by a western gale, La Perouse attempted to reach the parallel 
of Bougainville's Navigator's Islands, a discovery due to the French, 
where fresh provision might probably be procured. On the 6th of Decem- 
ber, at three in the afternoon, he saw the most easterly island of that 
Archipelago, and stood on and off during the rest of the evening and 
night. Meaning to anchor if he met with a proper place, La Perouse 
passed through the channel between the great and the little islands that 
Bougainville left to the south ; though hardly a league wide, it appeared 
perfectly free from danger. He saw no canoes until he was in the chan- 
nel, yet he beheld several habitations on the windward side of the island, 
and a group of Indians sitting under the shade of cocoa nut trees, who 
seemed delighted with the prospect afforded by the frigates. 

At break of day they were surprised not to see land to the leeward ; nor 
was it to be discovered till six o'clock next morning. Charmed with the 
beautiful dawn of the following morning, La Perouse resolved to recon- 
noitre the country, take a view of the inhabitants at their own homes, fill 
water, and immediately get under way ; prudence warning him against 
passing a second night at that anchorage, which M. de Langle also thought 
too dangerous for a longer stay. It was therefore agreed on to sail in 
the afternoon, after appropriating the morning in exchanging baubles for 
hogs and fruit. At the dawn of day the islanders had surrounded the 
two frigates, with two hundred different canoes laden with provision, which 
they would only exchange for beads, axes, and cloth ; other articles of 
traffic, were treated by them with contempt. While a part of the crew 



886 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

was occupied in keeping them in order, and dealing, the rest were 
despatching empty casks on shore to be replenished with water. Two 
boats of the Boussole, armed, and commanded by Messrs. de Clonard 
and Colinet, and those of the Astrolabe, commanded by Messrs. de 
Monti and Bellegarde, set off with that view at five in the morning, for 
a bay at the distance of about a league. La Perouse followed close after 
Messrs. Clonard and Monti, in his pinnace, and landed when they did. 
It unfortunately happened that M. de Langle had formed a resolution to 
make an excursion in his jolly-boat to another creek, at the distance of 
about a league from their watering-place ; from this excursion a dire mis- 
fortune ensued. The creek, towards which the long-boats steered, was 
large and commodious : these and the other boats remained afloat at low 
water, within half a pistol-shot of the beach, and excellent water was 
easily procured. Great order was observed by Messrs. de Clonard and 
de Monti. A line of soldiers was posted between the beach and the 
natives, who amounted to about two hundred, including many women and 
children. They were prevailed on to sit down under cocoa-trees, at a 
little distance from the boats ; each of them had fowls, hogs, pigeons, or 
fruit, and all of them were anxious to dispose of their articles without 
delay, which created some confusion. 

While matters were thus passing with perfect tranquillity, and the casks 
expeditiously Silling with water, La Perouse ventured to visit a charming 
village, situated in the midst of a neighboring wood, the trees of which 
were loaded with delicious fruit. The houses formed a circle of about one 
hundred and fifty toises in diameter, leaving an interior open space, beau- 
tifully verdant, and shaded with trees, which rendered the air delightfully 
cool and refreshing. Women, children, and aged men attended him, and 
earnestly importuned him to enter their houses ; they even spread theii 
finest mats upon the floor, decorated with chosen pebbles, and raised a 
convenient distance from the ground, to prevent offensive humidity. La 
Perouse condescended to enter one of the handsomest of these huts, which 
was probably inhabited by a chief, and was astonished to behold a large 
cabinet of lattice-work, on which as much taste and elegance were display- 
ed as if it had been produced in the environs of Paris. This enchanting 
country, blessed with a fruitful soil without culture, and enjoying a climate 
which renders clothing unnecessary, holds out to these fortunate people an 
abundance of the most estimable food. The trees invite the natives to 
partake of the bread-fruit, the banana, the cocoa-nut, and the orange ; 
while the swine, fowls, and dogs, which partake of the surplus of these 
fruits, afford them a rich variety of viands. The inhabitants of this envi- 
able spot were so rich, and entirely free from wants, that they looked with 
disdain on the cloth and iron tendered by the French visitors, and only 
deigned to become customers for beads. Abounding in real blessings they 
languished only for superfluities. 

The boats of the Boussole now arrived, loaded with water, and La 
Perouse made every preparation to get under way. M. de Langle at the 
same instant returned from his excursion, and mentioned his having landed 
in a noble harbor for boats, at the foot of a delightful village, and near a 
cascade of transparent water. He spoke of this watering-place as infi- 
nitely more commodious than any other, and begged La Perouse to permit 
him to take the lead of the first party, assuring him that in three hours he 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL, 887 

would return on board with all the boats full of water. Though La Perouse, 
from the appearance of things at this time, had no great apprehensions of 
danger, he was averse to sending boats on shore without the greatest neces- 
sity, especially among an immense number of people, unsupported and 
unperceived by the ships. The boats put off from the Astrolabe at half 
past twelve, and arrived at the watering-place soon after one ; when, to 
their great astonishment, M. de Langle and his officers, instead of finding 
a large commodious bay, saw only a creek full of coral, through which 
there was no other passage than a winding channel of about twenty-five 
feet wide. When within, they had no more than five feet water; the long- 
,boats grounded, and the barges must have been in the same situation had 
they not been hauled to the entrance of the channel at a great distance from 
the beach. M. de Langle was now convinced that he had examined the 
bay at high-water only, not' supposing that the tide at those islands rose 
five or six feet. Struck with amazement, he instantly resolved to quit the 
creek, and repair to that where they had before filled water ; but the air 
of tranquillity and apparent good humor of the crowd of Indians, bringing 
with them an immense quantity of fruit and hogs, chased his first prudent 
idea from his recollection. 

He landed the casks on shore from the four boats without interruption, 
while his soldiers preserved excellent order on the beach, forming them- 
selves in two lines, the more effectually to answer their purpose. Instead 
of about two hundred natives, including women and children, which M. de 
Langle found there at about half after one, they were, at three o'clock, 
increased to the alarming number of one thousand and two hundred. M. 
de Langle's situation became every instant more embarrassing ; he found 
means, however, to ship his water, but the bay was almost dry, and he had 
not any hopes of getting off the long-boats till four in the afternoon. He 
and his detachment, however, stepped into them, and took post in the bow 
with his musket and musketeers, forbidding any one to fire without his 
command ; which he knew would speedily be found necessary. Stones 
were now violently thrown by the Indians, who were up to their knees in 
water, and surrounded the long-boats, at the distance of about six feet ; 
the soldiers, who were embarked, making feeble efforts to keep them off. 

M. de Langle, still hoping to check hostilities, without effusion of blood, 
gave no orders, all this time, for firing a volley of musketry and swivels ; 
but shortly after, a shower of stones, thrown with incredible force, struck 
almost every one in the long-boat. M. de Langle had only fired two shots, 
when he was knocked overboard, and massacred with clubs and stones by 
about two hundred Indians. The long-boat of the Boussole, commanded 
by M. de Boutin, was aground near the Astrolabe, leaving between them a 
channel unoccupied by the Indians. Many saved themselves by swimming, 
who fortunately got on board the barges, which keeping afloat, forty-nine 
persons were saved out of the sixty-one, of which the party consisted. M. 
Boutin was knocked down by a stone, but fortunately fell between the two 
long-boats, on board of which not a man remained in the space of about 
five minutes. Those who preserved their lives by swimming to the two 
barges, received several wounds ; but those who unhappily fell on the 
other side were instantly despatched by the clubs of the remorseless 
Indians. 

The crews of the barges, who had killed many of the islanders with their 



888 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, 

muskets, now began to make more room by throwing their water-casks 
overboard. They had also nearly exhausted their ammunition, and their 
retreat was rendered difficult, a number of wounded persons lying stretched 
out upon the thwarts, and impeding the working of the oars. To the 
prudence of M. Vaujaus, and the discipline kept up by M. Mouton, who 
commanded the Boussole's barge, the public are indebted for the preserva- 
tion of the forty-nine persons of both crews who escaped. M. Bouton 
had received five wounds in the head, and one in the breast, and was kept 
above water by the cockswain of the longboat who had himself received a 
severe wound. M. Colinet was discovered in a state of insensibility upon 
the grapnel-rope of the barge, with two wounds on the head, an arm 
fractured, and a finger broken. M. Lavaux, surgeon of the Astrolabe, 
was obliged to suffer the operation of the trepan. M. de Lamanon, and 
M. de Langle, were cruelly massacred with Talio, master at arms of the 
Boussole, and nine other persons belonging to the two crews. M. le 
Gobien, who commanded the Astrolabe's long-boat, did not desert his post 
till he was left alone ; when, having exhausted his ammunition, he leaped 
into the channel, and, notwithstanding his wounds, preserved himself on 
board one of the barges. A little ammunition was afterwards found, and 
completely exhausted on the infuriated crowd ; and the boats at length 
extricated themselves from their lamentable situation. 

At five o'clock the officers and crew of the Boussole were informed of 
this disastrous event ; they were at that moment surrounded with about 
one hundred canoes, in which the natives were disposing of their provisions 
with security, and perfectly innocent of the catastrophe which had hap- 
pened. But they were the countrymen, the brothers, the children of the 
infernal assassins, the thoughts of which so transported La Perouse with 
rage, that he could with difficulty confine himself to the limits of modera- 
tion, or hinder the crew from punishing them with death. 

On the 14th of December, La Perouse stood for the island of Oyolava, 
which had been observed before they arrived at the anchorage which 
proved so fatal. This island is separated from that of Maouna, or of the 
Massacre, by a wide channel, and vies with Otaheite in beauty, extent, 
fertility, and population. At the distance of about three leagues from the 
north-east point, he was surrounded by canoes, laden with bread-fruit, 
bananas, cocoanuts, sugar-cane, pigeons, and a few hogs. The inhabitants 
of this island resemble those of the island of Maouna, whose treachery 
had been so fatally experienced. Some exchanges were conducted with 
these islanders with more tranquillity and honesty than at the island 
of Maouna, as the smallest act of injustice received immediate chastise- 
ment. 

On the 17th they approached the island of Pola, but not a single canoe 
came off perhaps the natives had been intimidated by hearing of the event 
which had taken place at Maouna. Pola is a smaller island than that of 
Oyolava, but equally beautiful, and is only separated from it by a channel 
four leagues across. The natives of Maouna informed our visitros, that 
the Navigator's Islands are ten in number, viz. Opoun, the most easterly, 
Leone, Fanfoue, Maouna, Oyolava, Calinasse, Pola Skika, Ossamo, and 
Ouera. These islands form one of the finest archipelagoes of the South 
Sea, and are as interesting with respect to arts, productions, and population, 
as the Society and Friendly Islands, which the English navigators have so 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 889 

satisfactorily described. In favor <5f their moral characters, little remains 
to be noticed ; gratitude cannot find a residence in their ferocious minds ; 
nothing but fear can restrain them from outrageous and inhuman actions. 
The huts of these islanders are elegantly formed ; though they disdain the 
fabrications of iron, {hey finish their work with wonderful neatness, with 
tools formed of a species of basaltes in the form of an adze. For a few 
glass-beads, they batered large three-legged dishes of wood, so well-pol- 
ished as to have the appearance of being highly varnished. They kept up 
a wretched kind of police; a few, who had the appearance of chiefs, 
chastised the refractory with their sticks, but their assumed power seemed 
generally disregarded ; any regulations which they attempted to enforce 
and to establish, were transgressed almost as soon as they were promulgated. 
Never were sovereigns so negligently obeyed, never were orders enforced 
with such feeble shadows of authority. 

Imagination cannot figure to itself more agreeable situations than those 
of their villages. All the houses are built under fruit-trees, which render 
them delightfully cool ; they are seated on the borders of streams, leading 
down from the mountains. Though the principal object in their architect- 
ure is to protect them from offensive heat, the islanders never abandoned 
the idea of elegance. Their houses are sufficiently spacious to accommo- 
date several families ; and they are furnished with blinds, which are drawn 
to the windward to prevent the intrusion of the potent rays of the sun. 
The natives repose upon fine comfortable mats, which are cautiously pre- 
served from humidity. Nothing can be said, by our travelers, of the 
religious rites of these natives, as no moral was perceived belonging to 
them. The islands are fertile, and their population is supposed to be 
considerable. Opun, Leone, and Fanfoue, are small ; but Maoune, Oyo- 
lava, and Pola, may be classed among the largest and most beautiful in the 
South Sea. Cocoa island is lofty, and formed like a sugar-loaf; it is 
nearly a mile in diameter, covered with trees, and is separated from Trait- 
ors' Island by a channel about a league wide. 

At eight in the morning La Perouse brought to, to the west-south-west, 
at two miles from a sandy bay in the western part of the Great Island of 
Traitors, where he expected to find an anchorage sheltered from easterly 
winds. About twenty canoes instantly quitted the shore and approached 
the frigates in order to make exchanges ; several of them were loaded 
with excellent cocoa-nuts, with a few yams and bananas ; one of them 
brought a hog, and three or four fowls. It evidently appeared that these 
Indians had before some knowledge of Europeans, as they came near 
without fear, traded with honesty, and never refused to part with their 
fruit before they were paid for it. They spoke, however, the same lan- 
guage, and the same ferocity appeared in their countenances ; their man- 
ner of tattooing, and the form of their canoes, were the same, but they 
had not, like them, two joints cut off from the little finger of the left 
hand ; two individuals had, however, suffered that operation. 

On the 27th of December, Vavao was perceived, an island which Cap 
tain Cook had never visited, but was no stranger to its existence, as one 
of the archipelago of the Friendly Islands ; it is nearly equal in extent to 
that of Tongataboo, and is particularly fortunate in having no deficiency 
of fresh water. The two small islands of Hoongatonga are no more than 
two large uninhabitable rocks, which are high enough to be seen at the dis- 



390 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

tance of fifteen leagues. Their position is ten leagues north of Tonga- 
taboo; but that island being low, it can hardly be seen at half that 
distance. On the 31st of December, at six in the morning, an appearance 
like the tops of trees, which seemed to grow in the water, proved the har- 
binger of Van Dieman's point. The wind being northerly, La Perousc 
steered for the south coast of the island, which may, without danger, be 
approached within three musket-shots. Not the semblance of a hill is to 
be seen ; a calm sea cannot present a more level surface to the eye. The 
huts of the natives were scattered irregularly over the fields, and not 
socially collected into a conversable neighborhood. Seven or eight canoes 
were launched from these habitations, and directed their course towards 
the vessels ; but these islanders were awkward seamen, and did not ven- 
ture to come near, though the water was smooth, and no obstacle impeded 
their passage. At the distance of about eight or ten feet, they leaped 
overboard and swam near the frigates, holding in each hand a quantity of 
cocoa-nuts, which they were glad to exchange for pieces of iron, nails, and 
hatchets ; from the honesty of their dealings a friendly intercourse ensued 
between the islanders and the navigators, and they ventured to come on 
board. 

Norfolk Island, off the coast of New South Wales, which they saw on 
the 13th of January, is very steep, but does not exceed eighty toises 
above the level of the sea. It is covered with pines, which appear to be 
of the same species as those of New Caledonia, or New Zealand. Cap- 
tain Cook having declared that he saw many cabbage-trees in this island, 
heightened the desire of the navigators to land on it. Perhaps the palm 
which produces these cabbages is very small, for not a single tree of that 
species could be discovered. On the 26th, at nine in the morning, La 
Perouse let go the anchor at a mile from the north coast of Botany Bay, 
in seven fathoms water. An English lieutenant, and a midshipman, were 
sent on board his ship by Captain Hunter, commander of the Sirius. 
They offered him, in Captain Hunter's name, all the services in his power; 
but circumstances would not permit him to supply them with provision, 
ammunition, or sails. An officer was despatched from the French to the 
English Captain, returning thanks, and adding, that his wants extended 
only to wood and water, of which he should find plenty in the bay. The 
journal of La Perouse proceeds no further. La Perouse, according to his 
last letters from Botany Bay, was to return to the Isle of France in 1788. 

They left Botany Bay in March, and, in a letter which the commodore 
wrote February 7, he stated his intention to continue his researches till 
December, when he expected, after visiting the Friendly Islands, to arrive 
at the Isle of France. This was the latest intelligence received of the 
fate of the expedition ; and M. d' Entrecasteaux, who was despatched by 
the French government, in 1791, in search of La Perouse, was unable to 
trace the course he had taken, or gain any clew to the catastrophe which 
had befallen him and his companions. 

In 1825 the attention of the public was excited towards this mysterious 
affair, by a notice published by the French minister of the marine, pur- 
porting that an American captam had declared that he had seen, in the 
hands of one of the natives of an island in the tract between Louisiade 
and New Caledonia, a cross of the order of St. Louis, and some medals, 
which appeared to have been procured from the shipwreck of La Perouse. 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 891 

In consequence of this information, the commander of a vessel which sailed 
from Toulon, in April, 1826, on a voyage of discovery, received orders to 
make researches in the quarter specified, in order to restore to their coun- 
try any of the shipwrecked crew who might yet remain in existence. 
Other intelligence, relative to the wreck of two large vessels, on two dif- 
ferent islands of the New Hebrides, was obtained by Captain Dillon, the 
commander of an English vessel at Tucopia, in his passage from Valpa- 
raiso to Pondicherry, in May, 1826, in consequence of which he was sent 
back to ascertain the truth of the matter. The facts discovered by him 
on this mission, were, that the two ships struck on a reef at Mallicolo ; 
one of them immediately went down, and all on board perished ; some of 
the crew of the other escaped, part of whom were murdered by the sava- 
ges; the remainder built a small vessel and set sail, but their fate is not 
known. It is not certain that these were the vessels of La Perouse. 

GEORGE VANCOUVER. 

George Vancouver, born about the year 1750, accompanied captain 
Cook in his second voyage round the world, and, on his return, went out 
with him in the Discovery, to the north pole, and arrived again in England 
in 1780. In the latter end of the last mentioned year, he was appointed a 
lieutenant of the ship Fame, part of lord Rodney's fleet, then on its way to 
the West Indies, where he remained till 1789, being employed, during the 
last six years, on the Jamaica station, in the sloop Europa. On his arrival 
in England, in 1790, he was made master and commander of the Discovery ; 
in which ship he was sent out to ascertain if there existed in North Amer- 
ica, between the thirtieth and sixtieth degrees of latitude, an interior sea, 
or any canals of communication between the known gulfs of the Atlantic 
and the Great Sea; a point about which Cook and other navigators had 
been able to give no satisfactory information. 

On the 17th of August, 1791, he reached the southern coast of New 
Holland, where he discovered King George the Third's Sound ; and, after 
leaving Dusky Bay, in New Zealand, ascertained the situation of some dan- 
gerous rocks and an inhabited island, giving to the former the name of 
the Snares, and to the latter that of Oparo. On the 24th of January, 1792, 
he set sail from Otaheite ; and in the following March, arrived at Owhyhee, 
where he was visited by the chiefs of the island. He then proceeded along 
the north coast of New Albion to De Fuca's Straits, Nootka, and Monterey 
Bay. Here he passed some days, and having received an important com- 
munication from the Spanish commandant relative to the cession of Mon- 
terey, he forwarded a despatch to England, by captain Broughton, in the 
ship Daedalus, together with his journal of discoveries up to that time. 

In February, 1793, he sailed to the Sandwich Islands, where he endea- 
vored to establish peace between the different chiefs, and compelled them 
to execute two islanders, whom he discovered to have been the murderers 
of lieutenant Hergest and other seamen of the Daedalus. In April, he sailed 
along the American shore as far as Cape Decision ; and, after coasting 
along the western side of Queen Charlotte's Islands to Nootka, proceeded 
to the Spanish settlements of New California, and discovered, to the south 
of Monterey, a double chain of mountains, and that the one nearest the 
sea was the least in height. In January, 1794, in which year he was made 



892 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

a post-captain, he reached Owhyhee, which was, shortly after his arrival, 
ceded by the king Tamaahmaeah to the king of England. On leaving 
Owhyhee, he passed Trinity Isles, and discovered an island uninhabited and 
covered Avith snow, which he called Tschericow. He then proceeded up 
Cook's river, and after minutely examining several bays, straits, and inlets, 
and discovering King George the Third's Archipelago, he terminated his 
operations in Port Conclusion, which he reached on the 22d of August, 
where he made the following remarks in his journal : — ' The principal ob- 
ject which his majesty appears to have had in view, in directing the under- 
taking of this voyage, having at length been completed, I trust the precision 
with which the survey of the coast of North -West America has been carried 
into effect will remove every doubt, and set aside every opinion of a north- 
west passage, or any water communication navigable for shipping, existing 
between the North Pacific and the interior of the American continent, with- 
in the limits of our researches.' On the 6th of July, 1795, he arrived at 
St. Helena, and observed that, having made the tour of the world by the 
east, he had gained twenty-four hours ; it being, according to his estima- 
tion, Monday, instead of Sunday, the 5th of July, as in the island. 

He arrived in London in November, 1795, and, in a state of declining 
health from the effects of his voyages, devoted himself to the arrangement 
of his manuscripts for publication, until within a very short time of his 
death, which occurred on the 10th of May, 1798. In the same year, his 
work, edited by his brother, was printed at the expense of government, en- 
titled, ' A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and round the 
World, in which the Coast of North West America has been carefully Ex- 
amined and accurately Surveyed, Undertaken by His Majesty's Command, 
and Performed in the Years 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, and 1795 :' 
and was, shortly after its appearance, translated into French, German and 
Swedish. 

The world is indebted to Vancouver for ascertaining the precise know- 
ledge of the North- West American coast, of which he entered parts never 
before deemed accessible but to the smallest sea boats, and traveled in a 
canoe nearly nine thousand miles among the labyrinth of isles which bor- 
der that part of the coast. His maps afford an exact description of the 
discoveries, which he determined with great precision. Zealous, and inde- 
fatigable in the pursuit of his object, he was, at the same time, benevolent 
and unassuming, and insisted on his companions sharing in the credit of his 
undertakings. In his account he offers some curious notions in reference 
to the various inhabitants of the north-west coast, the Russian and Spanish 
colonies, and the isles of the Great Sea ; which, by their frequent inter- 
course with Europeans, had suffered much change in an interval of thirty 
years. His narrative, in addition to the information it contains, is also re- 
plete with interest. 

CAPTAIN D'ENTEECASTEAUX. 

On September 28th, 1791, in the two sloops, La Recherche and 
L'Esperance, of sixteen guns, and one hundred and ten men each, they 
weighed from the harbor of Brest, completely equipped for a voyage of 
circumnavigating the globe. The conduct of the expedition was assigned 
to Captain D'Entrecasteaux. The leading object of the voyage was tc 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 893 

endeavor to procure intelligence relative to Captain La Perouse, who had 
long been missing in the South Seas, and to make a complete tour of 
New Holland ; an island, by far the largest in the world ; comprehending 
an immense circuit of at least three thousand (French) leagues. The 
accomplishment of this last point was essential to the history of geogra- 
raphy, and what had not been effected by either Cook or La Perouse. 

The first port they made was Santa Cruz in Teneriffe ; they arrived 
there on .the 17th of October, and having taken in wines and provisions, 
proceeded on their route to the Cape of Good Hope ; and while they 
continued there, the expedition sustained a considerable misfortune in the 
death of the astronomer Bertrand. February 16th, 1792, they left the 
Cape, and bore away for the island of New Guinea, some parts of which 
they explored ; they reached the islands Arsacides on July the 9th, and 
New Ireland the 17th ditto. They afterwards made for Amboyna, one of 
the Molucca islands, and arrived Sept. 6th. October 11th, they left 
Amboyna, and sailed immediately for the west part of New Holland. 
December 3d, 1792, they arrived at the Cape, which is at the south-west 
extremity of New Holland, and sailed along the southern shore, till Jan- 
uary 3d, having by this means traced and ascertained about two-thirds of 
the whole extent of the southern coast. On the 11th of March, they 
passed very near the North cape of New Zealand, and making for shore, 
several canoes came along side. On the 16th, they discovered two little 
islands at a little distance from each other. The most eastern one lies in 
30 deg. 17 min. south latitude, and in 179 deg. 41 min. east longitude. 
On the 17th, discovered an island about five leagues in circumference, 
conspicuous by its elevated situation. It lies in 29 deg. 3 min. south 
latitude, and in 179 deg. 54 min. east longitude. On the 2d of March 
they saw Ebona, the most south-westerly of the Friendly Islands. The 
next day anchored at Tongataboo, the largest of the Friendly Islands. 
Among the islanders they frequently met with men six feet high, their 
limbs shaped in the most comely proportion. The fertility of the soil, 
which exempted them from the necessity of extreme labor, may conduce 
not a little to the unusual perfection of their forms. Their features have 
a strong resemblance to those of Europeans. A burning sky has impres- 
sed a slight discolor on their skins. Those, among the women, who are 
but little exposed to the rays of the sun, are sufficiently fair. Some of 
them are distinguished by a beautiful carnation, which gives a vivacity to 
their whole figure. A thousand nameless graces are visible in their ges- 
tures, when engaged in the slightest employments. In the dance their 
movements are enchanting. 

The language of this people bears an analogy with the gentleness of 
their manners ; it is well adapted to music, for which they have a pecu- 
liar taste. Their concerts wherein every one performs his part, demon- 
strate the just ideas which they entertain of harmony. The women, as 
well as the men, have their shoulders and breasts naked. A cotton cloth, 
or rather a piece of stuff, manufactured from the bark of mulberry-tree 
into paper, serves them for apparel. It forms a beautiful drapery, reach- 
ing from a little above the waist down to the feet. These islands produce 
a species of nutmegs, which differs very little in form from those of the 
Moluccas. It is not, however, aromatic, and is almost twice as large. 
They also procured the bread-fruit tree, for the purpose of transporting 



894 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

it ir*A> th^ West India Islands. We must not confound these excellent 
species of bread-fruit tree with the wild species of it found in the Moluc- 
cas, and observed for a long time past in the Isle of France. In this 
second sort the grains do not miscarry, while in the good fruit-tree they 
are replaced by a food truly delicious, when baked under ashes or in the 
oven. In other respects it is a most wholesome viand, affording a pleas- 
ant repast during the whole time of their continuance on this island, and 
for which they willingly relinquished the ship's stock of baker's bread. 
The Molucca sort produces thirty or forty small fruits ; while every tree 
of the Friendly Islands produces three or four hundred extremely large, 
of an oval form, the greatest diameter being from nine to ten inches, and 
the smallest from seven to eight. A tree would be oppressed with such 
an enormous load, if the fruit were to ripen all at once ; but sagacious 
nature has so ordered it, that the fruit succeed each other, during eight 
months of the year, thus providing the natives with a food equally salu- 
brious and plentiful. Every tree occupies a circular space of about 
thirty feet in diameter. A single acre occupied by this vegetable would 
supply the wants of a number of families. Nothing in nature exhibits a 
similar fecundity. As it has no seeds, it has a wonderful faculty of throw- 
ing out suckers ; and its roots frequently force their way up to the surface 
of the earth, and there give birth to fresh plants. It thrives exceedingly 
in a tropical climate, in a soil somewhat elevated above the level of the 
sea ; and suits very well with a marly soil, in which a mixture of argilla- 
ceous clay preponderates. 

They quitted the Friendly Islands on the 10th of April, 1793. April 
15th saw Enouan, the most eastern of the islands of the Archipelago of 
the Holy Ghost, and afterwards that of Anaton. The eruptions of the 
volcano of Tana presented in the night a spectacle truly sublime. April 
27th, steering for New Caledonia ; in a night darker than usual, they ran 
among some islands surrounded with breakers, not noticed till then by 
navigators ; they were only apprised of danger by an uncommon circum- 
stance ; the flight of a flock of sea-fowl over their heads about three in 
the morning. This indication of the proximity of land induced the officer 
upon watch to slacken sail, and lie-to, at a critical juncture, when an 
hour's more sailing must have dashed them to pieces against the rocks. 
These new discovered islands lie about thirty leagues north-east of New 
Caledonia, where they anchored April 26th. 

After the description that Cook and Foster had given of the inhabitants 
of New Zealand, they expected to find realized the advantageous portrait 
given of them by these celebrated voyagers. They had reason, however, 
partly to suspend their belief of those accounts, when they afterwards 
observed a number of human bones, broiled, which the savages were de- 
vouring, eagerly fastening on the smallest tendinous parts which adhere 
to them. This fact at least suffices to prove that the New Zealanders are 
cannibals. They often attacked the boat ; but the good countenance ex- 
hibited prevented their assailing or massacreing any of their company. 
Notwithstanding these hostilities, the ship was every day visited by nu- 
merous bodies of the islanders. The soil being every where barren, they 
perceived but few vestiges of any taste for agriculture ; still, however, 
they observed in some gardens the Colocasia, the Caribbe cabbage, the 
banana-tree, and the sugar-cane. The barbarous customs of the natives 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 896 

did not prevsnt their reiterated excursions into the interior parte of the 
country. On these occasions they kept together to me number of twenty, 
always well armed. As evening came on, they commonly took their sta- 
tion on some elevated post in the mountains, where they passed the night 
in a situation which protected them from hostile assaults. To guard 
against surprise, they kept watch by turns. 

May 9th, they weighed anchor, and sailed before the wind for the north. 
In their course, observed the eastern part of the reefs and islands, the 
western side of which they saw the year before. May 21st, were close on 
the island of St. Croix, and sent in two boats to look out for an anchoring 
place. While the sailors were employed in sounding, one of the natives, 
at the distance of upwards of eighty paces, lanced an arrow, which slightly 
wounded the forehead of one of them. A volley of firearms, however, 
soon dispersed the group of canoes which had surrounded the boats, and 
from which the lance proceeded. Although the wound was apparently so 
inconsiderable, it was attended with a tetanus, which proved mortal to the 
unfortunate sailor after only eight days. The arrow did not appear to 
have been poisoned, as it is well known that beasts pierced with the same 
weapons do not experience any fatal symptoms. In India, it is no uncom 
mon thing to see the slightest puncture followed by a spasm, which is a 
certain forerunner of death. 

July 16th and 17th, they sailed in view of the Anchoret Islands of 
Bougainville. On the 20th they lost D'Entrecasteaux, the captain. He 
died of convulsions, every fit of which was succeeded by a speechless stu- 
por, August 16th, 1793, in 129 deg. 14 ruin, of east longitude, and so 
near the equator, that they were only half a minute to the south. Here 
the inhabitants brought very large sea-turtles, the soup of whi-.'h they 
experienced to be a salutary remedy for the scurvy, which was now prev- 
alent among them. In this island they procured a number of interesting 
objects, and quitted it August the 29th, and sailed for Bouao, where they 
anchored September the 3d, 1793. In this mountainous isle, where the 
productions of nature are extremely varied, they had a favorable opportu- 
nity of continuing their botanical researches, etc. Here several of the 
men died of a contagious bilious dysentery, contracted in the low marshy 
grounds of the country. 

October 28, 1793, cast anchor in the road of Sourabaya, in the Isle of 
Java. Here divisions broke out among the crews, in consequence of m ■ 
ing intelligence of the farther progress of the French revolution. D' /ifuri- 
beau hoisted the white flag Feb. 19th, 1794, and surrendered the u wo ves- 
sels to the Dutch. He also seized all the journals, charts, and memoirs, 
which were connected with the voyage, and arrested all those of the ship's 
companies that were obnoxious to his own political sentiments. One jour- 
nal, however, was fortunately saved, by having been stowed in a box of tea. 
In this hazardous, yet important voyage, of two hundred and fifteen persons, 
thirty-six lost their lives ; the astronomer, Pearson, died at Java ; and 
Ventenat at the Isle of France. Riche, the naturalist, remained at Java, 
as well as Billadiere. Lahay, the botanist, also stopped there ; having 
under his care the bread-fruit trees, brought from the Friendly Islands. 
Pison, the painter, tarried with the governor of Sourabaya ; but afterwards 
returned to Europe, and published an account of the voyage. 



896 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



PARRY'S VOYAGES FOR THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH WEST PASSAGE. 
FIRST VOYAGE. 

On the 16th of January, 1819, Lieutenant Parry was appointed to 
the command of his Majesty's ship Hecla, a bomb of three hundred and 
seventy-five tons ; and the Griper, gun brig, one hundred and eighty 
tons, commissioned by Lieutenant Matthew Liddon, was at the same time 
directed to put herself under his orders. The object of the expedition 
was to discover a north west passage into the Pacific. Every individ- 
ual engaged in the expedition was to receive double pay. They took 
in provisions for two years, and also a supply of fresh meats and soups 
preserved in tin cases, essence of malt and hops, and other stores adapt- 
ed to cold climates and a long voyage. The ships were ballasted en- 
tirely with coals, and the men were supplied with an abundance of 
warm clothing. 

Captain Parry was to pass, if possible, through Lancaster's Sound to 
Behring's Strait. If he succeeded, he was to proceed to Kamtschatka 
and return to England round Cape Horn. Other instructions were given, 
but much was left to his own discretion. He sailed in the beginning of 
May, and proceeded up the straits of Davis, where he found the ice close 
packed. As he was making his way towards the western shore, on the 
25th of June, the ice closed round the ships and arrested their progress. 
Here the ice was so close, that the whales could not descend in the usual 
way, but were obliged to go down tail first, much to the amusement of the 
Greenland sailors. Their situation during the 28th was unpleasant, and 
would have been dangerous to ships built in the ordinary way. Each 
roll of the sea forced the heavy masses of ice against the rudder and coun- 
ter with great violence ; but being so well strengthened, they escaped with- 
out damage. While in this state, a large white bear approached the 
Griper, attracted by the smell of some red herrings, which the men 
were frying at the time. They killed him, but he sunk between the 
pieces of ice, and they were unable to obtain him. On the 30th, the 
ice began to slacken a little about the ships, and after two hour's heav- 
ing, they succeeded in moving the Hecla about her own length to the 
eastward ; and the ice continuing open after eight hours' incessant labor, 
they hauled both ships into open water. 

Captain Parry having failed in his first attempt to approach the western 
shore, came to the determination of trying to eifect this object, about the 
latitude of mount Raleigh, which forms one side of the narrowest part of 
Davis' Strait. They kept on during the 1st and 2d of July, without 
finding any opening. On the third day, the wind having shifted to the 
south-west, another large chain of icebergs was seen to the northward. 
They could find no bottom near these icebergs with one hundred and ten 
fathoms of line. At four A. M. on the 4th, they came to a quantity of 
loose ice floating among the bergs. The breeze blew lightly from the 
southward, and wishing to avoid going to the eastward, they pushed the 
Hecla into the ice, in hopes of being able to make way through it. But 
it immediately fell calm and the ship becoming perfectly unmanageable, 
was for some time at the mercy of swells, which drifted her fast towards 
the bergs. The Griper's signal was made not to enter the ice, and after 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 897 

two hours' hard pulling, they succeeded in getting the Hecla clear of 
the icebergs, which it is very dangerous to approach whenever there is a 
swell. 

The ice was now so close that they found it impossible to proceed further 
westward ; and they made the best way they could, by beating northward, 
until the 10th, when a thick fog came on, which made it necessary to use 
great caution in sailing, to avoid the icebergs. The reflection of light, 
however, is so strong from these vast bodies of ice, that in the thickest 
fog they can be seen at a sufficient distance to enable the navigator, if in 
smooth water, to keep clear of them. The people succeeded in killing a 
large bear, which was seen near them on a piece of ice, and towed it on 
board. These animals sink immediately on being wounded, and to secure 
them, it is necessary to throw a rope over the neck, at which the Greenland 
seaman are very expert. After encountering many difficulties from the 
tenacity of the ice, on the 21st Captain Parry reached latitude 73 deg. 
As he was unwilling to increase his distance from Lancaster's Sound, he 
determined to enter the ice here. He accordingly ran in among the floes, 
and on the evening of the 22d, the ships were so beset, that no open water 
could be seen from the mast-head. The weather being clear on the next 
day, and a few narrow lanes of water appearing to the westward, they 
proceeded to warp the ships through the ice. At eight P. M., they had 
advanced four miles to westward, and having come to the end of clear 
water, they secured the ships in a deep bight or bay in a floe, called by 
the sailors, Natural Dock. On the next day, a boat was sent to try to find 
a lane of clear water leading to the westward. She returned without 
success, and the weather was so foggy, that it was with difficulty she found 
her way back to the ships by means of muskets and other signals. 

On Tuesday 27th the clear water had made so much to the westward, 
that a narrow neck of ice was all that separated the ships from a large open 
space in that quarter. The men were just ordered out to saw off the neck, 
when the floes suddenly opened and allowed the Griper to push through 
under all sail. Although they lost no time in attempting to get the Hecla 
through after her, yet before they could effect it, the passage was com- 
pletely blocked up by a piece of floating ice, which was drawn after the 
Griper, by the eddy produced in her motion. Before they could haul it 
out of the channel, the floes pressed together and wedged it immovably, 
and although the saws were used with great effect, it was not until after 
seven hours' labor, that they succeeded in getting the Hecla into the lanes 
of clear water, which opened towards the westward. They now perceived 
with pleasure, a pitching motion of the vessel, which, from the closeness 
of the ice, does not often occur in those regions, as a sure indication of an 
open sea. The wind breezing up by one o'clock P. M., the ice had all 
disappeared, and the sea was free from obstructions of any kind. Here 
they found the whales so numerous, that no less than eighty-two are men- 
tioned in this day's log. It is commonly thought by the Greenland fisher- 
men, that the presence of ice is necessary to insure the finding of whales ; 
but no ice was seen this day, when they were most numerous. At half past 
five P. M.,the high land about Possession bay came insight. Lancaster's 
Sound was now open to the westward, and the experience of a former 
voyage had given Captain Parry reason to believe that the two best months 
for the navigation of those seas were yet to come. This, together with the 
57* 



893 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

magnificent view of the lofty Byaur Martin Mountains, which recalled 
forcibly to his mind the events of the preceding year, animated him with 
expectation and hope. On the 31st, they anchored in Possession bay and 
discovered a flag staff which had been erected on the former expedition. 
The only animals found here were a fox, a raven, some ring plovers, snow- 
buntings, and a wild bee. Several tracks of bears and reindeers were 
also seen upon the moist ground. Three black whales were seen in the 
bay, and the crown bones of several others were lying near the beach. 
The tide rises here about eight feet, and the flood seems to come from the 
northwest. 

On the first of August, Captain Parry finding that the Griper could not 
keep up with the Hecla, determined to leave her. He appointed the middle 
of Lancaster Sound as a place of rendezvous, and crowding all sail on the 
Hecla, he came towards evning in sight of the northern shore of the 
sound ; and the next day had a clear view of both sides of it. 

Having run due west nearly out of sight of the Griper, the Hecla hove 
to for her to come up in longitude 83 degrees 12 minutes west from 
Greenwich, there being not the slightest appearance of land to the west- 
ward. The only ice met consisted of a few large bergs, much worn by 
the washing of the sea. Whales were seen, and the wind increased so 
that the top-gallant-yards were taken in. On the 4th, Lieutenant Beechy 
discovered, from the crow's nest, breakers to the northward. They 
sounded, and found bottom with forty-five fathoms of line. The Griper 
coming up, the vessels bore away to the westward. The sea was here so 
clear of ice, that they began to flatter themselves, that they had indeed 
entered the Polar Sea. Their vexation was therefore extreme, when, 
towards evening, land was seen ahead. At eight P. M., they came to a 
stream of ice extending several miles in a direction parallel to their course ; 
and after sailing for two hours along the edge of the ice, they found it 
proceeded from a compact body of floes, which completely cut off their 
passage. The weather here was calm and foggy, and the men amused 
themselves in pursuing white whales, which were swimming about the 
ships in great numbers. But these animals were so wary, that they 
seldom suffered the boats to approach within thirty or forty yards of them, 
without diving. They also saw for the first time, one or two shoals of 
nar-whales, called by the sailors sea-unicorns. Finding that the sound or 
strait was closed, excepting in one place to the southward, to this opening 
they directed their course. They had sailed but a few hours, however, 
when it fell calm; and the Griper, having spread both her top-masts, 
advantage was taken of the calm weather to shift them. The Hecla's 
boats were at the same time employed in bringing aboard ice to be used as 
water. Berge-ice is preferred for this purpose, but that of floes which is 
in fact the ice of sea water, is also used. One of the boats was upset by 
the fall of a mass of ice, but fortunately no injury was sustained. A 
breeze springing up from the north-north-west, they made sail and stood to 
the southward. After sailing a short time, they discovered that they 
were entering a large inlet about ten leagues wide at its mouth, and in the 
centre of which no land could be distinguished. The western shore was 
so encumbered with ice that it was impossible to sail near it. They there- 
fore ran along between the ice and the eastern shore, where there was a 
broad channel, with the intention of seeking a lower latitude or a clearer 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 899 

passage to the westward. Since they had first entered Lancaster's Sound, 
the sluggishness of the compasses, and the irregularity produced by the 
attraction of the ship's iron, had been found to increase rapidly as they 
proceeded to the westward. The irregularity increased as they advanced 
to the southward, which rendered it not improbable that they were 
approaching the magnetic pole. The compasses therefore were no longer 
fit for the purposes of navigation, and the binnacles were removed as use- 
less lumber into the carpenter's store-room, where they remained during 
the rest of the season. Being desirous of obtaining all the magnetic 
observations they were able, on a spot which appeared so full of interest 
in this department of science, two boats were dispatched from each ship to 
the nearest eastern shore, under the command of Lieutenant Beechy and 
Hoppner, who, together with Captain Sabine, were directed to make the 
necessary observations. As soon as the boats returned, the ships hove to 
the southward, along the edge of the ice, and by midnight the channel 
was narrowed to about five miles. They could find no soundings ; the 
weather was serene, and the sun for the second time that season just 
dipped below the northern horizon, and reappeared a few moments after. 
They had hoped to find a passage to the south of the ice, especially as the 
inlet widened considerably as they advanced in that direction ; but on the 
morning of the 8th, they perceived that the ice ran close in with a point 
of land, which seemed to form the southern extremity of the eastern 
shore. The prospect from the crow's nest began to assume a very 
unpromising appearance. The whole western horizon from north round 
to south by east, being completely covered with ice, beyond which no indi- 
cation of water was visible. Captain Parry therefore determined, as the 
season was fast advancing, to return immediately to the northward, in the 
hope of finding the channel between Prince Leopold's Isles and Maxwell 
Bay more open than when they left it, m which there could be little doubt 
of effecting a passage to the westward. They had sailed to the southward 
in this inlet about one hundred and twenty miles, Cape Kater being by 
the observations in latitude 71 deg. 53 min. 30 sec, longitude 90 deg. 03 
min. 45 seconds. They returned to the northward with a light but favor- 
able breeze. On the 10th, the weather was thick with snow, which was 
succeeded by rain and fog. The ships moored to a floe, but when the 
weather cleared, they found themselves drifting with the floe upon another 
body of ice to leeward. They therefore cast off and beat to the north- 
ward, which was very difficult to do, on account of the drift ice with 
which the whole inlet was now covered. Although several days were thus 
passed in contending with fogs, head winds, and all the difficulties of arctic 
navigation, yet neither officers nor crews lost health or spirits. They 
repined not at the dangers and difficulties of their situation, but because 
the accomplishment of their hopes was delayed. 

A light southern breeze enabled them to steer towards Prince Leopold's 
Isles, which they found more encumbered with ice than before. Here 
they saw a great number of nar-whales, lying with their backs above the 
water in the same manner as the whale, and frequently with their horns 
erect and quite stationary for several minutes together. Three or four 
miles to the northward, they discovered an opening, having every appear- 
ance of a harbor, with an island near the entrance. It was named Jack- 
son's Bay. The whole of the 14th was consumed in the attempt to find 



900 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

an opening in the ice, but as it remained perfectly close and compact, on 
the 15th Captain Parry went on shore to make observations. He landed 
in one of the numerous valleys, which occur on this part of the coast, very 
much resembling bays, being bounded by high hills, which appear like 
bluff head-lands. He ascended the hill on the south side of the ravine, 
•which is very steep, and covered with detached blocks of lime-stone, some 
of which are constantly rolling down, and which afford a very insecure 
footing. From the top of the hill no water could be seen over the ice to 
the northwest ; and the whole space comprised between the islands and 
the northern shore, was covered with a bright dazzling blink. 

It was a satisfaction, however, to find that no land appeared, and captain 
Parry was too well aware of the suddenness with which obstructions, occa- 
sioned by the ice, are often removed, to be at all discouraged by present 
appearances. On the top of this hill, he deposited a bottle containing a 
short notice of his visit, and raised over it a small mound of stones. The 
wind was light the next day, and the ice being closed, the ships scarcely 
changed their position. Despairing of being able to penetrate westward, 
in the neighborhood of Prince Leopold Isles, captain Parry determined to 
stand towards the northern shore again, and after beating for some hours 
among the drift ice, the ships got into clear water near the coast. They 
had just light enough at midnight to see to read and write in the cabin, 
passing along the shore, they left the ice behind them, and on the 21st they 
had nothing to hinder their passage westward, but want of wind. But the 
wind freshening soon after, all sail was made to the westward, where the 
prospect began to wear a more and more interesting appearance. It was 
soon perceived that the land along which they were sailing, and which had 
appeared to be continuous from Baffin's Bay, began now to trend much to 
the northward, leaving an open space between that coast, and a distant 
land to the westward, which appeared like an island, of which the extremes 
to the north and south were distinctly visible. The latter was a remarka- 
ble headland, and was named Cape Hotham. They discovered also several 
headlands on the eastern land ; between the northernmost of which and the 
island to the westward, there was a channel of more than eight leagues in 
width, in which neither land nor ice could be seen from the mast head. 
The arrival off this noble channel, to which captain Parry gave the name 
of Wellington, was an event for which they had all been anxiously look- 
ing ; for the continuity of land to the northward, had always been 
a source of uneasiness to them, from the possibility that it might 
take a turn to the southward, and unite with the coast of America. 
Every one thought that they were now finally disentangled from the land, 
which forms the western side of Baffin's Bay ; and that in fact they had 
actually entered the Polar Sea. Fully impressed with this idea, captain 
Parry gave to this opening the name of Barrow's Straits. 

Two thirds of the month of August had now elapsed, and they expected 
that the sea would remain navigable six weeks more. The ships had suf- 
fered nc injury, they had a plenty of provisions, the crews were in high 
health and spirits, and the sea before them, if not open, was at least navi- 
gable. On the 23d, a fresh breeze sprung up, and although Wellington 
channel was open to the northward, captain Parry judged it best to try a 
large opening south of Cornwallis' island. But their disappointment was 
extreme, when it was suddenly reported from the crow's nest, that their 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 901 

passage was obstructed by a large body of ice. Lieutenant Beechy dis- 
covered, however, that one part of the barrier consisted of loose pieces of 
ice, and the Hecla being immediately pushed into this part of it, succeeded, 
after a quarter of an hour's ' boring,' in forcing her way through the neck. 
The Griper followed, and they continued their course to the westward, 
having once more a navigable sea before them. At 2 p. m., having reached 
longitude 95 deg. 67 min., they came to two extensive floes, which obliged 
the ships to tack, as there was no passage between them. They then beat 
to the northward in search of a passage, but none was found. After sev- 
eral unsuccessful attempts to force a passage, they at last succeeded by 
' boring ' through several heavy streams, and at midnight were enabled to 
pursue their course to the westward. 

The ships made very little way this night, but in the morning they ad- 
vanced with more speed, and more land was seen to the westward. The 
space to the westward was now so broad, that captain Parry thought best 
to appoint a place where the Griper should find the Hecla in case of a sep- 
aration. But about 7 P. M., this precaution was found to have been need- 
less, for the ice stretched across the strait, and barred the passage. Cap- 
tain Parry now resolved to seek a passage along the northern shore. As 
the vessels were rounding the eastern side of the island captain Sabine was 
despatched to make observations, and examine the natural productions of 
the shore. He reported that he had found the island much more interest- 
ing than any other parts of the shores of the polar regions they had yet visited. 
The remains of Esquimaux habitations were found in four different places. 
Some of them are described by captain Sabine, as consisting of stones 
rudely placed in an elliptical form. They were from seven to ten feet in 
diameter, the flat sides of the stones standing vertically, and the whole 
structure being similar to that of the summer huts of the Esquimaux, which 
had been seen the preceding year. Attached to each were smaller circles 
of about four or five feet in diameter, and from the moss and sand which 
covered some of the lower stones, the whole encampment appeared to have 
been deserted for several years. The fogs now froze hard upon the rig- 
ging, which made it difficult to work the ship, as each rope was increased 
to twice or three times its proper diameter. 

On the evening of the 29th, a very thick fog came on, and they sailed 
under such circumstances as have seldom occurred in navigation. Observ- 
ing that the wind always blew some hours steadily from one quarter, the 
quarter-masters steered by the vane at the mast head, instead of the com- 
pass, which was here utterly useless. At night the ships made fast to a 
floe, about six or seven feet thick, which was covered with numerous pools 
of water, all hard frozen. The officers amused themselves in skating upon 
the pools, and the men in sliding, foot-ball, and other games. Thus the 
ships remained until the 21st, when a new expedient for sailing was 
adopted. 

Before the fog commenced, and while they were sailing on a course, 
which they knew to be the right one, the Griper was exactly astern of the 
Hecla, at the distance of about a quarter of a mile. The quarter master 
stood aft, near the taffrail, and kept her constantly astern, by which means 
they were enabled to steer a tolerably straight course to the westward. 
The Griper, on the other hand, kept the Hecla right ahead, and thus they 
steered one ship by the other, for the distance of ten miles out of sixteen 



902 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and a half, which they traversed between one and eleven P. M. The 
morning of the first of September brought a breeze, and with it a snow 
storm, so that they were unable to shape their course that afternoon. At 
one on the 2d, a star was seen, the first that had been visible for more than 
two months. The fog came on again, and there was not wind enough to 
enable them to keep the ships under command. On the morning of the 
3d, a northern breeze enabled them to make considerable progress, and on 
the 4th, at nine P. M., they crossed the meridian of 110 deg. west from 
Greenwich, latitude 74 deg. 44 min. 20 sec, by which the ship's company 
became entitled to a reward of 5000 pounds, offered by the king's order in 
council ' to such British subjects as might penetrate so far west within the 
Arctic circle/ On the 5th, they found the passage blocked up again, and 
as no change seemed likely to take place, they came to anchor in a tolera- 
ble roadstead, a mile and a half from the northern shore. In the evening, 
Captain Sabine and some of the other officers landed on an island, to which 
they gave the name of Melville Island. Here they saw several flocks of 
ducks and gulls ; tracks of the deer and musk ox were also observed, and 
some addition made by the gentlemen to their collection of marine insects. 
The bay of the Hecla and Griper, as they called the roadstead where the 
ships lay, was the first place in which they had dropped anchor since leav- 
ing England. The flags were hoisted in honor of the epoch ; the first 
time that the eye of civilized man had looked on that barren and inhospit- 
able region. In the afternoon the ice was observed to be in motion ; and 
the ship got under way and sailed a short distance. But finding no open- 
ing, the ships were secured to a floe, which it was necessary to do every 
night, the weather being too dark to allow them to keep under way. Cap- 
tain Parry, fearing that the floes might change their position, determined 
to remove nearer the shore. Two large masses lay aground, and the 
vessels were secured between them and the shore. Parties went out and 
returned with a white hare, some fine ptarmigans, a few snow-buntings, 
skulls of the musk ox, and several reindeer's horns ; but they were unable 
to meet with either of the two latter animals. Several lumps of coal were 
also picked up, and were found to burn with a clear lively flame, like 
canalcoal, but without splitting and crackling in the same manner. At 
five A. M., on the 10th, a floe ran against the berg, within which the 
Hecla was secured and turned it round as on a pivot. 

They were now so surrounded with ice, that all they could do was to 
attend carefully to the safety of the ships. On the 11th, one of the 
officers killed the first musk ox they had yet been able to approach. 

The packed ice remained immovable, and the ' young ice ' rapidly form- 
ing, farther progress was considered impracticable that season. Captain 
Parry thought it best to run back to the bay of Hecla and Griper and to 
pass the winter there. The signal for weighing anchor was given on the 
22d, but the cables had become so stiff with frost, that it was five P. M. 
before the anchors were brought on board ; and they did not reach the 
anchorage till the evening of the next day. A proper place being found, the 
ships dropped anchor on the edge of the bay of ice, in the evening of the 
24th ; and on the next day, they commenced cutting a canal. Two par- 
allel lines were marked out a little more than the breadth of the ships 
apart ; along these lines, a cut was then made with an ice saw, and others 
again at right-angles with them, at intervals of from ten to twenty feet. 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 903 

The pieces thus cut, were again divided diagonally, in order to give room 
for their being floated out of the canal. The seamen, who are fond of 
doing things in their own way, took advantage of a fresh northerly breeze, 
by setting some boat's sails on the pieces of ice, a contrivance which saved 
both time and labor. 

At half past seven P. M., they weighed anchor, and began to warp up 
the canal ; but the wind blew so fresh, and the people were so much 
fatigued, that it was midnight before they reached the termination of their 
first day's labor. All hands were again set to work on the morning of the 
25th, when it was proposed to sink the pieces of ice under the floe instead 
of floating them out. To effect this it was necessary for some to stand on 
the end of the piece of ice, which it was intended to sink, while others 
hauling upon ropes attached to the opposite end, dragged the block under 
that part of the floe, on which the people stood. The officers took the 
lead in this employ, and were frequently up to their knees in water during 
the day, with the thermometer generally at 12 deg. and never higher than 
16 deg, At six P. M. the Griper was made fast astern of the Hecla, and 
the two ships' companies, being divided on each bank of the canal, soon 
drew the ships to the end of their second day's work. The next day at 
noon, the whole canal was completed, a length of four thousand and eighty- 
two yards through ice seven inches thick. The wintering ground was 
called winter harbor, and the group of which the island formed a part, 
was denominated Georgian Islands, in honor of the reigning sovereign of 
Great Britain. 

Having reached the place where they were probably to pass nine 
months, and three of them in the absence of the sun, Captain Parry was 
called upon to act in circumstances in which no British naval officer had 
before been placed. The security of the ships, the preservation of the 
stores, a regular system for the maintenance of good order, cleanliness, 
and consequently good health ; amusement and employment for the men, 
were all to be attended to. Scientific observations were also to be made, 
and Captain Sabine employed himself immediately in selecting a place for 
an observatory, which was erected in a convenient spot, about seven hun- 
dred yards to the westward of the ships. The whole of the masts were 
dismantled, except the lower ones and the Hecla's main-top-mast ; the 
lower yards were lashed fore and aft amidships, to support the planks of 
the housing intended to be erected over the ships ; and the whole of this 
frame work was afterwards roofed over with a cloth. This done, Captain 
Parry's whole attention was directed to the health and comfort of the offi- 
cers and men. The surgeon reported that not the slightest disposition to 
scurvy had shown itself in either ship. In order to preserve this healthy 
state of the crew, arrangements were made for the warmth and dryness of 
the berths and bedplaces ; and finding that when the temperature had fal- 
len considerably below zero, the steam from the coppers began to condense 
into drops on the beams and sides, they were obliged to adopt such means 
for producing a sufficient warmth, combined with due ventilation, as might 
carry off the vapor and thus prevent its settling on any part of the ship. 
For this purpose, a large stone oven, cased with cast iron, in which all 
their bread was baked in the winter, was placed on the main-hatch-way, 
and the stove pipe led fore and aft on one side of the lower deck, the 
smoke being thus carried up the fore hatch-way. On the opposite side of 



904 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

the deck, an apparatus had been attached to the galley-range .or convey- 
ing a current of heated air between decks. For the preservation of health, 
a few alterations were made in the quantity and quality of the provisions 
issued. The allowance of bread was reduced to two-thirds. A pound of 
preserved meat, together with a pint of vegetable or concentrated soup per 
man was substituted for one pound of salt beef weekly ; and a small quan- 
tity of sour krout and pickles, with as much vinegar as could be used, 
was issued at regular intervals. They were obliged to institute the most 
rigid economy, with regard to their coals, as they were unable to find any 
on the island, excepting a few lumps ; and the moss which grew in abun- 
dance was found totally unfit for the purposes of fuel. 

Great attention was paid to the clothing of the men, and one day in 
the week was appointed for the examination of the men's shins and gums 
by the medical gentlemen, in order that any slight appearance of the 
scurvy might be at once detected and checked by timely and adequate 
means. 

Under circumstances of leisure and inactivity, such as they were now 
placed in, and with every prospect of its continuance, Captain Parry was 
desirous of finding some amusement for the men during this long and 
tedious interval. He proposed, therefore, to get up a play occasionally on 
board the Hecla ; and his proposal being readily seconded by the officers, 
Lieutenant Beechy having been chosen manager, the performance was 
fixed for the 5th of November, to the great delight of the ships' com- 
panies. In order still further to promote good humor, and to afford amus- 
ing occupation during the hours of constant darkness, they set on foot a 
weekly newspaper, which was to be called the North Georgia Gazette and 
Winter Chronicle, and of which Captain Sabine undertook to be the editor, 
under the promise of being supported by original contributions from the 
officers of the two ships. The meridian altitude of the sun was observed, 
for the last time, on the 16th of October. 

On the 26th the light was sufficient to allow of reading and writing in 
the cabins, from half past nine till half past two. The rest of the hours 
were spent by lamp light. It now became rather a painful experiment to 
touch any metallic substance in the open air, with the naked hand ; the 
feeling produced by it exactly resembling that occasioned by the opposite 
extreme of intense heat ; and taking off the skin from the part affected. 
They found it necessary, therefore, to use great caution in handling the sex- 
tants and other instruments ; particularly the eye-pieces of the telescopes, 
which, if suffered to touch the face, occasioned an intense burning pain ; 
but this was easily remedied by covering them over with soft leather. The 
month of November set in with mild weather. The fourth was the last 
day thai* the sun, independently of refraction, would be seen above the 
horizon for ninety-six days ; but the weather was too thick for making 
any observations. On the 5th, their theatre was opened, with the repre- 
sentation of Miss in her Teens ; which afforded the men a great fund of 
amusement. Even fitting up the theatre and taking it to pieces again, 
was a matter of no small importance ; as it kept the men employed a day 
or two before and after each performance, which was a considerable object 
gained. 

On the 11th, the thermometer fell to 26£ for the second time. The 
wolves began to approach the ships boldly, howling most piteously on the 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 905 

beacli near, and sometimes coming along side the ships, when everything 
was quiet at night ; but they seldom saw more than one or two together, 
and therefore could form no idea of their number. The white foxes used 
also to visit the ships at night, and one of these was caught in a trap, set 
under the Griper's bows. 

The stars of the second magnitude in Ursa Major were perceptible to 
the naked eye, a little after noon on the 11th of December, and the Au- 
rora Borealis appeared faintly in the south-west at night. The cold con- 
tinued to increase. About the middle of the month, a serious loss took 
place in the bursting of the bottles of lemon juice ; in some boxes of 
which, two thirds of the contents were found to be destroyed. The vine- 
gar also froze in the same manner, and lost much of its acidity, when 
thawed. A few gallons of highly concentrated vinegar congealed into a 
consistence like honey. 

Theatrical entertainments took place regularly once a fortnight, and 
continued to prove a source of infinite amusement to the men ; and more 
than one or two plays were performed, with the thermometer below zero, 
on the stage on board the Hecla. 

The North Georgia Gazette, which we have already mentioned, was a 
source of great amusement, not only to the contributors, but to those who, 
from diffidence of their own talents, or other reasons, could not be pre- 
vailed on to add their mite to the little stock of literary composition, which 
was weekly demanded ; for those who declined to write were not unwilling 
to read, and more ready to criticise than those who wielded the pen ; 
but it was that good humored sort of criticism that could not give of- 
fense. 

On Christmas day the weather was raw and cold, with a considerable 
snow drift, although the wind was only moderate from northwest. Divine 
service was performed on board. The men's usual proportion of fresh 
meat was increased, as also their allowance of grog, and the day passed 
with much of the same kind of festivity by which it is usually distinguish- 
ed at home. 

On the first of January scurvy made its appearance among them. Mr. 
Scallon, gunner of the Hecla, had complained for some days, and the 
symptoms were now decidedly scorbutic. It was found to be owing to the 
dampness of his bedding, and proper measures were taken to prevent an 
increase of the malady. By raising mustard and cress in small boxes 
near the cabin stove, they were able to give Mr. Scallon and one or two 
more patients nearly an ounce of salad per day. The vegetables thus 
raised were necessarily colorless from the privation of light ; but they 
had the same taste as if raised in ordinary circumstances. So effectual 
were they in the case of Mr. Scallon, that he recovered in less than a 
fortnight. 

Toward the end of the month they began to look out for the sun from 
the mast head. On the morning of the third of February, the weather 
being clear, a cross, consisting of the usual vertical and horizontal rays, 
was seen about the moon. At twenty minutes before noon the sun was 
seen from the Hecla's maintop, at the height of fifty-one feet above the 
sea, being the first time it had been seen for eighty-four days, twelve days 
less than its actual stay below the horizon. There was now, from eight 
o'clock till four, sufficient light for any kind of work, and on the seventh 



906 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

they began to collect ballast for tbe Hecla, to make up for the expenditure 
of stores. 

The coldest part of the year was now approaching ; yet the sun had 
sufficient power to affect the thermometer, which rose from 40 deg. to 
35 deg. when exposed to its rays. The distance at which sounds were 
heard in the open air during the continuance of this intense cold was truly 
surprising. Conversation carried on a mile off could be distinctly heard. 
The smoke from the ships, too, owing to the difficulty it has to rise in a 
low temperature, was carried horizontally to a great distance. On the 
15th, the mercury sunk to 55 deg. below zero, which was the most intense 
degree of cold observed during the winter. Mercury was malleable in 
this state of the atmosphere. 

From this time the temperature gradually rose. The length of the days 
had so much increased by the 26th of February, that a very sensible twi- 
light was visible in the north. 

For the last three or four days of April, the snow on the black cloth 
of the housing had begun to thaw a little during a few hours in the middle 
of the day, and on the 30th so rapid a change took place in the tempera- 
ture of the atmosphere, that the thermometer stood at the freezing, or, as 
it may more properly be termed in this climate, the thawing point, being the 
first time that such an event had occurred for nearly eight months, or 
since the 9th of the preceding September. 

This rapid change in the weather revived their hopes of a speedy de- 
parture from Melville Island ; and they all had sanguine expectations of 
leaving their winter quarters before July. On the first of May, however, 
it blew a gale, and the sun was seen at midnight for the first time that 
season. On the 6th, the people began the operation of cutting the ships 
out of the harbor ; and on the 17th, the ships were once more afloat. 
On the 21st, some of the officers took a walk inland, and were able to 
fill a pint bottle with water from a pool of melted snow, which was the 
first they had seen ; a proof of the extreme severity of the climate. 

A perceptible change had now taken place in the ice. The upper sur- 
face was covered with innumerable pools of brackish water, so that the 
liberation of the sea might be daily expected. Being desirous of obtain- 
ing as much game as possible during the remainder of the time that must 
be passed in Winter Harbor, Captain Parry sent out hunting parties to 
remain ten or twelve miles inland, with orders to send whatever game 
they might procure, to the ships, and also to observe the ice from the hill 
tops, and report any change that might take place. 

The dissolution of the ice continued daily, and on the 22d, it was 
observed to be in motion in the offing ; settling to the eastward at the 
rate of a mile an hour. The dissolution of the ice of the harbor went 
on so rapidly, in the early part of July, that they were greatly sur- 
prised, on the 6th, in finding that in several of the pools of water, on 
its upper surface, holes were washed quite through to the sea beneath. 

On the morning of the 26th, there being a space of clear water for 
three quarters of a mile to the southward, they took advantage of a 
northern breeze to run as far as the opening would permit, and then 
dropped anchor at the edge of the ice, intending to advance step by step 
as it separated. The ice across the entrance of the harbor in this spot, as 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 907 

well as that in tho offing, appeared from the crow's nest quite continuous 
and unbroken, with the same appearance of solidity as at midwinter. 

On the 30th, the whole body of the ice was in motion toward the south- 
east, breaking away, for the first time, from the points at the entrance 
of the harbor. This rendering it probable that the ships would soon 
be released, Captain Parry furnished Lieutenant Liddon with instructions 
for his guidance during the coming season of operations, and appointed 
places of rendezvous in case of separation. 

On the first of August, the harbor was clear of ice, and there appeared 
to be water in the direction of their intended course. At one P. M., 
every thing having been brought on board, they weighed anchor and ran 
out of Winter Harbor, in which they had passed ten entire months of the 
year, and a part of the two remaining ones, September and August. 

After a few tacks, they had the mortification to perceive that the Gri- 
per sailed much worse than before, though great pains had been taken 
during her re equipment to improve her qualities. By midnight the 
Hecla had gained eight miles to windward of her, and was obliged to heave 
to, to avoid parting company. 

A southerly wind springing up the next day, made it probable that 
the ice would close in upon the ships, and they therefore began to 
look out for a situation where they might be secured inshore, behind 
some of the heavy grounded ice. At one o'clock they perceived that a 
heavy floe had already closed completely in with the land at a point a lit- 
tle to the west-ward of them. A proper place having been found for their 
purpose, the ships were hauled in and secured, the Griper's bow resting 
on the beach, in order to allow the Hecla to lie in security without her. 
This place was so completely sheltered from the accession of the main ice, 
that Captain Parry began to think of taking the Griper's crew on board 
the Hecla, and pursuing the voyage in that ship alone. 

Every moment's delay cofirmed Captain Parry in the opinion that it 
was expedient to attempt to penetrate to the southward, as soon as the ice 
would allow the ships to move at all, rather than persevere in pushing 
directly westward. He therefore ordered Lieutenant Liddon to run back 
a certain distance eastward as soon as he could, without waiting for the 
Hecla, should that ship still be detained, and to look out for any opening 
to the southward, which might seem favorable to the object in view, and 
then wait for the Hecla. 

On the 15th, Lieutenant Liddon was enabled to sail, in the execution of 
his orders. Captain Parry, however, observing that the Griper made little 
or no way, hoisted the signal of recall, with the intention of making one 
more attempt to penetrate westward. The ice had so far separated as 
to allow him to sail a mile and a half along shore, when he was again 
stopped. He was fortunate in finding a tolerably secure situation for the 
Hecla within the grounded ice ; but the Griper was left by the wind in a 
place where, should the ice press upon her, there could be no hope of 
safety. For fear of the worst, Captain Parry made preparations to send 
parties to assist the Griper's company, if the wreck should become una- 
voidable ; but they were shortly after relieved from all anxiety on this 
account, by the recession of the ice from the shore, whereby the Griper 
was enabled to gain a station near the Hecla. 

The ice to the west and southwest, as seen from their present station, 



908 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

gave them no reason to expect a speedy opening in the desired direction. 
It apeared as solid and compact as so much land ; to which the inequal- 
ities of the surface gave it no small resemblance. Captain Parry, there- 
fore, determined to defer the attempt to try a more southern latitude no 
longer. 

The point at which the ships were now lying, and which is the western- 
most to which Arctic navigation has ever been carried, is in latitude 74 
deg. 26 min. 25 sec, and longitude 113 deg. 64 min. 43 sec. Cape 
Dundas seen yet farther west, is in longitude 113 deg. 57 min. 35 sec, 
by which the length of Melville island appears to be about a hundred and 
thirty-five miles, and its breadth, at the meridian of Winter Harbor, from 
forty to fifty miles. 

At nine P. M., they were abreast of the place where they had landed 
on the 5th, and here perceived that the ice closed with the land a little to 
the eastward. There was no safety for the ships, unless they could get 
past one of the small points at the embouchure of a revine, against which 
a floe was setting the smaller pieces of ice and had blocked up the pass- 
age before they arrived. After heaving two hours at the halsers, they 
succeeded in getting through, and moored the ships to some very heavy 
grounded ice near the beach. Hares were observed here, feeding on 
the sides of the cliffs, and a few ptarmigans were seen. The place 
where the Hecla was now secured, being the only one of the kind which 
could be found, was a little harbor, formed, as usual, by the grounded ice, 
some of which was fixed to the bottom in ten or twelve fathoms. One 
side of the entrance to this harbor consisted of masses of floes, very regu- 
lar in their shape, placed quite horizontally, and broken off so exactly 
perpendicular, as to resemble a handsome, well-built wharf. On the op- 
posite side, however, the masses to which they looked for security were 
themselves rather terrific objects, as they leaned over so much towards 
the ship, as to give the appearance of their being in the act of falling up- 
on her deck ; and as a very trifling concussion often produces the fall 
of much heavier masses of ice, when in appearance very firmly fixed to 
the ground, Captain Parry gave orders that no guns should be fired 
near the ship during her continuance in this situation. The Griper was 
of necessity made fast near the beach, in rather an exposed situation, and 
her rudder unshipped, in readiness for the ice coming in ; it remained 
quiet, however, though quite close, during the day, the weather being 
calm and fine. 

In the evening of the 18th, some heavy pieces of grounded ice to which 
the bow halser of the Hecla was fastened, fell off into the water, snapping 
the rope without injuring the ship. Nevertheless, as every alteration of 
this kind must materially change the centre of gravity of the whole mass, 
it was thought prudent to move the Hecla out of her harbor to the place 
where the Griper was lying, lest some of the bergs should fall upon her 
deck and crush or sink her. 

On the 20th and 21st, the young ice formed to such a degree, as to 
cement together all the loose ice about the ships ; nor did it thaw on either 
of those days, though the sun shone clearly upon it for several hours. The 
main body remained close and firm in every direction. The same state of 
things obtained on the 22d, and in the morning of the 23d, the young ice 
was an inch and a half thick. A breeze springing up from the westward 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 909 

put it in motion, so that by noon the ships were able to warp out and pro- 
ceed eastward. In a short time, however, the ice closed so firmly around 
them that they became wholly unmanageable, and received many blows, 
more severe than any they had received before. After having drifted 
with the ice six miles, they were made fast to some grounded ice. 

The situation in which the ships were now placed, and the shortness of 
the navigable season, caused great anxiety. Judging from the experience 
of 1819, it was reasonable to conclude that about the 7th of September, 
was the limit beyond which the ships could not keep the sea with any de- 
gree of safety or prospect of success ; but being thoroughly impressed with 
the idea that it was incumbent on him to make every possible effort, Cap- 
tain Parry determined to extend this limit to the 14th of September, before 
which date the winter would have set in. The prospect was not very 
encouraging, even with this extension ; they had only advanced sixty miles 
this season, and the distance to Icy Cape was yet between eight and nine 
hundred miles, supposing them to find a clear passage. The provisions, 
too, were so far reduced in quantity, that by no means could they be made 
to hold out longer than till April, 1822, and the deficiency of fuel was 
even more apparent. These and other minor considerations, induced Cap- 
tain Parry to ask the advice and opinions of his officers relative to the 
expediency of returning to England. They all agreed that any attempt 
to penetrate farther westward in their present parallel, would be fruitless, 
and attended with loss of time that might be more profitably employed 
elswhere. They advised that the vessel should run back along the edge 
of the ice, in order to look for an opening that might lead toward the 
American continent, and after a reasonable time spent in the search, to 
return to England. This advice agreeing with his own opinions, Captain 
Parry resolved to comply with it. 

On the twenty-fourth the ships moved again, and found less ice as they 
advanced, so that when, on the morning of the 27th, they cleared the east 
end of Melville Island, the navigable channel was not less than ten miles 
wide. A constant look-out was kept from the crow's nest for an opening 
to the south, but none occurred. The weather was hazy, so much so that 
they were again obliged to steer the ships one by the other. As they pro- 
ceeded, several islands hitherto unknown, were discovered, but no opening 
was seen in the ice, and when they had, on the 30th, reached longitude 90 
degrees, they became satisfied that there was no possibility of effecting 
their object, and Captain Parry, therefore, conceived it to be his duty 
to return forthwith to England, in order that no time might be lost in 
following up his discoveries, if his government should deem fit to do so. 

The Hecla arrived at the Orkney Islands on the 28th of October ; and 
the Griper on the first of November. Thus did they return from a voyage 
of eighteen months duration, in good health and spirits, with the loss of 
only one man. 

Second Voyage. — The discoveries made by the expedition under Cap- 
tain Parry in 1819-20, being believed to afford a strong presumption of 
the existence of a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean, the British 
government commanded that another attempt should be made to discover 
it. The Hecla having been found well adapted to this kind of service, 
the Fury, a ship of precisely the same class, was selected to accompany 
her. Captain George F. Lyon was appointed to command the Hecla, and 



910 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Captain Parry, whose efforts had made him justly celebrated, was commis 
sioned to command the expedition. 

Some alterations in the interior arrangements of the vessels, such as 
were suggested by the experience of Captain Parry, were made. Among 
these was an apparatus for melting snow, which was found very useful, and 
was so little in the way that it could not even be seen. Cots and ham- 
mocks were substituted for the former bed places, and some improvements 
were made in the manner of victualing the ships. 

In his official instructions, Captain Parry was directed to proceed into 
Hudson's Strait, till he should meet the ice, Avhen the Nautilus Transport, 
which was placed at his disposal, was to be cleared of its provisions and 
stores. He was then to penetrate westward, till he should reach some 
land which he should be convinced was a part of the American continent, 
at some point north of Wager River. If he reached the Pacific, he was 
to proceed to Kamschatka ; thence to Canton or the Sandwich Islands, and 
thence to England, by whatever route he might deem most convenient. 

Accordingly, in the beginning of April, 1821, the three vessels sailed 
from England. Nothing worthy of note occurred till they met with the 
ice in Davis' Strait, where the vessels were moored to an iceberg, and the 
Nautilus was unladen. This done, she parted company on the 1st of 
July, and sailed for England, while the Fury and Hecla stood towards the 
ice, which they reached a little before noon, and ran along its edge, keep- 
ing as much to the westward as possible. 

On the 24th they reached the Savage Islands, and landed on one of 
them. They are many — all exhibiting the same appearance of utter 
sterility. That on which they landed was from six to eight hundred feet 
above the level of the sea. Here they noticed the same appearances of 
an Esquimaux camp as had been seen at Melville Island, with a few pieces 
of fir, which proved that the savages, in these parts, were not in want of 
wood, since they could afford to leave it behind them. Hares and several 
species of birds were seen on this island. 

As soon as the exploring party returned on board, all sail was made to 
the westward, the sea being now nearly free from ice. The next day the 
hills on the coast of Labrador were seen. Thus they kept on till the 31st, 
discovering islands as they proceeded. On the afternoon of this day, an 
Esquimaux oomiak was seen coming from the shore of Salisbury Island, 
under sail, accompanied by eight kayaks. In this boat were sixteen per- 
sons, of which two were men, and the rest women and children. In dress 
and personal appearance, these people did not differ from the Esquimaux 
last seen, but their behavior was far less offensive. 

On the first of August, the ships kept on westward between Nottingham 
Island and the north shore, which is fringed with small islands. This 
channel is about twelve miles wide. In the course of the morning, some 
Esquimaux came to the ships from the main land, bringing oil, skin 
dresses, and walrus' tusks, which they exchanged for any trifle that was 
offered. They also offered toys for sale, such as models of canoes, wea- 
pons, etc. Here, for the first time, the navigators saw the dresses of the 
savages lined with the skins of birds, having the feathers inside. 

Having run forty miles in the night without seeing any ice, they came 
the next morning to a pack so close as to prevent their farther progress. 
The ships received very heavy blows, and with considerable difficulty got 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 911 

clear of it. They ran along the edge several miles to the northward, in 
search of an opening ; but finding none, they stood back to the southwest, 
to try what could be done in that quarter. 

The expedition being now about to enter upon ground hitherto unex- 
plored, it became necessary for Captain Parry to decide on the route he 
should pursue with most advantage; and after mature deliberation, he 
came to the resolution to attempt a direct passage of the Frozen Strait, 
though he greatly feared the loss of time that would be the consequence 
of a failure. 

After contending with the ice for several days, on the 11th, the ship 
succeeded in getting to the northern land, and a party of the officers 
landed upon a small rock, or islet, a mile and a half from the shore. 

Soon after the party returned on board, a fresh gale from the north 
compelled them to make the ships fast to the largest floe near, in order 
not to lose much ground. The gale moderated about noon, and they cast 
off from the floe and made sail. They made considerable progress till 
evening, when the ice closed round them again. After sunset on the 
13th, they descried land to the westward, which they believed to be a part 
of the continent. Yet they continued closely beset, and on the 15th the 
Hecla drifted back with the ice, out of sight of her consort. This was 
partly owing to the extraordinnry refraction upon the horizon, which 
apparently diminished and distorted objects, at no great distance, in a 
wonderful manner. On the next day, however, the Hecla hove in sight, 
and upon which the Fury set sail and beat through the channel. On the 
morning of the 17th, the weather being too foggy to move, parties from 
both ships went on shore, to examine the country and to procure specimens 
of its natural productions. 

As soon as the weather cleared up, they returned on board, and sailed 
to the northeast, where alone they had any chance of finding an outlet. 
Having ascertained the continuity of land round this inlet, they gave it the 
name of the Duke of York's Bay. It was now certain that the object of 
the expedition could not be effected in that direction ; and they therefore 
sailed back, through the narrow channel by which they had entered, with 
the intention of seeking an opening further north, without delay. 

It would be tedious to tell of every obstacle that hindered or delayed 
the ships. They pursued their intended course along the shore, when the 
wind and weather permitted ; and when unavoidably detained, they land- 
ed. Among other places, they landed at Kepulse Bay, in latitude QQ deg. 
30 min. and longitude 86 deg. 30 min. From all indications, the water 
through which they had been sailing, was the imperfectly known Frozen 
Strait ; and Captain Parry resolved to keep along the land to the north- 
ward, and examine every bend or inlet, which might appear likely to af- 
ford a practicable passage to the westward. 

Sailing on the 23d along the northern shore of Frozen Strait, it was 
observed that the land appeared in one place to consist of islands only, 
behind which no land was visible. This part of the coast appeared to 
Captain Parry so favorable to the accomplishment of his enterprise, that 
he resolved to examine it more closely. Having beat up to the mouth of 
an opening that seemed practicable, he found the greater part of the 
channel filled with a body of ice, rendering examinations in ships or boats 
impossible. The only means, therefore, of exploring it were, to despatch 



912 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

a party by land. Captain Lyon undertook this service, accompanied by 
five persons, furnished with a tent and four days' provision. The ships 
were anchored to await his return a mile from the shore. The flood tide 
came out of this inlet, a circumstance that materially strengthened their 
hopes of success. 

Captain Lyon first landed on an island, and then crossed a strait to a 
steep point. Thence proceeding northward to a hill, he found the strait 
continuous, and returned to the ships. On this short journey, he passed the 
remains of a great many Esquimaux habitations. The result of Captain 
Lyon's excursion was to convince all concerned, that a communication 
existed here between Frozen Strait and a sea to the northward and 
eastward of it, and Captain Parry determined to explore it as far as pos- 
sible. 

After drifting about some time in the ice, and more than once narrowly 
escaping shipwreck, measures were taken to survey this part of the Frozen 
strait ; but little knowledge was gained by all their efforts. On the 1st of 
September, the prospect of getting northward, was by no means encour- 
aging ; and they were, from time to time, beset with ice, and drifted back. 
On the 3d, they found that after a laborious investigation, which had oc- 
cupied a whole month, they had returned to nearly the same spot where 
they had been on the 6th of August, near Southampton Island. 

On the 1st of October, rain fell, which immediately freezing, made the 
decks and ropes as smooth as glass. For several days the thermometer 
had been below the freezing point, and sometimes as low as 20 deg. at 
night, which change, together with the altered aspect of the land, and the 
rapid formation of young ice near the shores, gave notice of the approach 
of winter. The commencement of this dreary season in these regions 
may, indeed, be dated from the time when the earth no longer receives 
and radiates heat enough to melt the snow which falls upon it. 

On the 8th the young ice on the surface began to give them warning 
that the navigation of those seas was nearly eneed for the season. When 
the young ice has acquired the thickness of half an inch, and is of con- 
siderable extent, a ship must be stopped by it, unless favored by a strong 
and fair wind ; and even when making progress, is not under the control 
of the helmsman, depending mostly on the thickness of the ice on one 
bow or the other. Boats cannot be employed in such situations with much 
effect. 

When to these difficulties were added the disadvantage of a tempera- 
ture near zero, and twelve hours of daily darkness, Captain Parry became 
convinced that it was expedient to place the ships in the most secure sit- 
uation that could be found, rather than run the risk of being permanently 
detached from the land by attempting to gain the continent. Accordingly 
a canal was sawed into a harbor on the south side of a small island, to 
which the name of Winter Island was given, and the ships were warped 
to their winter stations. Thus ended their operations for the season, after 
having explored a portion of coast six hundred miles in extent, one half 
of which belonged to the continent of America. 

The arrangements for passing the winter comfortably were pretty much 
the same as those which had been made at Melville Island, with some im- 
provements, suggested by former experience. The theatre was better 
fitted than before, and a school was established for the benefit of such of 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 913 

the crews as might wish to learn to read and write. The lower deck of 
the Fury was fitted for a church, and the companies of both ships attended 
during the winter. The men were sent to walk on shore for exercise, 
whenever the weather was favorable ; and finger-posts were erected in 
various parts of the island, to prevent them from losing their way. 

On the 11th of December, the weather being tolerably clear, stars of 
the third magnitude were visible to the naked eye at forty minutes past 
eight, and those of the second magnitude till a quarter past nine, which 
may give some idea of the degree of light at this period. The twilight 
was, of course, very long, and the redness of the sun's rays might be 
seen more than three hours after its setting. 

On the 13th, the thermometer fell to 31 deg., being the lowest temper- 
ature yet experienced. Rising on the 17th to 5 deg., the play of The 
Poor Gentleman was performed. On Christmas eve the theatre was 
again put in requisition, and the next day was celebrated to the utmost 
extent their means would allow. Among the luxuries of the Christmas 
dinner were a few joints of English roast beef, which had been preserved 
expressly for the occasion, the first and last ever eaten in Frozen Strait. 

The same occupations, that had employed them at Melville Island served 
to beguile the time this winter. Nothing material occurred till the first of 
February, unless the circumstance of seeing a white bear may be account- 
ed so. 

On the first of February, a number of Esquimaux were seen coming 
toward the ships over the ice, and the appearance of huts was discovered 
on the shore with a telescope. Captains Parry and Lyon, with three or 
four others, set out to meet the natives who were slowly approaching, to 
the number of twenty-five. As the officers advanced, they stood still, 
awaiting their approach. They had no arms, but carried only a few strips 
of whalebone, which they had brought for a peace-offering, and which the 
gentlemen immediately purchased for a few small nails and beads. There 
were several women and children with the party, and the behavior of all 
was quite peaceable and orderly. They were all handsomely dressed in 
deerskins, and some had double suits. 

However quiet these savages were, they did not exhibit the slightest 
signs of apprehension or distrust. As soon as some understanding was 
established, the officers expressed a wish to visit their huts, and the Esqui- 
maux readily complying, they all set out together. The savages were 
greatly astonished on the way, to see a large dog, belonging to the whites, 
fetch and carry ; and the children could scarcely contain their joy when 
Captain Lyon gave them a stick to throw, and the dog brought it back to 
them. An infirm old man, who supported himself with a staff, which he 
much needed, was left behind by his companions, who took no notice of his 
infirmities, but left him to find his way as he might, without reluctance or 
scruple. 

An intercourse was kept up between the ships and the Esquimaux, as 
long as the latter remained there, which was until the 23d of May, when 
they set off with all their goods and chattels, including a parting gift 
from Captain Parry. 

The caulking of the bows being now completed, the ships were released 
from the ice by sawing around them ; an operation which made them rise 
58* 



914 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

in the water six inches and a half, in consequence of the buoyancy occa- 
sioned by the winter's expenditure. 

An increased extent of open water appeared in the offing, Captain Lyon 
again departed, accompanied by nine persons, with a tent, fuel, and pro- 
visions for twenty days. Each individual was furnished with a light 
sledge, to draw his provision and baggage, which might weigh about an 
hundred pounds. Their instructions were, after gaining the continent to 
proceed along the coast and examine it, and to make observations respect- 
ing the tides and the natural productions of the country. 

K3 set out on the 8th of May, and rested on the 9th at a low, rocky 
point, which he called Point Belford. Proceeding northward, he had 
given the following names successively to different parts of the coast, viz : 
Blake's Bay, Adderly's Bluff, Palmer Bay, Point Elizabeth, and Cape 
William ; when, finding his provision and fuel half expended, he judged 
it prudent to return. 

Flocks of birds now began to give token of returning summer, and, on 
the 25th, some Esquimaux, who came from an encampment to the west- 
ward, reported having seen a great many reindeer. Yet at the close of 
May it was a matter of general regret that there was little prospect of 
the departure of the ice, and that few indications of a thaw had been ob- 
served. The navigators could not fail to remember that at Melville Island, 
though so much farther north, the season had, on the same day two years 
before, advanced full as far as now at Winter Island. The parts of the 
land which were most bare were the smooth, round tops of the hills, on 
some of which were little pools of water. There were also, on the low 
lands, a few dark, uncovered patches, looking, in the snow, like islets in 
the sea. Vegetation seemed striving to commence, and a few tufts of 
saxifrage oppositifolia, when closely examined, discovered some signs of 
life. Such was the state of things on shore : upon the ice, appearances 
were as unpromising. Except in the immediate vicinity of the ships, 
where from incessant trampling, and the deposit of various stores upon the 
ice, some heat had been absorbed artifically, there was no perceptible 
sign of dissolution on the upper surface, where six or seven inches of snow 
yet remained on every part. In these circumstances, Captain Parry re- 
solved to try what could be done to release the ships by cutting and saw- 
ing. Arrangements were, therefore, made for getting everything on board, 
and for commencing this laborious work. 

The operation began on the 3d of June, and was completed in sixteen 
days, by severe and persevering labor. In the meanwhile, Nature seemed 
unwilling to lend our mariners any aid : the dissolution of the ice was so 
slow as scarcely to be perceptible. However, it was so weakened by the 
cut made, that the first pressure from without effected a rupture, so that 
a favorable breeze only was needed, to enable the ships to put to sea. 
On the 2d of July, the wind, for the first time, became fair, and the skips 
sailed. 

Winter Island is ten miles and a half in length, from north-west by north, 
to south-east by south, and its average breadth from eight to ten miles. 
It is what seamen call rather low land ; the height of the south-east point, 
which was named Cape Fisher, out of respect to the chaplain and astrono- 
mer, being seventy-six feet, and none of the hills above three times that 
height. The outline of the land is smooth, and in the summer, when free 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 915 

from snow, presents a brown appearance. Several miles of the north- 
west end of the island are so low and level, that when the snow lay thick 
upon it, our travelers could only distinguish it from the sea by the absence 
of hummocks of ice. 

The basis of the island is gneiss rock, much of which is of a gray color, 
but in many places also the feldspar is so predominant as to give a bright 
and red appearance to the rocks, especially about Cape Fisher, where also 
some broad veins of quartz are seen intersecting the gneiss ; and both thia 
and the feldspar are very commonly accompanied by a green substance, 
which appeared to be pistacite, and which usually occurs as a thin lamina 
adhering strongly to the others. In many specimens these three are united, 
the feldspar and quartz displaying tolerably perfect crystals. In some of 
the gneiss small red garnets are abundant, as also in mica-slate. In lumps 
of granite, which are found detached upon the surface, the mica sometimes 
occurs in white plates, and in other specimens is of a dirty brown color. 
There are several varieties of mica-slate, and some of these have a bril- 
liant metallic appearance, like silver; those which are most so, crumble 
very easily to pieces. The most common stone next to those already 
mentioned is lime, which is principally schistose, and of a white color. 
Many pieces of this substance, on being broken, present impressions of 
fossil-shells, and some have also brown waved lines running quite through 
them. Nodules of flint occur in some masses of lime, but they are not 
common. Iron pyrites is found in large lumps of black stone, tinged 
externally with the oxyde of iron : it is here and there met with in small 
perfect cubes. 

Sailing northward along the coast, the ships were soon stopped by the 
ice. While they remained stationary, a party of natives was discovered 
on shore, who proved to be their neighbors of Winter Island. They were 
cordially greeted by the officers and seamen as old acquaintances, and 
loaded with presents. On leaving the ships, one of them sent Captain 
Parry a piece of seal skin as a present, without the least prospect or 
expectation of a return. We mention this trifling incident, merely because 
it was the first and only undeniable proof of gratitude observed among 
these people. 

Slowly and painfully our navigators pursued their course northward, 
always with difficulty and often with great danger. On the 12th of the 
month, they discovered the mouth of a considerable river, and Captain 
Parry went on shore to examine it. The water was fresh, and the stream 
varied in breadth from four hundred yards to the third of a mile. After - 
ascending a mile and a half, the Captain heard the roar of a waterfall. 
At the mouth, the banks of the river were about two hundred feet high, 
but here they rose much higher, and the water ran on a more elevated 
level. As Captain Parry proceeded inland, he found the stream rushing 
with great fury over two small cataracts. Then turning a right angle of 
the river, he perceived a greater spray, occasioned by a very magnificent 
fall. Where the stream begins its descent it is contracted to the breadth 
of one hundred and fifty feet, the channel being worn in a solid bed of 
gneiss rock. After falling about fifteen feet, at an angle of thirty degrees, 
the river is again narrowed to forty yards, and as if collecting its strength 
for a great effort, is precipitated ninety feet, in one unbroken mass. A 
cloud of spray rises from the cataract, surmounted by an uncommonly 



916 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

vivid rainbow. The basin which receives the fall is circular and about 
four hundred yards in diameter, rather wider than the river immediately 
below. Above the cataract, the stream winds in the most romantic manner 
imaginable among the hills, with a smooth and unruffled surface. To this 
beautiful water-course Captain Parry gave the name of Barrow's River. 
Its entrance is in latitude 67 cleg. 18 min. 05 sec, and longitude 81 deg. 
25 min. 20 sec. 

The next day large herds of walrusses were seen upon the drift ice, and 
all the boats were sent to kill some for the sake of the oil. The sportsmen 
found them lying huddled together, piled upon one another. They waited 
quietly to be shot, and were not greatly alarmed even after one or two 
volleys. They suffered the people to debark on the ice near them, but on 
their near approach displayed a somewhat pugnacious purpose. After 
they got into the water three were struck with harpoons and killed. When 
first wounded, they were quite furious : one of them resolutely attacked 
Captain Lyon's boat, and injured it with his tusks. Those which remained 
uninjured surrounded the wounded animals, and struck them with their 
tusks ; whether to assist their escape, or with a hostile intention, cannot be 
ascertained. Two of the animals killed were females, and one weighed 
over fifteen hundred pounds, which was not considered an uncommon bulk. 
The strength of the walrus is very great. One of them being touched with 
an oar, seized it with his flippers, and snapped it with the utmost ease. 
Many of these animals had young ones, which, when assailed, they carried 
off, either between their flippers or on their backs. They were most easily 
killed with musket-balls, even after being struck with the harpoon, as their 
skins are so tough as to resist a whaling lance. 

On the 15th, the ships reached Igloolik, for the situation of which we 
refer our readers to the map. Here they found a new band of Exquimaux, 
who proved to be the acquaintances and relatives of those of Winter 
Island. These people dwelt not in snow huts, but in tents, made of the 
skins of the walrus and seal, the former shaved thin enough to allow the 
transmission of light. They were clumsily made, and supported by a kind 
of tent-pole, constructed by tying bones or deer's horns together. The 
edges of the tents were kept down by placing stones upon them. To keep 
the whole fabric erect, a thong was extended from the top to a large stone 
at the distance of a few yards. These abiding places had little appearance 
of affording comfort or convenience. 

From these people Captain Parry learned that he had unquestionably 
been coasting the continent. He then determined to attempt to penetrate 
a large inlet, stretching west-ward from Igloolik, which, at the time of his 
arrival, was closed by a fixed barrier of ice, and which he named The 
Strait of the Fury and Hecla. We shall not follow the navigators in their 
arduous but unsuccessful efforts to penetrate west-ward at this point, as 
we have already alloted more space to their adventures than consists with 
our intended limits. Suffice it to say, that after persevering in the attempt 
till the 30th of September, they found themselves as far from the attain- 
ment of their object as at first. The cold weather then setting in, they 
were compelled to lay the ships up at Igloolik. 

One important point was settled, however, beyond the possibility of 
doubt. Finding his researches ineffectual by water, Captain Parry under 
took to explore the Strait of the Fury and Hecla by land. He found it 



DEPARTMENT OF TKAVEL. 917 

continuous, and pursued his journey far enough to see the open sea beyond, 
thus proving the existence of a passage at this point, though it was then, 
and probably ever will be, closed by an insurmountable barrier of ice. 
Besides this result of his endeavors, the position of Cockburn Island, and 
indeed of all the lands adjacent to Igloolik, was ascertained, and correctly 
laid down on the map. 

Besides the Esquimaux found at Igloolik, our friends had the society of 
the savages of Winter Island, who rejoined them shortly after their arri- 
val. We are sorry that we cannot relate the adventures and observations 
of this winter, as they are extremely entertaining ; but as they are not 
important in their nature, we trust to be excused for omitting them. 

Igloolik is a low island, ten miles long and six broad, and exhibits the 
same appearance of sterility as the adjacent continent, excepting in places 
which have been inhabited by the natives. There, the accumulation of 
animal substances has produced a luxuriant vegetation. In some parts 
there are spots several hundred yards in extent, covered with bright green 
moss. The whole land seems to be composed of innumerable fragments of 
thin schistose limestone, some of which contain the impressions of fossil 
remains, while others present the cellular structure usually found in madre- 
porite. The interior is almost an entire swamp ; but there are rising 
grounds, which, with the remains of Esquimaux habitations upon them, 
are excellent landmarks. 

East of Igloolik is a group of small islands called by Captain Parry 
Calthorpe Islands. Like almost all the land in this vicinity, they are low, 
but their geology differs from that of Igloolik, and resembles that of Winter 
Island, being composed of gneiss. Two of this group, however, are high and 
rugged. From the top of one of these there is a view of the adjacent shores. 

The entrance of the Strait of the Fury and Hecla is about three miles 
wide, and is formed by two projecting headlands between which the tide 
rushes with great velocity. The south shore is high, but of gradual ascent, 
perfectly smooth a-ud composed of beautifully variegateds and-stone. Be- 
yond the entrance the land is bold and mountainous. Captain Parry, who 
it will be remembered explored the southern shore of the Strait, states the 
hills to consist of £ray gneiss and red granite, rising, in some instances, a 
thousand feet above the level of the sea. In some places he saw slate, and 
in others Rand-stone. He has left no positive data, by which we may 
determine the length of this Strait ; but as he was rather more than a day 
in accomplishing the distance on foot, by a circuitous route, we may con- 
clude that it does not exceed fifteen or twenty miles. From the point 
where bis journey terminated he saw a continuous sea to the westward, 
open and unobstructed save by ice and by one small island. 

Ther<* are several islands in the Strait of the Fury and Hecla. On one 
of these (Liddon Island) abundance of beautifully veined clay iron-stone 
was found. The other minerals were asbestos, crystals of carbonate of 
lime, and a great variety of sand-stone, of which the island is formed. 

Amherst Island is flat, and on the northern part is formed of black slate, 
with strong indications of coal. This part of the island is utterly bare 
of vegetation. In a low cliff of black and rugged slate there is a beauti- 
ful a*id romantic grotto. The water oozing through the sides and roof, 
has formed the most brilliant stalactites, which form a splendid contrast 
wit]? the shady part of the ebon grotto behind. The other part of the 



918 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

island is of clay and limestone, on which there is a very scanty covering 
of shriveled grass and moss. 

The winter in Igloolik was spent like the preceding one, in amusements 
on board ship, and intercourse with the Esquimaux. 

On the 9th of August the ships ran out of their harbor, where they 
hod been detained three hundred and nineteen days. They were so 
embarrassed by the ice, that little use could be made of their sails ; nev- 
ertheless, by the 30th of the month they passed Winter Island, having 
been carried three degrees by the drift in which they were beset. On 
the 9th of October, they made the Orkney Islands, and on the 10th reach- 
ed Lerwick in Shetland, where they were received with many congratula- 
tions on their safe return. 

Third Voyage. The British Government having resolved to fit out a 
third expedition, under Captain Parry, the Hecla and Fury were made 
ready for sea, the latter under the command of Captain Hoppner, and 
sailed from England on the 16th of May 1824. They were to attempt 
the northwest passage at Prince Regent's Inlet. Having crossed the At- 
lantic without any material adventure, they made the bay of Lievely in 
Disko Island on the 5th of July. 

Sailing up Baffin's Bay, on the 17th the ships came to ice, and after 
many obstructions, only penetrated seventy miles to the westward. Here 
they encountered a hard gale, and sustained several shocks that would have 
crushed any ship of ordinary strength. They reached Lancaster's Sound 
On the 10th of September. The winds not being favorable, the ships 
made small progress, and on the 13th the crews had the mortification to 
perceive the sea ahead covered with ice, in attempting to penetrate which 
they were soon immovably beset. Nevertheless, the exertions of Captain 
Parry and his coadjutor were unremitting. 

The officers landed at one place, a little east of Admiralty Inlet. The 
vegetation was, as usual in those regions, very scanty. With great exer- 
tion and extreme difficulty, the expedition reached Port Bowen in Prince 
Regent's Inlet, on the 27th, where, by the middle of October, Captain 
Parry deemed it advisable to lay up the ships for the winter. Several 
journeys inland proved the country to be exceedingly broken and rugged ; 
so much so that the researches of the explorers were of necessity confined 
to a very limited extent. 

About midnight on the 27th of January, a brilliant display of the Au- 
rora Borealis was observed. It broke out in a single compact mass of 
yellow light, appearing but a short distance above the land. This light, 
notwithstanding its general continuity, sometimes appeared to be composed 
of numerous groups of rays, compressed laterally, as it were, into one, its 
limits to right and left being well defined and nearly vertical. Though 
always very brilliant, it constantly varied in intensity ; and this appeared 
to be produced by one volume of light overlaying another, as we see the 
darkness of smoke increase when cloud rolls over cloud. While some of 
the officers were admiring the exceeding beauty of the phenomenon, they 
were suddenly astonished at seeing a brilliant ray shoot down from the 
general mass between them and the land, thence distant about three thou- 
sand yards. 

The principal animals seen were bears, foxes, hares and mice, but no 



DEPARTMENT- OF TRAVEL. 919 

deer or wolves. These appeared but rarely, and the same may be said of 
the feathered creation. In July, a canal was sawed in the ice, and the 
ships were towed to sea. Captain Parry hoped to sail over to the western 
shore of the inlet, but he had only made eight miles in the intended direc- 
tion, when he was stopped by the ice. As no opening appeared in that 
quarter, he determined to try to cross more to the northward. The most he 
gained was some knowledge of the character of the shores. 

On the 30th of July, the ships being beset close to the land, a hard 
gale brought the ice close upon them. The Hecla received no damage 
but the breaking of two or three hawsers ; but the Fury was forced on 
shore. She was heaved off again, with little injury, but this was but the 
commencement of her misfortunes. On the 1st of July, she was again 
nipped, and so severely strained as to leak a great deal. As the tide fell, 
her stern, which was aground, was lifted several feet, and the Hecla also 
remained aground. No place was found where the Fury might be hove 
down to repair the damage, as the shore was everywhere lined with masses 
of grounded ice. The ships were again made to float, but it was found, 
notwithstanding incessant labor on board the Fury, that four pumps con- 
stantly going could hardly keep the water under. In these circumstances 
the only harbor that could be found was formed by grounded masses of ice, 
(vithin which the water was from three to four fathoms deep at low tide. 

On the night of the 2d, the ice came in with great violence, and again 
forced the Fury on shore. The strength and number of the Hecla's haw- 
sers only saved her from sharing the same fate. In the meanwhile the 
crew of the Fury were completely exhausted by labor, and their hands had 
become so sore by the constant friction of the ropes that they could no 
longer handle them without mittens. In this situation it was determined 
to land the stores and provisions of the vessel, in order that she might 
undergo a complete repair. 

Accordingly anchors were carried to the beach, by which the grounded 
icebergs that formed the harbor were secured in their position, thus enclos- 
ing a space just sufficient to admit both ships. In this position a great 
part of the Fury's stores were landed. The injury was found to be more 
severe than had at first been supposed ; indeed, it appeared that the com- 
pactness of her fabric had alone saved her from sinking. Nevertheless, no 
exertion was spared to render her seaworthy again, though the daily press- 
ure of the ice was another, and a very great disadvantage. 

In spite of every effort, it was found impossible to save the Fury, and 
the Hecla was greatly endangered in the attempt. She was compelled to 
leave the land and drift about among the ice, to avoid being forced on 
shore. On returning, Captain Parry found that the Fury had been driven 
farther on the beach than before, and nine feet of water were in her hold. 
Her keel and bottom were more injured than ever. The first glance satis- 
fied Captain Parry that the vessel could never return to England. By 
and with the advice of a council of his officers, therefore, he decided to 
leave her to her fate, and as his provisions would barely suffice for another 
twelvemonth, to return home. In pursuance of this resolution the Hecla 
reached Sheerness on the 21st of October. On the eastern shore of 
Prince Regent's Inlet is Cape Kater, the most southern point attained by 
the ships in this expedition. It is in latitude 71 deg. 53 min. 30 sec. and 
longitude 90 deg. 03 min. 45 sec. 



920 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 

This intrepid navigator was born at Spilsby, in Lincolnshire, in the year 
1786. In 1800, he went as a midshipman, on board the Polyphemus ; and, 
in 1802, proceeded with Captain Flinders, to New Holland, in the Inves- 
tigator, from which vessel, on its arrival at Port Jackson, in July, 1803, 
he was removed, as supernumerary master's-mate, to the Porpoise store- 
ship, and was shortly afterwards wrecked on a coral reef. He then 
joined the Bellerophon, in which he was engaged at the battle of Trafal- 
gar; and, some time after, was appointed an acting lieutenant of the Bed 
ford, in which he accompanied the royal family of Portugal from Lisbon to 
South America ; and, returning to Europe, assisted at the blockade of 
Flushing, where he continued till 1814, when the Bedford was ordered out 
as part of the expedition against New Orleans, where he greatly dis- 
tinguished himself by his skill and valor. In 1815, he was made first 
lieutenant of the Forth; and, in January, 1818, was appointed to the 
command of the Trent brig, then about to accompany Captain Buchan on 
a voyage to Spitzbergen ; and, on his return, he offered to undertake a 
journey to the North Pole, from the shores of the former, by traveling in 
sledge-boats across the ice. 

In the early part of 1819, he was selected to head an expedition, over 
land, from Hudson's Bay, to the Arctic Ocean ; and having embarked at 
Gravesend, on the 23d of May, arrived at the former place on the 30th 
of August ; and, on the 9th of September, began to ascend the streams 
between York Factory and Cumberland House, a journey of six hundred 
and ninety miles, which he performed in about six weeks, having been 
nearly killed by an accident, which he thus relates : — ' In the afternoon, 
whilst on my way to superintend the operations of the men, I had the 
misfortune to slip from the summit of a rock into the river, betwixt two 
of the falls. My attempts to regain the bank were, for a time, ineffectual, 
owing to the rocks within my reach having been worn smooth by the action 
of the water ; but, after I had been carried a considerable distance down 
the stream, I caught hold of a willow, by which I held until two gentle- 
men came in a boat to my assistance.' From Cumberland House he pro- 
ceeded along the snow, to Fort Chepywan, where he arrived on the 26th 
of March, 1820, after having walked eight hundred and fifty-seven miles, 
with a weight on his ancles, the whole distance, of nearly three pounds ; 
and in the course of which, he describes the cold to have been so severe, 
that ' the tea froze in the tin pots before it could be raised to the mouth, 
and even a mixture of spirits and water became thick by congelation.' 
On the 29th of July, he arrived at Fort Providence, whence he pro- 
ceeded to the Yellow Knife River, and directed his course towards the 
Polar Sea, through a country never before visited by a European ; winter- 
ing, on his way thither, at Fort Enterprise, near the head of the Copper 
Mine River, where he remained, in a hut built by the Canadians, till the 
end of June, 1821 ; during which time, he wrote great part of his journal, 
and in which year he was made a commander. 

On the 7th of July, he reached the westerly part of the Copper Mine 
River ; a few days afterwards, traversed the Copper Mountains, and pitch- 
ing his tont beneath them, sent forward in advance, his two Esquimaux 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 921 

interpreters, to inform their countrymen of his approach, and of the object 
of his expedition. After reconnoitering the mouth of the Copper Mine 
River, and giving to one of the neighboring promontories the name of 
Cape Hearne, he embarked in a canoe, on the 21st of July, and ' com- 
menced the navigation of the Arctic Ocean, with a voyage before him 
of not less than one thousand two hundred geographical miles ; Fort 
Churchill, on the western shore of Hudson's Bay, being the nearest spot 
at which he could hope to meet with a civilized being.' The tempestuous 
weather, however, the shortness of his provisions, and the fears of the 
Canadians, who were unwilling to proceed further, compelled him to land 
at Cape Flinders. Hence he proceeded along the coast to Point Turn- 
again, now called the Duke of York's Archipelago ; and having carried his 
researches so far as ' to favor the opinion of those who contend for the 
practicability of a north-west passage,' he, on the 25th of August, termi- 
nated his survey of the coast, at the mouth of Hood's River, where he 
left, in a box, an account of his proceedings, for the information of Cap- 
tain Parry, who was then exploring the Arctic Sea in an easterly direction. 

On the 31st of August, Captain Franklin, having broken up his canoes 
to make smaller ones, commenced his return to Fort Chepywan, where he 
arrived in July, 1822, after one of the most appalling and disastrous 
journeys ever recorded. During the time it occupied, his principal food 
was tripe de roche, leather, and boiled bones ; three of his companions 
died of cold and hunger, and two were murdered, and devoured uncon- 
sciously by the remainder. The nights, in addition to the danger attend- 
ing them from the frequency of the wolves, were so chilly, that the tents 
of himself and his party were, every morning, surrounded with snow to 
the height of three or four feet ; and the blankets that covered their bed 
so hardened with frost that it was with difficulty they could be folded. 
Several times Captain Franklin fainted from fatigue, and the ice on which 
he kept continually falling, prevented him from traveling at the rate of 
more than two or three miles per day ; often had he to wade up to his 
waist through water, where the temperature was scarcely above the freez- 
ing point ; and, on one occasion, he was upset in his canoe, and only pre- 
vented, by clinging to a rock, from being dashed to pieces in the cataracts 
of the rapids. The following extract from his journal, will give some idea 
of the sufferings he endured: — 'A partridge being shot, the feathers were 
torn off, it was held to the fire a few minutes, and then divided into six 
portions. I and my companions ravenously devoured our shares, as it was 
the first morsel of flesh either of us had tasted for thirty-one days ; unless, 
indeed, the small gristly particles which we found occasionally adhering to 
the pounded bones may be termed flesh.' The delivery of Captain Frank- 
lin and his party from the death with which hunger, fatigue, and disease 
daily threatened them, was owing to the assistance of some Indian hun- 
ters, who came to them in their last stage of despair. ' They treated us,' 
says the captain, ' with the utmost tenderness, gave us their snow-shoes, 
and walked without any themselves, keeping by our sides that they might 
lift us when we fell. They prepared our encampment, cooked for us, and 
fed us as if we had been children : evincing humanity that would have 
done honor to the most civilized people.' 

On his arrival in England, Captain Franklin was made a post-captain ; 
he married, in August, 1823, the daughter of William Penden, Esq., 



922 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



architect of the king's stables at Brighton ; and, at the end of the same 
year, submitted to Lord Bathurst ' a plan for an expedition over-land to 
the mouth of the Mackenzie River, and thence, by sea, to the north-west- 
ern extremity of America; with the combined object, also, of surveying 
the coast between the Mackenzie and Copper Mine Rivers ; ' an expedi- 
tion which he was permitted to superintend, upon his showing to govern- 
ment, that 'in the proposed course, similar dangers to those of the former 
over-land expedition were not to be apprehended.' 

Accordingly, on the 16th of February, 1825, he embarked at Liverpool, 
having undergone ' a severe struggle between the feelings of affection and 
a sense of duty,' in taking leave of his wife, whose death, then hourly 
expected, took place six days after his departure. On the 29th of June, 




CAPTAIN SIR JOHN FRANKLIN, K. H. C. 

he arrived at the Methye River, and, in the following August, at the left 
bank of the Mackenzie, whence he proceeded to the mouth of that river, 
and, shortly after, found salt water; in commemoration of which, he landed 
on an island which he had discovered, and hoisted on a pole a silk union- 
jack, sewed and given him by his wife, ' under the express injunction that 
it was not to be unfurled before the expedition reached the sea.' On 
leaving this island, which he called Garry's, and where he had deposited, 
beneath a signal-pole, a letter for Captain Parry, he commenced his ascent 
of the Great Bear Lake River, on the banks of which he remained till the 
summer of 1826, when, in spite of many dangers and obstacles, he pro- 
ceeded to about half-way between Mackenzie River and Icy Cape, in lati- 
tude 70 deg. 26 min. N., and longitude 148 deg. 52 min. W.; at which 
point he calculated he could not with safety proceed further. His feelings 
at being compelled to return, he thus expresses in his journal : ' It was 
with no ordinary pain that I could now bring myself even to think of 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 



923 



relinquishing the great object of my ambition, and of disappointing the 
flattering confidence that had been reposed in my exertions. But I had 
higher duties to perform than the gratification of my own feelings ; and a 




CAPTAIN CROZIER. ("TERROR.") 

mature consideration of all things, forced me to the conclusion that we 
had reached that point, beyond which perseverance would be rashness, 
and the best efforts must be fruitless.' 




COMMANDER FITZJAMES. (CAPTAIN — "EREBUS.") 

On the 1st of September, 1827, Captain Franklin arrived at Liverpool, 
from New York, where he had received every mark of attention both pub- 
lic and private ; and, in the same year, he was presented by the Geo 



924 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



graphical Society of Paris, with their annual gold medal, value twelve 
hundred francs, and also elected a corresponding member of that institu- 
tion. In November, 1828, he married a second time j in the following 




LIEUT. GRAHAM GORE. (COMMANDER.) 



year had the honor of knighthood conferred upon him, and also the degree 
of D. C. L. by the University of Oxford ; and, in 1830, he was appointed 
commander of the Rainbow. In both expeditions to the Arctic Sea, Cap- 
tain Franklin was accompanied by Dr. Richardson, a journal of whose dis- 




LEEOT. FAIRHOLME. 



coveries is appended to the former's second narrative, which, as well as 
that containing an account of his first voyage, combines the most intense 
interest with the most valuable information, and is written with great spirit, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL, 



925 



slegance, and accuracy. In the course of his perilous journey, by sea and 
land, Captain Franklin evinced a contempt of personal danger in the pur- 
suit of his enterprise, and a degree of kind-heartedness to, and considera- 




LIEUT. H. T. D. LE VESCONTE. 



tion for, those who accompanied him, that has rendered him equally the 
pride of his friends, and an honor to his country. 

On the 19th of May, 1845, Sir John sailed from England in search of 
the North West Passage. He had two vessels, the Erebus and Terror ; 
the crews, officers, and men numbered one hundred and thirty-eight. On 




LIEUT. DES VCEUX. (MATE.) 



the 26th of July, sixty-eight days afterwards, they were seen by a whale 
ship, moored to an iceberg near the centre of Baffin's Bay. No special 
anxiety was entertained respecting them until the beginning of 1848, for 



926 



AMEBIC AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



Franklin had intimated that the voyage would probably continue for three 
years, and that they might be the first to announce their own return. 
But as month after month passed away without any tidings, an anxious 




S. STANLEY. (SURGEON.) 

and painful sympathy sprung up in the public mind, and the British gov- 
ernment determined that a search for the missing vessels should be made, 
in three different quarters, by three separate expeditions fitted out for that 
purpose. 

One quarter, the region known as Boothia, was beyond the scope of 




C. H. OSMER. (PURSER.) 

these expeditions, and Lady Franklin determined to organize an expedi- 
tion to explore that region. She appropriated ail the means under her 
control, and a subscription supplied the deficiency. The Prince Albert, a 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 927 

vessel of ninety tons burthen, was fitted out at Aberdeen, and Captain 
Forsyth, of the Royal Navy, offered his gratuitous services as commander. 
At about the same time, Mr. Henry Grinnell, a wealthy merchant of New 
York, fitted out, at his own cost, two vessels, — the Advance and the Res- 
cue, — and dispatched them to the Arctic Seas to aid in the search for Sir 
John. An exceedingly interesting narrative of the voyage has been pub- 
lished by Dr. Kane, the surgeon, naturalist and journalist of the expedition. 

Time passed on, and all the vessels of the various expeditions returned 
to port without any tidings of the lost ones. In May, 1853, Mr. GrinneH 
again fitted out the Advance for the purpose of continuing the search, if 
necessary, for two years. She had a company of seventeen persons, under 
the command of Dr. Kane. She has been absent for over two years, and 
fears are entertained for the safety of her noble commander and his brave 
companions. 

Subsequent to the departure of the Advance, the fate of Sir John 
Franklin and his crew was ascertained. They had perished of hunger and 
hardships, in attempting to reach the settlements of the Hudson's Bay 
Company, by an overland journey from the Arctic Seas. Relics of the 
ill-starred voyagers were discovered by some agents of the company in 
the possession of the Esquimaux Indians. These relics consisted of philo- 
sophical instruments, watches, rings, spoons, etc., bearing the initials of 
Sir John and his companions. These had been picked up by the Indians 
at the place where the navigators had so miserably perished. 

TRAVELS IN AFRICA.— PARK DENHAM, CLAPPERTON, LANDER, AND 

OTHERS. 

The vast continent of Africa, measuring 5000 miles in length, and 
about 4700 in its greatest breadth, and the area of which is calculated at 
12,000,000 square miles, or nearly one-fourth of the entire land area of 
the globe, has presented greater obstacles to human enterprise than any 
other equal portion of the earth's surface. The peculiar physical condi- 
tion of Africa has operated as one cause of her isolation from the rest of 
the world. The other portions of our earth situated under the tropics 
consist generally either of sea, or of narrow peninsular tracts of land, the 
clusters of islands blown upon the sea-breeze. Africa, on the other hand, 
presents scarcely one gulf or sea-break in its vast outline. A consequence 
of this compact geographical shape of a continent, the greater part of 
which is within the torrid zone, is its subjection, throughout its entire extent, 
to the unmitigated influence of the sun's heat. All that is noxious in cli- 
mate we are accustomed to associate with Africa. Here stretching out 
into a boundless desert, where for days the traveler toils amid burning 
sands under a stifling sky — there covered with dense and swampy jungle, 
breathing out pestilence, and teeming with all the repulsive forms of animal 
life, the African continent seems to defy the encroachments of European 
civilization. And although, probably, our ideas of these African horrors 
will be modified by more accurate knowledge, enough seems ascertained 
to prove that the lying open of interior Africa to the general flood of hu- 
man influence will be among the last achievements of the exploring spirit 
of our race. 

Notwithstanding the difficulties which lie in the way, Africa has at all 



928 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

times been an object of curiosity and interest to the inhabitants of the civ- 
ilized parts of the earth ; and scientific zeal, the desire of extending traffic, 
and even the mere thirst for adventure, have prompted many expeditions 
for the purpose of exploring its coast and making discoveries in its inte- 
rior. The ancients appear to have acquired much knowledge of Africa, 
which was afterwards lost, and had to be reacquired by the moderns for 
themselves. The African coasts of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea 
were not only familiar to the ancient geographers, but were inhabited 
by populations which performed a conspicuous part in the general affairs 
of the world, and ranked high in the scale of civilization — the Egyptians, 
Carthaginians, etc. Nor, if we may believe the evidence which exists in 
favor of the accounts of the circumnavigation of Africa by ancient naviga- 
tors, were the other coasts of the continent — those, namely, which were 
washed by the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean — unvisited by northern 
ships. Regarding the interior of Africa, too, the knowledge possessed by 
the ancients, although very meagre in itself, was nearly as definite as 
that possessed by their modern descendants, until within a comparatively 
recent period. As far as the northern borders of the Great Desert, their 
own personal observation might be said to extend ; and respecting the 
wandering tribes of black and savage people living farther to the south, 
they had received many vague notices. The Nile being one of the best- 
known rivers of the ancient world, its origin and course were matters of 
great interest, and the African geography of the ancients, in general, may 
be said to consist of speculations respecting tins extraordinary river. 
The first mention made of the other great African river, the Niger, is by 
Ptolemy, who lived seventy years after Christ. Ptolemy believed that 
this river discharged itself ultimately into the Nile ; others, however, did 
not admit this conclusion, and acknowledged that the real course of the 
Niger was a mystery. 

Such are some of the more prominent points in the ancient geography 
of Africa. How wild and inacurate must have been the notion enter- 
tained respecting the shape and total extent of the African continent, 
may be judged from the fact, that one geographer describes it as an irreg- 
ular figure of four sides, the south side running nearly parallel to the 
equator, but considerably to the north of it ! Others, again, held forth 
the fearful picture of Central Africa as a vast burning plain, in which no 
green thing grew, and into which no living being could penetrate ; and 
this hypothesis of an uninhabitable torrid zone became at length the gen- 
erally received one. 

The invasion of Africa by the Arab races in the seventh century 
wrought a great change in the condition of the northern half of that con- 
tinent. Founding powerful states along the Mediterranean coasts, these 
enterprising Mohammedans, or Moors, as they were called, were able, by 
means of the camel, to effect a passage across the Desert which had baffled 
the ancients, and to hold intercourse with the negroes who lived on its 
southern border along the banks of the Niger and the shores of Lake Tchad. 
In some of the negro states the Arabs obtained a preponderance, and 
with others they carried on an influential and lucrative commerce. The 
consequence was a mixture of Moorish and negro blood among the inhab- 
itants of the countries of Central Africa bordering on the Great Desert, 
as well as a general diffusion of certain scraps of the Mohammedan religion 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 929 

among the negro tribes. Hence it is that, in the innermost recesses of 
interior Africa at the present day, we find the negroes partly professing 
Paganism, partly Mohammedanism, but all practicing ceremonies and su- 
perstitions in which we observe the Pagan spirit with a slight Moham- 
medan tincture. 

It was not till the fifteenth century that the career of modern European 
discovery in Africa commenced. The Portuguese, leading the van of the 
nations of Europe in that great movement of maritime enterprise which 
constitutes so signal an epoch in the history of modern society, selected 
the western course of Africa as the most promising track along which to 
prosecute discovery ; their intercourse with the Moors having made them 
aware that gold and other precious commodities were to be procured in 
that direction. In the year 1433, Cape Bojador was passed by a naviga- 
tor called Gilianez ; and others succeeding him, passed Cape Blanco, and, 
exploring the entire coast of the Desert, reached at length the fertile 
shores of Gambia and Guinea. The sudden bending inwards of the coast 
line at the Gulf of Guinea gave a new direction and a new impulse to the 
activity of the Portuguese. Having no definite ideas of the breadth of 
the African continent, they imagined that, by continuing their course east- 
ward along the Gulf, they would arrive at the renowned country of the 
great Prester John, a fabulous personage, who was believed to reign with 
golden sway over an immense and rich territory, situated no one could tell 
where, but which some contended could be no other than Abyssinia. The 
Portuguese, while prosecuting their discoveries along the African coast, 
did not neglect means for establishing a commercial intercourse with those 
parts of the coast which they had already explored. Settlements or fac- 
tories for the convenience of the trade in gold, ivory, gum, different kinds 
of timber, and eventually also in slaves, were founded at various points of 
the coast between Cape Verd and Biafra. Various missionary settlements 
were likewise founded for the dissemination of the Roman Catholic faith 
among the natives. 

The chimera of Prester John was succeeded by the more rational hope 
of effecting a passage to India by the way of Southern Africa. This 
great feat, accordingly, was at length achieved by Vasco de jGama, who, 
in 1497, four years after the discovery of America by Columbus, persisted 
in his course to the south so far as to double the Cape of Good Hope, and 
point the way northward into the Indian Ocean. By his voyages and 
those of his successors, the eastern coast of Africa, from the Cape of 
Good Hope through the Mozambique Channel to the Red Sea, was soon 
defined as accurately as the western coast had been by the voyages of his 
predecessors ; and thus the entire outline and shape of the African con- 
tinent were at length made known. This great service to science and to 
the human race was rendered, it ought to be remarked, by the Portuguese, 
who may be said to have conducted the enterprise of the circumnavigation 
of Africa from its beginning to its end ; and this is perhaps the greatest 
contribution which the Portuguese, as a nation, have made to the general 
fund of human knowledge. 

The outline of Africa having thus been laid down on the maps, and the 

extent of its surface ascertained, the attention of discoverers was next 

turned to its interior. The efforts made by the Portuguese to explore 

Nigritia in search of Prester John have been already alluded to ; but it 

59* 



930 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

was by the other nations of Europe, especially the English, the French, 
and the Dutch, who, on the decline of the Portuguese power, began to 
compete with each other in this field of enterprise, that the greatest ad- 
vances were made in the knowledge of geography of the various parts of 
Africa, and of the races which inhabit it. For these last two hundred 
years, discoverers and travelers of various nations have been adding to our 
information respecting this vast continent ; and in consequence of their 
joint labors, some in one part, some in another, we are now able to form 
an idea, very general, it must, be admitted, but still tolerably distinct, of 
Africa and its inhabitants. In presenting a summary view of the progress 
of African discovery, from the period of the final circumnavigation of the 
continent, and its correct delineation in outline, down to the present time, 
it will be advantageous to take up its various divisions in the following 
order : — Western Africa, Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, Central Africa 
or Nigritia, and Northern Africa, including the Great Desert. 

Western Africa. — The shores of Western Africa, especially those 
which border the Gulf of Guinea, have retained to the present time the 
distinction which they acquired at the period of their discovery by the 
Portuguese, of being the market which European ships visit for African 
commodities. 

The Portuguese, as we have already mentioned, where the first to plant 
factories along this coast, from the southern termination of the Great 
Desert to Congo, and other maritime districts south of the equator. Al- 
lured by the profits of the slave trade, other European nations hastened to 
occupy stations on the same coast ; and towards the end of the eighteenth 
century, the number of European forts and factories round the Gulf 
of Guinea were said to be forty in all ; of which fifteen belonged to the 
Dutch, fourteen to the English, four to the Portuguese, four to the Danes, 
and three to the French. Deriving its principal commercial importance 
from the trade in negroes, which this chain of forts was intended to guard, 
Western Africa has, since the abolition of the slave trade, fallen consider- 
ably out of view. According to the best information, however, that has 
been obtained, ' the territory is in the possession of a number of petty 
states, many of which compose aristocratic republics, turbulent, restless, 
licentious, and generally rendered more depraved by their intercourse with 
Europeans.' 

Proceeding from north to south, let us briefly notice the various coun- 
tries of the western coast, with the tribes which inhabit them. The most 
northerly is Senegambia, the name applied to the district watered by the 
two rivers Senegal and Gambia, commencing from the Desert, and extend- 
ing as far as the Grain Coast. According to Mungo Park, this territory 
is inhabited by four tribes — the Feloops, the Jaloffs, the Foulahs, and the 
Mandingoes. In all these tribes, part are Mohammedans by profession ; but 
the great body of the people are Pagans, called by their Mohammedan 
brethren Kafirs, or infidels, and practicing the Fetish form of worship ; 
that is, the worship of inanimate objects. The Feloops were described 
by Park as a gloomy and revengeful race, but honorable and faithful in 
their dealings with friends ; the Jaloffs as an active and warlike people, 
with jet-black skins, but among the most handsome of the negroes, divided 
intc several principalities, and excelling in the manufacture of cotton 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 931 

cloth ; The Foulahs — a race of more importance in Africa than Park 
imagined — as of a tawny complexion, with soft silky hair and pleasing 
features, much attached to a pastoral life ; and the Mandingoes, who are 
hy far the most numerous people in this part of Africa, as of a mild, 
sociable, and obliging disposition, the men commonly above the middle-size, 
well-shaped, strong, and capable of enduring great labor, the women good- 
natured, sprightly and agreeable. 

The tract of country adjoining Senegambia on the south, and stretching 
along the Gulf of Guinea, from the Grain Coast to the Bight of Biafra, 
has been named Upper Guinea, and includes, besides the colonies of Sierra 
Leone, Liberia, and Ivory and Gold Coasts, so noted for their unhealthi- 
ness, three native states — namely, Ashantee, Dahomey, and Benin. Our 
information respecting these negro kingdoms is derived from the discov- 
eries of various travelers, among whom may be mentioned Mr. Norris, 
who undertook a journey to the court of the king of Dahomey in 1772, 
with the hope of making arrangements beneficial to English trade ; Mr. 
Bowditch, who took part in a mission for a similar purpose to the king of 
Ashantee in 1817 ; and Captain Adams, who visited Benin at a later 
period. 

Ashantee is described as a hilly country, well watered by numerous 
streams, and covered almost entirely with that rich vegetable luxuriance, 
the labor of removing which, it has been observed, is as severe for the 
agriculturist as the opposite labor of fertilizing barren lands. The Ashan- 
tee negro clears the land by means of fire — thus both removing the rank 
vegetation, and spreading the soil with a rich manure, which yields two 
crops a year. Besides innumerable kinds of fruit and flowers, and all the 
giant trees of the tropics, the productions are sugar, tobacco, maize, rice, 
yams, and potatoes. All kinds of tropical animals likewise swarm in 
Ashantee. The human inhabitants of the whole region or empire are esti- 
mated at three millions, and though possessing, in a marked degree, some 
of the worst negro characteristics, they are, upon the whole, more ad- 
vanced than most of the African tribes, not only practicing a regular and 
tolerably skilled agriculture, but showing considerable ingenuity in several 
mechanical arts — as dyeing, tanning, pottery, weaving, and the manu- 
facture of instruments and ornaments out of gold, iron, etc. They are 
also cleanly, and well clad, and pay some attention to the building and 
decoration of their houses. Their government is an absolute monarchy, 
or nearly so ; the classes of society under the monarch being cabocees or 
nobles, gentry, traders, and slaves. Polygamy is allowed, but no one but 
the king possesses many wives. The royal number of wives is said to be 
precisely 3333, who, however, act also in other capacities ; as body- 
guards, etc. The most horrible of the Ashantee customs is that of sacri- 
ficing a number of persons on the death of every man of rank, the num- 
ber of victims being regarded not only as indicating the dignity of the 
deceased in this world, but as determining his rank in the next. The be- 
lief in a future state is one of the strongest of their religious ideas. Re- 
garding the origin of mankind, they, as well as other negro tribes of the 
Guinea Coast, have the following singular tradition : — The Great Spirit, 
they say, having created three white men and women, and as many black, 
offered the blacks the first choice of two articles which he held in his 
hand, one of which was a calabash f the other a sealed paper. The blacks 



932 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

chose the calabash, which contained gold, iron, and all the choice products 
of the earth ; in consequence of which the negro race to this day possess 
these blessings in abundance : while the sealed paper falling to the share 
of the whites, has conferred on them a higher gift of knowledge, where- 
with the contents of the calabash may be turned to account. This admis- 
sion of the superiority of the whites on the part of the Ashantees appears 
also in their belief that the good negroes become white in the future 
state. No part of Africa, or even of the world, is believed to be richer 
in gold than Ashantee. 

The kingdom of Dahomey, situated eastward from Ashantee, resembles 
it in the general aspect of the soil, and in many other particulars. It 
appears to be a recent negro state, formed by the conquest of a number 
of tribes by a powerful race from the interior. The government of the 
Dahomans, like that of the Ashantees, is an absolute monarchy ; but the 
Dahoman king seems to be still more despotic in practice than his Ashan- 
tee neighbor. When, in obedience to some superstitious freak, he wishes 
to send a message to some of his deceased relatives in the other world, he 
delivers the message to some attendant negro, whose head is immediately 
cut off, as a means of forwarding him to his destination ; and if the mon- 
arch has forgot any part of his communication, he immediately adds a 
postscript by a second messenger. The bloody custom of sacrificing a 
number of victims on the occasion of a great man's funeral is practiced at 
Dahomey as well as Ashantee. The Dahomans have similar religious 
beliefs with the Ashantees : their principal object of worship, appropri- 
ately enough, is the tiger. Of late years some improvement is said to 
have taken place in the habits of this fierce African race. 

Passing from Upper Guinea, of which Ashantee and Dahomey are the 
principal territories, we come next to Lower or South Guinea, which ex- 
tends from the Bight of Benin to the commencement of Southern Africa, 
and includes the provinces or districts of Loango, Congo, Angola and Ben- 
guela. The whole of this tract of coast presents the aspect of a country 
degraded and deteriorated by intercourse with Europeans, to a condition 
worse than its original negro barbarism. Here, more than three centuries 
ago, the Portuguese established themselves partly as missionaries of Chris- 
tianity, and partly as traders in slaves ; and while their efforts in the for- 
mer capacity, directed as they are by the most absurd and wretched big- 
otry, produced almost no beneficial effect, the curse of the slave traffic 
which they imported has adhered to the country with a tenacity which all 
the rigors of modern philanthropy cannot overcome. It is from these coasts 
that the exportation of negroes is said to go on at the present time more 
busily than it did before the abolition of the slave trade. The character- 
istics of the coast, and of the population which inhabit it, are determined 
by the brutal traffic of which it is the scene. It is impossible, within our 
limits, to give a description of the whole line of shore, of the small port- 
towns scattered along it, with their motley population of negroes, mulattoes, 
and slave-dealing Portuguese ; or of the negro districts in the interior, 
where the natives fight and kidnap each other to supply the demand for 
slaves on the coast. 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 933 



Southern Africa. Occupied with their commerce on the coasts of 
Western Africa, the Portuguese scarcely give a thought to the southern ex- 
tremity of the continent, the aspect of which was less promising ; and ac- 
cordingly, for a century and a half after the famous voyage of Vasco de 
Gama, the district round the cape of Good Hope remained a blank waste 
to Europeans. The prudent and enterprising Dutch, however, having em- 
barked in the East India trade, soon discovered the importance of the cape 
as a commercial station, and in the year 1650 they founded Cape Town, 
the capital of Cape Colony, the most flourishing of all the European settle- 
ments in Africa. Encroaching, without the least scruple, on the territories 
of the natives, the Dutch extended their possessions so as to include an 
area of upwards of 120,000 square miles, some spots of which were culti- 
vated and planted with vines, or laid out in corn-fields, but the greater 
part of which was converted into immense grazing farms. Under the Dutch 
the natives suffered dreadfully, numbers of them being reduced to bondage, 
and others driven into the interior to find subsistence as they best could. 
In 1795 the colony was taken by the English ; it was again restored to 
the Dutch in 1800 ; a second time, however, it was taken by the English, 
to whom it was finally ceded in the year 1815, and is now, accordingly, 
an English possession. Both before and after the cession of Cape Colony 
to the British, various travelers have undertaken journeys among the tribes 
inhabiting this extremity of Africa ; and no accounts are more full and in- 
teresting than those of the various missionaries, who, since the beginning 
of the present century, have employed themselves in the arduous task of 
carrying the doctrines of Christianity into the heart of the native tribes. 
The native tribes of Southern Africa are two in number — the Hottentots 
and the Caffres ; the former, so far as not extirpated, inhabiting the tract 
of country adjacent to Cape Colony on the western coast, and the other 
the tract adjacent to the colony on the eastern coast. 

Of the Hottentots of the colony and its vicinity, it is said that they have 
' become noted and almost proverbial for presenting man in his lowest es- 
tate, and under the closest alliance with the inferior orders of creation. It 
must, indeed, be admitted that they take particular pains to render their 
external appearance the most hideous that the human body can possibly 
present. Grease is poured over their persons in copious streams, which, 
being exposed to the perpetual action of smoke, forms on their skin a black 
and shining cake, through which the native color, a yellowish-brown, is 
scarcely perceptible. Grease in Africa forms the chief distinction of rank 
— the rich besmearing themselves with fresh butter, while the poorer 
classes are obliged to tear the fat from the bowels of slaughtered animals. 
They assign as a reason for this singular practice, an effect which has been 
readily admitted by judicious travelers — namely, that such a coating has, 
in this climate, a most salutary influence in defending them from the rays 
of the sun, and in averting many cutaneous disorders. Nature seems to 
have aided the task of disfiguring them, by covering the head with irregu- 
lar tufts of hard and coarse hair, and causing singular prominences, com- 
posed of fat, to jut out in parts where they are least ornamental. Nor do 
their habits of life present anything to redeem this outward deformity. 
Their kraals or villages, consist of a confused crowd of little conical 



934 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

hovels, composed of twigs and earth, In which large families sit and sleep 
without having room to stand upright. The fire in the middle fills these 
mansions with thick smoke, the floors being deeply covered with every 
species of filth. At festivals, when an ox or a sheep is killed, the Hotten- 
tots rip open the belly, tear out the entrails, which they throw on the 
coals, and feast on them before the animal is completely dead. Yet they 
are a friendly, hospitable race, living together in the greatest affection and 
harmony. The sluggish and senseless stupidity with which they have been 
so o-enerally taxed, seems to have been in a great measure produced by 
their degrading subjection to the Dutch boors.' It has been asserted that 
the Hottentots are destitute of all ideas of religion ; but this is not cor- 
rect. It is ascertained that they believe in a Supreme Being, as well as 
in an inferior spirit of malignant nature ; and that they practice certain 
superstitious rites, such as are usual among savages. 

Such is the description given of the Hottentots as they were under the 
Dutch rule. Since the Cape came into the possession of the British, they 
have not been treated with the same neglect and cruelty as they experi- 
enced from the Dutch, who used to prohibit Hottentots, equally with dogs, 
from entering their places of worship ; still, with some exceptions, arising 
from the beneficial effects produced in some places by the missionaries, the 
account seems to remain substantially true. Immediately to the north of 
the colony, and on the borders of the Snewburg or Snowy Mountains, are 
the Bosjesmans, or Bushmans, the most savage and degraded of all the 
South Africans. They were visited in 1797 by Mr. Barrow, private sec- 
retary to Lord Macartney, with the view of ascertaining whether friendly 
relations might not be entered into with them, to prevent their incursions 
upon the farms of the Europeans. 

Mr. Barrow, at the same period, crossed the frontier which divides the 
colony from the country of the Caffres, and made acquaintance with this 
race, differing widely in almost all respects from their neighbors the Bush- 
mans. He found them a handsome and spirited people, of frank and gen- 
erous deportment, leading a roaming pastoral life, and possessing numbers 
of cattle, in the rearing of which they seemed proficient. 

Before the commencement of the present century, little more was known 
respecting the original inhabitants of Southern Africa than what we have 
thus generally indicated. But in 1801, two gentlemen, Messrs. Trutter 
and Somerville, made an excursion to a considerable distance beyond the 
districts of the Bushmans and the Caffres, whom Mr. Barrow had visited, 
and discovered a large river, now called Orange River, flowing westward 
into the Atlantic. The banks of this river they found inhabited by a 
pastoral tribe called the Koranes ; and the information they received from 
this people inducing them to continue their journey still farther to the 
north, they at last reached what not a little surprised them — a city or 
town of two or three thousand houses, very neatly built, and well-arranged. 
The name of this city was Lattakoo ; and the accounts which the travelers 
brought back of it to the Cape, and of the friendliness with which they 
had been received by the Boshuanas, who were then the prevalent tribe, 
induced the government to send Dr. Cowan and Lieutenant Denovan to 
continue the discovery, and, if possible, make their way past Lattakoo, so 
as ultimately to reach Mozambique on the east coast. The issue of this 
expedition was unfortunate. The travelers reached Lattakoo in safety, 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 935 

but were killed at a distance of eleven days' journey beyond it. The 
same route was afterwards pursued by Dr. Henry Lichtenstein, who added 
considerably to the knowledge then possessed of this part of Africa. But 
the most enterprising traveler in these regions was Mr. John Campbell, a 
missionary, who, animated with an eager desire to spread Christianity 
among the rude Hottentots and Caffres, undertook a journey for that pur- 
pose in 1813. He reached Lattakoo, made known the object of his visit 
to Mateebe, king of the Boshuanas, and, after some importunacy, obtained 
leave to establish a missionary station in the capital. Having succeeded 
in the object of his expedition, Mr. Campbell returned, but made a second 
journey to Lattakoo in 1820. He found the missionary establishment in 
active operation, but little progress had been made in converting the natives, 
who manifested the most profound indifference on the subject of religion. 
Mr. Campbell now penetrated beyond Lattakoo, and came among tribes 
till then unknown, some of them showing a considerable advance in the arts 
of life, inhabiting neat villages, cultivating the ground, smelting iron and 
copper, and manufacturing various implements. He also came upon the 
borders of an immense desert, which, from its appearance, and the infor- 
mation which he was enabled to collect respecting it, he thought entitled to 
be named the Southern Sahara, as rivaling in extent the Great Northern 
Desert. Whether, as he was led to imagine, this Desert stretches from 
the tropic of Capricorn, where he saw its extremity, to the equator, is a 
point which can only be settled by farther discovery ; but the supposition 
does not appear probable. 

Subsequently to Mr. Campbell's journey, these regions have been visit- 
ed by other travelers, who have made us better acquainted with the 
tribes of the South Cape, by giving us details of their customs and man- 
ner of life. The latest of these is Mr. Robert Moffat, likewise a mission- 
ary. The general conclusion, from the accounts of these various travelers, 
seems to be, that the southern extremity of Africa is inhabited by two 
principal races — the Hottentots, who, both physically and intellectually, 
are far inferior to the average of mankind ; and the Caffres, a bold and 
savage, but promising race, resembling in their general features the natives 
of other parts of Africa, and divided into a number of tribes, who inhabit 
villages scattered through the country which borders on the Southern 
Desert. 

While describing the inhabitants of Southern Africa, we have left the 
general features of the country itself undescribed. The following passage 
will supply the deficiency : — ' Southern Africa consists,' says a writer, ' of 
a most strange assemblage of mountains and plains, of spots lovely and 
picturesque beyond description, and gifted with inexhaustible fertility, and 
of seemingly boundless plains, where barrenness reigns so completely para- 
mount, that the very principle of vegetation appears to be extinct. At a 
certain distance from the colony we enter upon regions over which the 
clouds of ignorance — almost the only clouds one meets with — still brood. 
We traverse large rivers, which rise no one knows where, and envelop their 
exits in equal obscurity. Ranges of mountains also, with appellations un- 
couth, and hiding no one knows what treasures of the animal and vegeta- 
ble kingdoms in their unvisited recesses, sweep before us along the verge 
of the horizon, dim, blue, and shadowy, like so many fragments of fairy- 
land. And if the great outlines of the landscape be original and bold, the 



936 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

filling up and coloring are no less so. Everything upon which the eye 
rests has the appearance of having been cast in a mould nowhere else 
made use of in the system of nature. Among the terrestrial animals, 
what bulk and fantastic formations ! How numerous and strikingly con- 
trasted are the groups that present themselves ! In their character and 
habits what extremes seem to meet ! How unspeakably lavish seems to be 
the waste of vitality ! Yet who will dare to say that, in this prodigious 
outpouring of animal life, there is a single creature that does not enjoy 
and adorn the scene on which it moves ? If there be anything we should 
be disposed to think out of place, it is the stunted representatives of hu- 
manity, who, under the name of Bushmen, roam in indescribable misery 
and degradation over those sublime savannahs. To a man of imagination, 
nothing more inspiring can be conceived than climbing one of the breezy 
peaks overlooking that strange wilderness, at the moment that the dawn is 
busily unfolding all its varied features. From every tree the heavy dew- 
drops pour like rain ; streams of white mist, smooth and glassy as a tran- 
quil river, float slowly down the valleys, reflecting from their surface the 
trees, and cliffs, and crags on either hand. Here, through openings 
between feathery mimosas, weeping-willows, and tall trembling reeds, we 
catch a glimpse of some quiet lake, the haunt of the hippopotamus ; while 
a herd of graceful purple antelopes are seen drinking on its further mar- 
gin. There, amidst thick clumps of camel-thorn, we behold a drove of 
giraffes, with heads eighteen feet high, browsing on the tops of trees. 
Elsewhere, the rhinoceros pokes his long ugly snout from a brake ; while 
the lion, fearless in the consciousness of his own strength, parades his 
tawny bulk over the plain, or reclines, in sphinx-like attitude, beneath 
some ancient tree.' 

Eastern Africa. With the exception of the countries bordering on 
the Red Sea; — Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia — which cannot be included in 
so general a survey as the present, the eastern coast of Africa is undoubt- 
edly the least-known portion of the whole circuit of the continent. The 
tract of country extending from the northern extremity of Caffreland to 
Cape Guardafui, and including the states or territories of Sofala, Mozam- 
bique, Zanguebar, and Ajan, was early visited by the Portuguese in their 
voyages to India ; and in the course of the sixteenth century, various 
settlements were planted in it by them, similar to those which they planted 
along the Guinea Coast. The most conspicuous difference was, that here 
the ruling race were not pure negroes, but men of Arabic descent, and 
vehement Mohammedans. It was from these that the Portuguese wrested 
the immense line of coast-territory which they once held in this part of 
Africa, and of which they made Mozambique the capital. On the ruin of 
the Portuguese power in India, their settlements in Eastern Africa declined ; 
the Arabs and blacks reconquered a great portion of their ancient territory ; 
and it is now merely by sufferance that the once-powerful Portuguese 
retain a footing on the coast at all. What they do possess, however, they 
guard with the utmost jealousy ; and they testify extreme aversion to the 
intrusion of any other European nation into those territories where they 
once lorded it so proudly. Mr. Salt, who visited Mozambique in 1808, 
found it to contain a population of less than three thousand, of whom only 
five hundred were Portuguese. ' The rural population of this part of 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 937 

Africa,' says Mr. Macculloch, ' is in the most degraded state ; and although 
the soil be naturally rich and productive, the culture of cotton, indigo, 
sugar, and other articles of commerce is wholly neglected. Rice, millet, 
and manioc are raised almost without labor, furnishing, with cocoa-nuts, 
almost the entire food of the slaves. The commerce of Mozambique has 
greatly decreased, in consequence of our exertions to suppress the traffic 
in slaves ; but although much diminished, the slave trade is still carried on 
to a considerable extent both with Brazil and Arabia. These slaves, who 
are chiefly of the tribe of the Monjores, and brought from the centre of 
the continent, a distance of forty or forty-five days' journey from the col- 
ony, are procured from the native merchants in exchange for salt, shells, 
tobacco, coarse cloths, etc. Goods costing about two dollars, will bring in, 
as far as the case may be, either a slave or an elephant's tusk, weighing 
from sixty to eighty pounds of ivory. Hippopotamus' tusks, gold dust, 
Columbo-root, gums, and amber, are the other chief exports.' 

From these few particulars, which include nearly all that is known of 
this part of Africa, it will appear that, with the exception of the infusion 
of the Mohammedan and Arabic element, which is here very strong, it 
bears a close resemblance to the corresponding portion of the western 
coasts. There are at the same impediments, arising from climate, to the 
acquisition of much knowledge of the country by Europeans, who, at best, 
are unable to penetrate farther than a few miles into the interior. It 
appears probable, indeed, that the last portion of the coast of Africa to 
be thoroughly explored will be these sites of the declining Portuguese 
colonies. 

Central Atrica. Under the general name of Central Africa may be 
included the whole of the interior of the continent south of the Great 
Desert. This immense extent of country may be divided into two parts 
— Southern Central Africa, lying between the tropic of Capricorn and 
the equator ; and Northern Central Africa, called also Souden, or Nigritia, 
lying between the equator and the Great Desert. The former is as yet 
totally unknown and unexplored ; and before our information respecting it 
can be at all authentic and accurate, two most difficult expeditions must 
have been rofade, which have not yet been so much as proposed — one from 
the Cape of Good Hope northwards as far as the Mountains of the Moon, 
the other transversely across the continent from Congo to Zanguebar or 
Mozambique. At what future period the spirit of enterprise may achieve 
these two journeys it is impossible to tell. 

Northern Central Africa, or Nigritia, has, on the other hand, been pen- 
etrated by travelers, who have advanced into it from all directions. From 
the earliest times this part of Africa attracted attention, as being the 
country through which the famous Niger flowed, on whose banks the great 
city of Timbuctoo, of the wealth of which vague accounts had reached the 
shores of the Mediterranean, was reputed to be situated. To ascertain 
the course of this river, and to reach this celebrated negro city, were the 
leading objects of all who engaged in the enterprise of African discovery. 
In the year 1618, an English company was formed for the purpose of 
opening up a communication with Timbuctoo, and not long afterwards a 
similar company was formed in France. For a century and a half the two 
Dations continued to compete with each other in the enterprise : the English 



938 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

trying to make their way up the river Gambia, which they imagined to be 
the outlet of the Niger ; the French, on the other hand, persevering along 
the Senegal, which seemed to them more likely to be identical with the 
Niger. Much useful information was acquired in these successive voyages 
respecting Western Africa; but no intelligence was obtained of the site of 
the great city of the negroes. It was clearly ascertained, however, that 
neither the Senegal nor the Gambia could be identical with the Niger, 
supposing the traditionary accounts of that river to be true. Three dis- 
tinct opinions respecting this river began to be entertained. Some said 
that there was no Niger at all, such as the ancients had described it, but 
that some river, branching off into the Senegal and Gambia, was alluded 
to. Others believed that the ancient accounts of the Niger as a river 
flowing towards the east was -correct, and that it was to be considered one 
of the upper branches of the Nile. A third party maintained that the 
supposition of the Niger being identical with the Nile was untenable, con- 
sidering the immense breadth of the continent, and that the true Niger was 
some stream rising in the interior of Africa, and flowing into the sea at 
some point of the western coast farther south than the Senegal and the 
Gambia. A subsequent modification of this opinion was, that the Niger 
did not flow into the sea at all, but terminated in some great marsh or lake 
in the interior of Africa, resembling the Caspian Sea. 

Such was the state of information, or rather of doubt, with respect to 
the course of the Niger, when, in the year 1788, a number of spirited 
men of science, including Lord Rawdon, Sir Joseph Banks, the bishop of 
Landaff, Mr. Beaufoy, and Mr. Stuart, formed themselves into an associa- 
tion for the purpose of prosecuting this and other questions of African 
geography to an issue. No sooner had the society been formed, than it 
commenced its labors. The first travelers, however, whom it sent out 
were cut off by death. One of them, Major Houghton, ascended the 
Gambia, and never returned ; it was afterwards ascertained that he had 
been killed by the Moors in the interior. It was at this juncture that the 
celebrated Mungo Park presented himself to the society. Born in the 
county of Selkirk, in Scotland, in the year 1771, and having been educa- 
ted for the medical profession, Park had just returned from a voyage to 
the East Indies in the capacity of assistant-surgeon on board one of the 
East India Company's vessels, when he offered his services to the associa- 
tion through Sir Joseph Banks. After due inquiry into Mr. Park's char- 
acter and qualifications, they were accepted. This was in 1793 ; but he 
did not depart on his expedition till the summer of 1795. His instructions 
were, on his arrival in Africa, ' to pass on to the river Niger either by the 
way of Bambouk, or by such other route as should be found most con- 
venient — that he should ascertain the course, and, if possible, the rise and 
termination of that river — that he should use his utmost exertions to visit 
the principal towns or cities in its neighborhood, particularly Timbuctoo 
and Houssa — and that he should be afterwards at liberty to return to 
Europe either by the way of the Gambia, or by such other route as, under 
all the then existing circumstances of his situation and prospects, should 
appear to him to be most advisable.' 

The ship in which Park sailed reached the African coast in the latter 
end of June 1795, and on the 5th of July the traveler took up his resi- 
dence in the house of an English settler in the village of Pisania, situated 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 939 

on the northern bank of the Gambia, at a considerable distance from the 
coast. After remaining here about five months, preparing for his journey 
into the interior, and acquiring information respecting the western parts 
of Africa, Park launched upon his perilous enterprise on the 2d of Decem- 
ber 1795. For three months he toiled on in a north-westerly direction, 
passing through various negro kingdoms, and numberless towns and villages, 
almost everywhere received with kindness and respect, although the cupidity 
of some of the negro sovereigns stripped him of most of the articles of 
value he had brought along with him, as a tax for allowing him to pass 
through their dominions. For a detailed account of all his adventures during 
the journey, we must refer to his own narrative, which has long and justly 
been regarded as one of the most interesting and best-written books in the 
English language. Suffice it to say, that after having pushed on till he 
found himself near the southern borders of the Great Desert, and when 
' fancy had already placed him on the banks of the Niger, and presented 
to his imagination a thousand delightful scenes in his future progress,' a 
cruel accident came to delay, and, as it seemed, utterly to prevent, the 
fulfillment of his 'golden dream.' In this part of Africa he found that 
the Moors, or men of Arab blood, were the ruling race, domineering over 
the negroes in the most insolent manner ; and while from the negroes, 
almost universally, he experienced kind treatment, the Moors he describes 
as the most barbarous and tyrannical of the human race. Accordingly, 
after entering the countries which, from their proximity to the Great 
Desert, were under the thraldom of the Moors, he proceeded with greater 
caution than he had found it necessary to adopt in passing through the 
countries inhabited by a pure negro population. His caution, however, 
was of no avail; on the 7th of March, 1796, he was carried away captive 
by a Moorish chief to Benown, a village on the margin of the Desert, 
where he was detained for nearly three months, enduring incredible hard- 
ships from the cruelty of his keepers, who persecuted him both as a 
stranger and as a Christian. 

Escaping at length from the hands of his tormentors, Park continued 
his journey in a south-easterly direction, passing, as before, through sev- 
eral negro kingdoms, where, however, the Moors seemed to exercise a 
powerful influence, and where, consequently, he was obliged to undergo 
much suffering and insult, although, even in the depths of his distress, he 
always found sympathy and compassion from some poor negro. On the 
21st of July, 1796, he was approaching a large town called Sego, the 
capital of the kingdom of Bambarra, in company with a party of negroes, 
who were proceeding thither, and who entertained him on the way with 
accounts of the traffic which went on at this town, and of the Great 
Water, or Joliba, which flowed past it. This stream Park had no doubt 
was the Niger, of which he was in search ; and so it proved. ' We rode 
together,' he says, ' through some marshy ground, where, as I was anx- 
iously looking around for the river, one of them called out, "Greo affilli!" 
(" See the water ! ") and looking forwards, I saw with infinite pleasure 
the great object of my mission — the long-sought-for majestic Niger glitter- 
ing to the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flow- 
ing slowly to the eastward. I hastened to the brink, and having drunk of 
the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all 
things for having thus far crowned my endeavors with success.' 



940 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Having thus been successful in reaching the banks of the long-sought 
Niger, Park would have pursued his journey along them so as to ascer- 
tain its farther course, and even trace it to its termination ; but his entire 
destitution of everything necessary for such an enterprise, and the reports 
which he received of the bigotry of the Moors who ruled in the districts 
through which he must pass, prevented him from advancing farther than 
Silla, a town considerably to the east of Sego. Accordingly, having col- 
lected all the information he could respecting the course of the river 
beyond this point — having done all that he could towards the settlement 
of the question of the course of the Niger — having ascertained the exist- 
ence of large trading cities in the interior of Africa, some of which he had 
visited, and the position of three others of which (namely, Jenne, Timbuc- 
too, and Houssa) he had learnt by accurate inquiry — having, moreover, 
accumulated a vast mass of information respecting the manners, customs, 
and social condition of the natives of Central Africa — Park returned to 
the coast along the banks of the Niger, and consequently by a route differ- 
ent from that which he had adopted on his journey inland. He reached 
Pisania on the 10th of June, 1797, having thus been absent twenty-one 
months in the interior of Africa. He arrived in London on Christmas Day 
in the same year ; was received with great enthusiasm by all classes ; pre- 
pared the narrative of his journey for publication ; and at length, in 1800, 
having in the meantime married, he settled as a medical practitioner in 
Peebles. 

Park's success gave an impulse to the spirit of discovery, and two 
attempts were made shortly after his return to follow up what he had 
begun. 'A German, named Hornemann, undertook to penetrate into the 
continent by way of Egypt, and succeeded in reaching Fezzan, whence he 
wrote, in April, 1800, to England; but no particulars relative to his 
future history are known. He was never again heard of till 1824, when 
Captain Clapperton, who followed the same route with a better issue, 
learnt that the German traveler had succeeded in penetrating from Fezzan 
to Nyffee, or Nouffie, on the Niger, where he fell a victim to dysentery. 
Hornemann's papers had been all accidentally burnt. 

In 1804, another enterprising spirit, Mr. Nicholls, endeavored to enter 
the African interior from the Calabar coast, in the Gulf of Guinea, but, at 
the very outset of his journey, he also perished from the pestilential fever 
of those latitudes.' At length Mr. Park — who, notwithstanding the 
public respect and domestic comfort which he enjoyed in the situation in 
which he had settled down, still hankered after a life of wandering in 
Africa, avowing, it is said, to Sir Walter Scott, who was one of his most 
intimate friends, that he preferred it to any other — consented, on the invi- 
tation of government, to undertake a second journey. 'All requisite 
preparations for the enterprise were completed before the end of January, 
and on the 30th of that month 1805, Park set sail from Portsmouth, in the 
Crescent transport, taking on board with him from the dockyards of that 
place four or five artificers.' He was accompanied also by his brother-in- 
law, Mr. Anderson, and a friend, Mr. Scott. When, on the 21st of March 
1805, the transport anchored in the Goree Roads, near the mouth of the 
Gambia, and ' Mr. Park's purposes were made known here, almost every 
man of the garrison volunteered his services for the expedition. The trav- 
eler selected thirty-five able-bodied men, and also accepted the offered 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 941 

services of one officer, Lieutenant Martyn, thinking it of consequence to 
have in the party some one already acquainted with the soldiers. Two 
experienced seamen from the Squirrel frigate were added to the party 
with the view of benefiting by their valuable assistance in sailing down 
the Niger. 

' Park communicated these arrangements by letter to the colonial de- 
partment, and thus he describes his departure from Goree : — " On the 
morning of the 6th of April we embarked the soldiers, in number thirty- 
five men. They jumped into the boat in the highest spirits, and bade adieu 
to Goree with repeated huzzas. I believe that every man in the garrison 
would have embarked with great cheerfulness ; but no inducement could 
prevail on a single negro to accompany me." ' Park's intentions with re- 
spect to this second journey were stated to government before his departure 
from England. He said that ' he would proceed up the Gambia, cross the 
country to the Niger, and travel down that river to its termination.'' Sail 
ing up the Gambia as far as Kayee, Park and his party commenced their 
land journey from that point on the 27th of April, in high spirits, and 
amply provided with all necessaries. * At Kayee he was able, for the first 
time, to perfect his preparations for the route, by attaching a few natives 
to his party. Isaaco, a Mandingo priest and merchant, and one well inured 
to long inland journeys, engaged himself to act as a guide to the expe- 
dition, and to give it the assistance of several negroes, his own personal 
attendants.' Unfortunately it was the worst season of the year for travel- 
ing, and the journey was one of continued toil and sickness. Before the 
19th of August more than three-fourths of the party had died, or been left 
behind to die. On that day, after leaving the place called Toniba, ' coming,' 
says Park, ' to the brow of a hill, I once more saw the Niger rolling its 
immense stream along the plain !' This was a pleasant sight for Park's 
companions. Several more of them, however, died before Sego, the capi- 
tal of Bambarra, was reached. Here, being kindly received by Mansong, 
the king of the Bambaraas, Park hoped to be able to obtain a vessel in 
which he might navigate the Niger to its termination. He waited for 
several weeks at Sansanding, a town a little below Sego, using all his en 
deavors to obtain from Mansong a canoe sufficient for his purpose. ' After 
much labor, he did get a vessel of the desired kind fitted up, and named 
it his Britanic majesty's schooner the Joliba. At Sansanding, on the 28th 
of October, Mr. Anderson underwent the fate of so many of his compan- 
ions, and regarding his death Park observes — " No event that took place 
during the journey ever threw the smallest gloom over my mind till I laid 
Mr. Anderson in the grave. I then felt myself as if left a second time 
lonely and friendless amidst the wilds of Africa." 

1 At this point the authentic account of Mungo Park's second journey 
ends. Isaaco's engagement here terminated, and the papers given to him 
by the traveler, and carried back to the coast, constitute the only records 
of the expedition which came from Park's own pen. These papers were 
accompanied by several letters, the most interesting of which is one (dated 
Sansanding, November 17) addressed to Lord Camden. In this letter 
Park says — " I am sorry to say, that of forty-four Europeans who left the 
Gambia in perfect health, five only are at present alive ; namely, three 
soldiers (one deranged in his mind), Lieutenant Martyn, and myself. 
From this account I am afraid that your lordship will be apt Sci jonsidei 



942 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

matters as in a very hopeless state ; but I assure you I am far from de- 
spairing. With the assistance of one of the soldiers, I have changed a 
large canoe into a tolerably good schooner, on board of which I this day 
hoisted the British flag, and shall set sail to the east, with a fixed resolu- 
tion to discover the termination of the Niger, or perish in the attempt. I 
have heard nothing that I can depend on respecting the remote course of 
this mighty stream, but 1 am more and more inclined to think that it can 
end nowhere but in the sea. My dear friend Mr. Anderson, and likewise 
Mr. Scott, are both dead ; but though all the Europeans who are with me 
should die, and though I myself were half dead, I would still persevere, 
and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at last 
die on the Niger.'''' ' 

These were the last words which Park sent to Europe ; the next intelli- 
gence was a vague rumor of his death. For five years, however, no au- 
thentic information of the event was received ; but from the exertions of 
Isaaco, Park's former guide, who was induced in 1810 to make a journey 
with a view to ascertain the traveler's fate, it appeared that his prophetic 
words had been accomplished, and that he had ' died on the Niger.' Isa- 
aco obtained the particulars from Amadi Fatouma, who acted as guide to 
the party onward from Sansanding. They were as follows : — Passing 
Jeune and Timbuctoo in safety, the little schooner, with Park and his sur- 
viving companions (eight in number) on board, reached Yaour, in the king- 
dom of Houssa. Not willing to delay his progress by landing, Park sent 
Amadi Fatouma, whose engagement as guide terminated here, on shore 
with presents to the king. These presents being treacherously appropri- 
ated by the inferior chief to whom Amadi delivered them, the king of 
Houssa, thinking his dignity insulted, sent an army after the schooner. 
The army came upon the schooner at a part of the river called Boussa. 
' There is before Boussa a rock extending across the river, with only one 
opening in it, in the form of a door, for the water to pass through. The 
king's men took possession of the top of this rock, until Park came up to 
it and attempted to pass. The natives attacked him and his friends with 
lances, pikes, arrows, and other missiles. Park defended himself vigor- 
ously for a long time ; but at last, after throwing everything in the canoe 
overboard, being overpowered by numbers, and seeing no chance of getting 
the canoe past, he took hold of one of the white men and jumped into the 
river ; Martyn did the same ; and the whole were drowned in their at- 
tempt to escape by swimming. One black remained in the canoe, the 
other two being killed, and he cried for mercy. The canoe fell into the 
hands of the natives. Amadi Fatouma, on being freed from his irons 
three months afterwards, ascertained these facts from the native who had 
survived the catastrophe.' 

From 1805 to 1822, various attempts were made to penetrate after 
Park into the heart of Nigritia. In 1809 Roentger, a German, proceed- 
ed from Morocco with a view to cross the Great Desert, but he seems to 
have been murdered by his guides. Shortly after, some information was 
obtained from two Americans, Adams and Riley, who were wrecked ofl' 
the coast of the Great Desert, and carried into the interior by the Arabs. 
Adams alleged that he had been carried as far as Timbuctoo, but little 
credit was attached to his statement. The famous Burckhardt was to at- 
tempt a journey into the interior from Egypt, but died before carrying his 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 943 

resolution into effect. In 1816 the British government, possessed with the 
idea, which we have seen that Park himself came latterly to entertain, 
that the Congo was the outlet of the Niger, fitted out two expeditions, one 
of which, under Captain Tuckey, was to ascend the Congo in vessels ; the 
other, under Major Peddie, was to penetrate the interior by Park's route, 
and, embarking on the Niger, to sail down it so as to meet Captain Tuckey, 
which would of course happen if the Niger and Congo were identical. 
Both parties were brought to a halt — the expedition up the Congo by 
cataracts, which prevented further navigation, and the land expedition by 
the hostility of the natives ; and the only result of consequence was to 
explode the hypothesis that the Niger and the Congo were the same. 

About the year 1819 attention was drawn to the possibility of pene- 
trating into Central Africa by a route not yet tried — namely, from Trip- 
oli through the Great Desert ; and as the bashaw of Tripoli, whose influ- 
ence extended far into the interior, was understood to be willing to cultivate 
the good will of the British, it was resolved to make the attempt under 
his auspices. Accordingly, in 1819, Mr. Ritchie and Lieutenant Lyon 
began the journey from Tripoli across the Desert. They reached Mour- 
zouk in Fezzan ; but Mr. Ritchie dying there of bilious fever, the expedi- 
tion was abandoned. In April 1822, however, three new adventurers, 
Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, and Dr. Oudney, with several com- 
panions, followed the same route. ' A caravan, belonging to a great 
native merchant named Boo Khaloom, was on the point of starting for 
Soudan on the Niger, and with this the band of travelers were to cross 
the Desert in company. 

' Boo Khaloom, a Moor or Arab of remarkable abilities, and of a liber- 
al and humane disposition, had a retinue on the journey of above two 
hundred Arabs, and with this company performed their dreary marches, 
under a burning sun, across the sands of the interior. The most extra- 
ordinary sight on this route was the number of skeletons strewed on the 
ground, the wrecks of former caravans. Sometimes sixty or seventy lay 
in one spot, and of these some lay entwined in one another's arms, as they 
had perished ! For fourteen days, hills of sand, and plains of sand, con- 
stituted the only objects in sight of travelers. At the end of that time 
they again beheld symptoms of herbage, being now on the northern bord- 
ers of the kingdom of Bornou. Shortly afterwards, on reaching a town 
called Lari, the British travelers beheld a sight which made up for all they 
had undergone. This was the great inland sea of Africa, Lake Tchad, 
the existence of which had been so often canvassed, and which now lay 
before them " glowing with the golden rays of the sun." 

' Lake Tchad, one of the most interesting points of Central African 
scenery, is a vast triangular sheet of water, about one hundred and eighty 
miles long from east to west, and above one hundred miles in extent at its 
greatest breadth. It lies between 14 and 17 degrees of north latitude, 
and 12 and 15 degrees of east longitude. Two large streams flow into it 
— the one called the Yeou, from the west, and the other the Shary or 
Tshary, from the south. Lake Tchad is situated about five hundred miles 
to the east of the Niger, and the country lying between them bears the 
general name of the Soudan, though particular appellations are given to 
provinces, such as Houssa, and others. Bornou is the district lying 
immediately to the west of the lake. Major Denham spent a con 



944 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

siderable time here. He found the kingdom of Bornou in a very peculiar 
position as to government. The people are negroes, and had once been 
subjugated by the Foulahs or Fellatahs — a bold race, of uncertain descent, 
and the conquerors and oppressors of many kingdoms in the interior. But 
a Bornouese negro, of humble birth and powerful talents, had aroused his 
countrymen and driven out the Fellatahs. This individual was found by 
Major Denham to be in possession of the whole power of Bornou, though, 
out of respect to the prejudices of his people, the old Fellatah prince was 
still permitted to hold a nominal throne, and the empty title of sultan. 
The real ruler contented himself with the title of sheikh. He is described 
by Denham as being extremely intelligent, and as holding the reins of 
power with great firmness and sagacity. The Bornouese are disciples of 
Mohammed, and may be called well civilized in comparison with other 
inland nations. Their country supplies them abundantly with food, and 
they carry on manufactures to a considerable extent in cotton. 

'Major Denham found an opportunity of traveling round nearly the 
whole of Lake Tchad, and thus satisfied himself that the waters of the 
Niger did not enter this inland pool. After eighteen months' stay in Bor- 
nou, Denham was joined by Captain Clapperton who had separated from 
him in order to explore the country of Soudan — an excursion on which 
Dr. Oudeney unfortunately perished from fatigue, and the diseases inci- 
dental to the climate. Clapperton was well received at Soccatoo, the Cap- 
ital of Houssa, and the seat of Bello, the great Soudanite monarch, and 
the head of the Fellatah nation. Like the sheikh of Bornou, Sultan Bello 
was found to be an able and intelligent man. 

'Soccatoo, the capital of Houssa, situated on a tributary of the Niger, 
and distant four days' journey from that river, is one of the largest cities 
of the interior, containing, to appearance, above forty thousand inhabitants. 
The city is laid out in regular streets, and is surrounded, like most Afri- 
can towns, with clay walls. The houses are well-built cottages, generally 
of clay ; and the mosques, as well as parts of the sultan's palace, are 
ornamented with painted wooden pillars, in a very pretty style of arch- 
itecture. 

'Upon the whole, the two countries of Houssa and Bornou must be re- 
garded as far above any kingdoms of the African interior yet visited by 
Europeans in point of power and civilization. The Fellatah sultan, Bello, 
was extremely anxious that an English consul should be sent to Soccatoo, 
and that a trade should be opened up with the English. Before the trav- 
elers left either Houssa or Bornou, however, they found the rulers of 
these places to cool in their desire for British intercourse. This arose, 
without doubt, from the intrigues of the Arabs, who were afraid that the 
traffic through the Desert from the Mediterranean might be superseded 
by the commerce of the British from the Atlantic or western coast. The 
Arabs, therefore, artfully placed before the minds of the African princes 
the consequences which had resulted to India and other countries from a 
connexion with Britain.' 

Having spent in all about three years in the interior of Africa, Denham 
and Clapperton returned to Tripoli, which they reached on the 26th of 
January 1825. 'The safe return of two principal members of this expedi- 
tion, and the interesting nature of the observations made by them, was 
cheering and encouraging to the British authorities and to all who took an 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 945 

interest in African Discovery. But the question of the Niger's outlet, 
through which alone it was obvious commercial intercourse could be secure- 
ly and effectually established with the interior, remained yet in doubt, 
though the late travelers were fully convinced that the river flowed into 
the Atlantic somewhere in the Gulf of Guinea. Ere he had rested many 
months at home, Clapperton, one of the bravest of the many brave men 
who had risked their lives on the same dangerous adventure, was again 
on his way to Africa at the head of an exploratory party. His compan- 
ions were Dr. Morrison and Captain Pearce, besides a faithful servant of 
Clapperton, Richard Lander. It was resolved on this occasion to enter 
the interior from Badagry, a district on the northern coast of the Gulf 
of Guinea, from which Clapperton believed the Niger might be soonest 
reached.' 

In the course of their arduous journey all of the party died except 
Clapperton and his servant Lander. They persevered, nevertheless, pass- 
ing through many populous negro towns situated between the coast and 
the Niger. The whole of this tract of country they found very thickly 
peopled ; and the natives appeared, at a distance from the coast, to be of 
superior disposition and character. In April 1826 they reached Boussa 
on the Niger, the place where Park had been killed ; they saw the spot 
where the traveler had met his death, and heard that some relics of him 
were still preserved, but could not obtain a right of them. After staying 
some time at Boussa, Clapperton crossed the Niger, and paid another vis- 
it to the territories of his former acquaintance, Sultan Bello, who, how- 
ever, seemed less friendly to him than on the previous occasion, apparently 
suspecting the motives which actuated the British in their efforts to pro- 
cure information respecting a part of the world so remote from their own. 
Wearied out by his toils, Clapperton became ill at Soccatoo, and died there 
on the 13th of April 1827, in the arms of Richard Lander, who, with 
great difficulty, made his way alone back to the coast, which he reached 
in November. He immediately set out for England, carrying Captain 
Clapperton's papers with him, and a journal of his own proceedings 
subsequent to Clapperton's death. 

' Meanwhile the British government were making another attempt from 
the Mediterranean. About the time that Clapperton set out on his second 
journey, Major Laing, an able officer, who had already traveled on the 
African coasts, entered the Desert by way of Tripoli, under the protection 
of a personage who had resided twenty-two years at Timbuctoo. When 
ui the middle of the Desert, the party was attacked by a band of wild 
[Wricks, and Major Laing was left for dead, with twenty-four dreadful 
rounds on his person. He recovered, however, by the care of his surviv- 
xig companions, although numerous portions of bone had to be extracted 
horn his head and temples ! When able to do so, he pursued his journey, 
and on the 18th of August reached the famous city of Timbuctoo. Sev- 
eral letters were received from him, dated at this place, which he described 
as having disappointed him in point of extent, being only about four miles 
in circuit, but that he had found its records copious and interesting. Ma- 
jor Laing never had the opportunity, unhappily, of making these valuable 
discoveries known, being murdered, three days after leaving Timbuctoo, 
by a wretch who had undertaken to guide him to the mouth of the Senegal, 
60* 



946 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

or its neighborhood. What became of the ill-fated traveler's papers is not 
known. 

' The next light thrown upon African geography came from a source 
somewhat different from those described. Rene* CailliS, a Frenchman of 
humble origin, assuming the character of a Mohammedan on a pilgrimage 
to Mecca, joined, on the 19th of April 1827, a small native caravan, trav- 
eling from the river Nunez to the interior. He soon after reached the 
Joliba (the name which the Niger bears as far down as Timbuctoo), but 
was detained by illness for five months at a place called Time\ On his 
recovery, he passed onwards to Jenne on the Niger, a city described by 
him as containing eight thousand or ten thousand inhabitants, and as being 
a place of considerable traffic. At Jenne', he embarked in a loose native 
vessel of sixty tons burden, and sailed with a party of merchants through 
Lake Dibbie, and down the Niger, until, in April 1828, the vessel stopped 
at Cabra, the port of Timbuctoo. The inhabitants of Cabra were about 
twelve hundred in number, and were solely occupied as porters, either in 
unloading goods, or in conveying them on the backs of asses to Timbuctoo. 
That city itself lies about ten miles from the Niger, and is a place of some 
ten thousand or twelve thousand inhabitants. It is chiefly built of bricks, 
and is supported entirely by commerce. The population are partly negroes 
and partly Moors ; but the king is a negro, and the government is solely in 
the hands of that class. On the other hand, though all the people engage 
more or less in trade, the Moors are the principal merchants. The great 
article of traffic is salt, which is brought from the mines in the neighboring 
Desert of Sahara, and is disseminated from Timbuctoo over the whole of 
Central Africa. 

' After leaving Timbuctoo, CailliS made his way across the Desert to 
Tangier, where he arrived in August 1828, and whence he was forwarded 
by the French consul to Europe. Upon the whole, however, M. CaiHe" has 
contributed little to the removal of those glaring blanks which have so long 
defaced the map of Africa. 

'Not so the next adventurer to whom we have to allude. This was 
Richard Lander, the faithful follower of Clapperton. Lander made an 
offer of his services to government for the investigation of the course and 
termination of the Niger. The offer was accepted ; and Lander embarked 
at Portsmouth on the 9th of January 1830, accompanied by his younger 
brother John, who shared in all the toils and honors of the expedition. 
The Landers arrived on the 19th of March at Badagry, and at the end of 
the month started on the same route pursued by Clapperton in his journey 
to the Niger. Paskoe, the old guide, was again taken into service by the 
Landers. After an interesting journey through the populous cities of 
Yarriba, the travelers arrived at Boussa on the Niger on the 17th of June. 
The king of Boussa welcomed them with great cordiality. Though gentle 
and hospitable, this prince was a mere ignorant savage in comparison of 
the kings of Houssa and Bornou. At Boussa, notwithstanding that avers- 
ion always evinced by the natives to speak about Park, the Landers found 
an old nautical publication belonging to that traveler, with a loose paper or 
two between the sheets — o ne of them an invitation card to dinner. The 
man who possessed this book regarded it as his housheold god — every writ- 
ten paper being of magical import in the eyes of the natives. The tobe, 
or surtout-dress, of rich crimson damask, which Park had worn, was also 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 947 

recovered at Boussa by the Landers ; but no distinct account was got of 
the mode in which these articles came into the hands of their owners.' 

After making all inquiries, so as to rescue any relics of Park, and even 
ascending to Yaourie, a city and province a few days' journey farther up 
the Niger for that purpose, obtaining for their trouble a double-barreled gun 
which had belonged to the traveler, the Landers endeavored to procure a 
canoe, that they might sail down the river, and solve the great problem of 
its course and termination. They were assisted in the kindest manner by 
the king of Boussa, who sent messengers down the Niger to a town called 
Rabba, in order to pave the way for the secure passage of the travelers. 
On the 20th of September, the travelers embarked in a canoe provided 
for them on the Niger. 

' On the 7th of October they arrived opposite Rabba, having passed a 
number of islands and towns on the river, which was always a magnificent 
stream, but varying considerably in width. Rabba is a large market town, 
governed by a relative of Sultan Bello. The ruler of Rabba being dissat- 
isfied with the presents made to him, the travelers were reluctantly forced 
to give him Park's tobe, and they subsequently had the misfortune to lose 
his gun. Near Rabba, the river took a wide sweep to the eastward, but it 
again turned to the south. Egga, another famous market town on the 
river, and Kacunda, were afterwards passed, and the mouths of two large 
tributaries, the Coodoovia and the Tchadda, were also seen. Various 
other towns were passed in succession, the largest of which were Bocqua 
and Attah. The Landers had now arrived at a region where signs of 
European intercourse were seen, and where the natives had been tainted 
by the demoralising consequences of the slave cdmmerce. At a place 
called Kirree the travelers suffered a heavy misfortune. They were attacked 
by a number of canoes, seized, and their property taken from them. 
Richard's journal, amongst other articles, was lost in the river, though the 
notes of his brother were happily preserved. The travelers expected 
nothing but death at this time themselves ; but their lives were saved, that 
they might be carried down the river to Eboe Town where the king of 
the Eboe poople resided, and by whose subjects the attack had been made. 

On their way to Eboe Town, they passed a large lake on the river, which 
afterwards divided itself into three broad streams, flowing at different 
inclinations to the south-west. From this, and previous branchings of the 
stream, the Landers felt convinced that they were close by the termination 
of the Niger in the Gulf of Guinea ; and their anxiety to continue their 
route was proportionable to their pleasure at the near accomplishment of 
their task. Obie, the Eboe king, resolved to detain them, however, till a 
ransom was got up from the English ; but King Boy, a monarch residing 
farther down the river, and who was then in Eboe Town, became bound for 
the ransom of the Landers, and carried them down (what proved to be the 
stream commonly called the Nun River) to Brass Town, his father's capi- 
tal. King Boy subsequently went down to the mouth of the river with 
Richard Lander, leaving John at Brass Town. An English merchantman 
was lying in the Nun, and, with hope in his heart, Richard Lander went 
on board of her with Boy, and explained his situation to the commander, 
Captain Lake, expecting to find a country's sympathy and aid. The wretch 
refused to expend a penny on their ransom, though, if he had possessed a 
epark of intelligence, he might have been assured that the British govern 



948 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

merit would gladly have paid, ten times over, any outlay made in such 
circumstances. Richard Lander with difficulty prevailed on Boy to go and 
bring his brother John to the brig, by which time the traveler hoped Lake 
would relent. The brutal captain, however, did not relent ; and when 
John Lander came to the brig, he and his brother, much against their 
will, were forced to leave the river without satisfying Boy, who had gener- 
ously taken the risk of recovering their ransom. It is a consolation to 
think that the British government ultimately remunerated Boy beyond his 
expectations. In Captain Lake's vessel, meantime, the Landers, after 
much danger, crossed the bar of the river Nun, and entered the open sea 
in the Bight of Benin, Gulf of Guinea, with the deep satisfaction on their 
minds of having thus attained the glory of discovering the termination of 
the Niger ! On the 1st of December they were put ashore at Fernando 
Po, where they experienced the warmest reception from the British resi- 
dents. Shortly after, they found a passage homewards, and reached 
Britain on the 9th of June 1831, after an absence of a year and a half. 

' The solution of the great African mystery by the Landers was justly 
felt by their countrymen as a national triumph. But the matter, when 
explained, looked so simple, as in the case of Columbus with the egg, that 
men wondered how they could have been so long in the dark with respect 
to it. The splitting of the Niger into numerous branches near its close, 
some of them a hundred miles distant from others, was the real cause of 
all the difficulty. Like the Nile, the Niger has a large delta (so called 
from the shape of the Greek letter a delta), and each of its branches bore 
the look of independent streams. The delta of the Niger is partly inhab- 
ited, but is extremely marshy.' 

Since the completion of Park's great discovery by the Landers, two 
expeditions have been fitted out for the navigation of the Niger from its 
mouth into the interior. At first there was a general belief that now a 
commu lication had been opened up with Central Africa, and that, by means 
of the Niger, an easy and speedy intercourse could be held with the negro 
tribes living south of the Great Desert. Accordingly, two steamers, one 
of them entirely iron, were fitted out in 1832, at the expense of some 
individiu Is in Liverpool anxious to commence the new trade. They arrived 
at the Delta of the Niger in the month of October, accompanied by a 
sailing-" ^ssel laden with articles for traffic. Many of the crew were 
carried oflF by the pestilential influence of the climate ; and the steamers 
did not ascend very far. The Tchadda, a tributary of the Niger, was 
explored for about a hundred miles by one of them ; but its banks were 
not found to present much opportunity for commerce, and the steamer 
returned to the Niger. Richard Lander, who had given his services to 
the expedition, was mortally wounded in a scuffle with the natives, while 
ascending the river in a boat with a supply of kowries which he had return- 
ed to the sea-coast to procure. He died thirteen days after, on the 2d of 
February 1834 ; and in July, the vessels left the Niger on their voyage 
home, the crew of the one having been reduced from twenty-nine to five 
and thai of the other from nineteen to four. In a commercial point of 
view, likewise, the expedition was a failure, the only article of value pro- 
cured from the natives being ivory, and that in too small a quantity to pay 
the expenses of the enterprise. 

A second expedition, consisting of three iron steamers commissioned by 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 949 

government, set sail for the Niger in May 1841. The object of this ex- 
pedition was to open up such an intercourse with the native princes on 
the banks of the Niger as might serve to assist in suppressing the African 
slave trade, and to plant the seeds of civilization in the centre of the con- 
tinent. Besides being amply manned and furnished, the vessels carried 
with them all that was necessary for establishing a little colony or model 
farm on the banks of the Niger, such a scheme seeming best fitted for 
inoculating the African population with the habits which it was desired to 
naturalize among them. The entire number of individuals connected with 
the expedition was 301, of whom 145 were Europeans, and 156 persons 
of color. The vessels commenced the ascent of the Niger on the 20th 
of August ; passed Aboh, the capital of the Eboe country, where the 
commissioners negotiated with Obie, the king or chief of the district, re- 
garding the suppression of the slave trade. Ninety-five miles farther up 
they came to Iddah, the capital of the king of Eggarah, with whom a 
treaty was also concluded. On the 10th of September the confluence of 
the Niger and the Tchadda was reached ; and here it was determined to 
establish the model farm. Accordingly, the part of the crews and cargoes 
intended for the purpose was disembarked. 

Meanwhile sickness had become so prevalent, and the number of deaths 
so great, that two of the steamers were obliged to descend the river with 
the invalids, in order to give them the chance of recovery on the coast. 
The remaining steamer, the Albert, advanced as far as Egga, about 350 
miles from the sea. Farther than this, however, the increasing illness of 
the crew prevented it from proceeding ; and accordingly, having explained 
to the chief of the place the object of their visit, the commander turned 
back on the 5th of October, and descended the river, there being hardly 
hands sufficient left to manage the vessel. The Albert reached the sea 
on the 16th of October, the other two steamers having reached it on the 
end of the previous month. The expedition had been most disastrous. 
Of the 145 white men, only fifteen escaped the river fever; while of the 
156 blacks, only eleven were attacked. The list of deaths showed a total 
of fifty-three. The news of these unfortunate results having reached 
England, orders were sent out in the summer of 1842 to abandon the 
enterprise, and remove the laborers from the model farm ; which was ac- 
cordingly done. 

By way of summing up the information which we have yet been able, 
by all our researches and expeditions, to obtain respecting Soudan or Ni 
gritia, we may state an opinion which seems to be gaining ground. It is 
maintained by some that there is evidence that great changes have occurred 
in Central Africa within the last few centuries ; that, in fact, a general 
movement towards civilization is discernible in the heart of tins vast and 
forbidding continent — a movement not originated by European contact, 
but born among the Africans themselves. There is evidence, it is said, 
that a few centuries ago the inhabitants of Nigritia were very far inferior 
in promise and culture to what they are at present ; that the commercial 
spirit and manufacturing ingenuity which travelers report to exist among 
the negro tribes are of recent growth. The great agents in this change in 
the condition of Central Africa are said to be the Foulahs — a people of 
doubtful origin, but possibly Asiatic. These Foulahs are represented as 
having acted as conquerors of the original negro tribes — triumphing by 



950 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

virtue of their superior temperament and organization, and incorporating 
the petty states of the old negro chiefs into large kingdoms ; helping also 
to civilize the natives by introducing among them the ideas of Mohamme- 
danism, which, however inferior and pernicious in themselves, were yet an 
advance upon the original negro beliefs. 

' Throughout the whole extent of Nigritia or Negroland,' says a writer 
who advocates the opinion we have just stated, ' the Foulahs undoubtedly 
occupy preeminence. They are found spread over a geographic region of 
28 to 30 degrees of longitude (1500 miles), and 7 to 10 degrees in lati- 
tude, or 500 miles. They extend from the Atlantic Ocean, from the 
mouth of the Senegal and Senegambia on the west, to the kingdoms of 
Bornou and Mandara on the east; from the Desert of Sahara on the 
north, to the mountains of Guinea or Kong on the south. This wide 
superficies contains more than 700,000 square miles, which is equal to 
the fourth part of Europe, and a tenth part of the immense continent of 
Africa.' 

In some parts of this vast extent of territory the Foulahs are politically 
supreme, in others they are feudal dependents of the. original chiefs ; but • 
everywhere they seem to be the growing power. ' The Foulahs,' says 
Mr. Hodgson, ' are not negroes. They differ essentially from the negro 
race in all the characteristics which are marked by physical anthropology. 
They may be said to occupy the intermediate space betwixt the Arab and 
the negro. All travelers concur in representing them as a distinct race 
in moral as in physical traits. To their color, the various terms of bronze, 
copper, reddish, and sometimes white, has been applied. They concur 
also in the report that the Foulahs of every region represent themselves 
to be white men, and proudly assert their superiority to the black tribes 
among whom they live. . . . The Foulahs are rigid Mohammedans, and, 
according to Mollien the French traveler's report, they are animated by a 
strong zeal for proselytism. They are the missionaries of Islam among 
the Pagan negro tribes. Where they have conquered, they have forced 
the adoption of the Koran by the sword ; and whilst pursuing quietly their 
pastoral occupation, they become schoolmasters Qtnaalims), and thus pro- 
pagate the doctrines and precepts of Islam. Wherever the Foulah has 
wandered, the Pagan idolatry of the negro has been overthrown ; the bar- 
barous Fetish and greegree have been abandoned ; anthropophagy and 
cannibalism have been suppressed. . . . Thus the Foulahs are now exer- 
cising a powerful influence upon the moral and social condition of Central 
Africa. I do not doubt that they are destined to be the great instrument 
in the future civilization of Africa, and the consequent suppression of the 
external Atlantic slave trade. . . . They will, probably, erect one vast 
empire in the Soudan, and the influence which that power may exert in 
the great question of African civilization, gives them no ordinary impor- 
tance.' If this opinion be true, what might not be the result if the Fou- 
lahs, at present barbarians and Mohammedans, themselves were over- 
powered by the higher and purer ideas which have raised Europe to its 
present supremacy over the earth ? Meanwhile, it is consoling to think 
that, even in Central Africa, the human race has been moving onward. 

Northern Africa and the Great Desert. — Respecting that vast 
section of the African continent which extends from the Mediterranean to 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 951 

Nigritia, it appears that we are only beginning to obtain a correct descrip- 
tion. Various officers of the French array at present engaged in the 
arduous enterprise of establishing the colony of Algeria, have occupied 
themselves in collecting information regarding the numerous tribes over- 
spreading Northern Africa ; and it would seem, from their accounts, that 
the ideas we have been accustomed to entertain concerning these regions 
are far from correct. 

According to the recent accounts, Northern Africa, between the Med- 
iterranean and Nigritia, consists of two portions — the Tell, or that strip 
of land varying from 50 to 120 miles in breadth, which lies along the sea; 
and the Sahara, or, as it has commonly been called, the Great Desert. 
The following remarks respecting the Tell are from the work of Mr. 
Hodgson previously quoted : — ' On the Mediterranean coast of Africa, 
there are in progress at this moment great political and commercial revo- 
lutions. There exists in that region a sanguinary and unceasing conflict 
of Christianity with Mohammedanism, of civilization with semi-barbarism. 
France having conquered the extensive territory of Algeria, is now push- 
ing forward her victorious legions into the more important and more popu- 
lous empire of Morocco. The result of a conflict between undisciplined 
hordes and the science of European warfare cannot be doubtful. But 
there are elements in this contest which perhaps have not been well 
understood. It is not with the Arab populations of those countries with 
which France has chiefly to contend. That, indeed, is the more intellectual 
but smaller portion of the people of Algeria and Morocco. The more 
ferocious and larger portion of that population consists of the aboriginal 
Berbers, the ancient Numidians, and Mauritanians. The Romans term 
this race genus insuperabile hello — " unconquerable in war." It remains 
to be determined if they have lost that proud appellation.' 

' To form a correct conception of the Sahara,' says a writer in the 
Edinburgh Review (No. 169), condensing the information contained in 
some of the recent French publications on the subject, ' our readers must 
dismiss from their minds all loose and fantastic conceptions which have 
been attached, from time immemorial, to the interior of Northern Africa. 
Instead of a torrid region, where boundless steppes of burning sand are 
abandoned to the roving horsemen of the Desert, and to beasts of prey, 
and where the last vestiges of Moorish civilization expire long before the 
traveler arrives at Negroland and the savage communities of the interior, 
the Sahara is now ascertained to consist of a vast archipelago of oases ; 
each of them peopled by a tribe of the Moorish race or its offsets, more 
civilized, and more capable of receiving the lessons of civilization, than the 
houseless Arabs of the Tell (the mountainous tract lying between the 
Great Desert and the sea) ; cultivating the date-tree with application and 
ingenuity, inhabiting walled towns, living under a regular government, for 
the most part of a popular origin ; carrying to some perfection certain 
branches of native manufactures, and keeping up an extensive system of 
commercial intercourse with the northern and central parts of the African 
continent, and from Mogador to Mecca, by the enterprise and activity of 
their caravans. Each of the oases of the Sahara, which are divided from 
one another by sandy tracts, bearing shrubs and plants fit only for the 
nourishment of cattle, presents an animated group of towns and villages. 
Every village is encircled by a profusion of fruit-bearing trees. The 



952 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

palm is the monarch of their orchards, as much by the grace of its form, 
as by the value of its productions ; and the pomegranate, the fig-tree, and 
the apricot cluster around its lofty stem. The lions and other beasts of 
prey with which poetry has peopled the African wilds, are to be met with 
only in the mountains of the Tell, never in the plains of the Sahara. 
The robber tribes of the Tuaricks frequent the southern frontier of the 
Sahara, and the last tracts of habitable land which intervene between 
these oases and the real Desert ; but in the Sahara itself, communications, 
carried on after the fashion of the country, are regular and secure. War 
is, indeed, of frequent occurrence between the neighboring tribes, either 
for the possession of disputed territories, or the revenge of supposed inju- 
ries ; but all that is yet known of these singular communities shows them 
to be living in a completely constituted state of society, eminently adapt- 
ed to the peculiar part of the globe which they inhabit, governed by the 
strong traditions of a primitive people, and fulfilling with energy and 
intelligence the strange vocations of their life.' 

'Almost all the Sahara tribes,' says M. Carette, a French captain of 
engineers, who has contributed much to clear up our notions of this portion 
of Africa, ' are accustomed to a system of annual peregrination, which 
must have existed from time immemorial, inasmuch as it is based upon the 
nature of the climate and the produce, and the primary wants of their 
existence. This general movement is commonly performed in the following 
manner : — During the winter and spring the tribes are collected in the 
waste tracts of the Sahara, which, at this season of the year, supply water 
and fresh vegetation, but they never remain more than three or four days 
on any one spot; and when the pasture is exhausted, they strike their 
tents, and go to establish themselves elsewhere. Towards the end of the 
spring they pass through the towns of the Sahara, where their merchan- 
dise is deposited. They load their camels with dates and woollen stuffs, 
and then turn their steps towards the north, taking with them their whole 
wandering city — women, dogs, herds, and tents — for it is at this season 
that the springs begin to dry and the plants to wither on the Sahara, at 
the same time that the corn is ripe in the Tell. There they arrive at the 
moment of the harvest, when corn is abundant and cheap, and thus they 
take a double advantage of the season, by abandoning the waste as it 
becomes arid, and seeking their fresh stock of provisions in the north, when 
the markets are overstocked with grain. The summer they pass in this 
country, in commercial activity, exchanging their dates and woollen manu- 
factured goods for corn, raw wool, sheep, and butter ; whilst their herds 
are allowed to browse freely upon the lands, which lie fallow after the 
gathering in of the harvest. The signal for the return homewards is 
given at the end of the summer ; the camels are reloaded, the tents 
again struck, and the wandering city once more marches forth, as it came, 
in short day's journeys towards the south. The Sahara is regained about 
the middle of October, the period when the dates are ripe. A month is 
passed in gathering and storing this fruit ; another is devoted to the ex- 
change of the wheat, and barley, and raw wool, for Che year's dates and 
the woollen stuffs — the produce of the yearly labor of the women. When 
all this business is concluded, and the merchandise stored away, the tribes 
quit the towns, and lead their flocks and herds from pasture-land to pasture- 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 953 

land among the waste tracts of the Sahara, until the following summer .jails 
for a renewal of the same journey, the same system of trade. 

4 The Sahara,' continues M. Carette, ' is that part of Algeria which is 
most civilized and most capable of receiving civilization. It is there that 
habits of precision are most generally diffused, and there that we find the 
greatest amount of intelligence, activity, and social disposition.' The only 
portion of the Sahara which answers to our ideas of an uninterrupted 
waste of sand, seems to be the most southern belt of it, which adjoins 
Nigritia, and which is infested by a roving race called the Tuaricks, who 
conduct a commercial intercourse, especially in slaves, between the negro 
countries and the oases of the more northern parts of the Sahara. ' These 
Tuaricks,' says M. Carette, 'pretend to be of Turkish- descent, and affect 
to treat the Arabs with disdain. They are tall, strong, of slender make 
and of fair complexion, with the exception of a few of mixed blood. They 
wear a head-dress, one of the ends of which covers the whole face except 
the eyes; and almost all, whether rich or poor, have their feet bare, 
because, according to their own account, they never go on foot.' The 
southern Tuaricks keep the towns of the Soudan in a constant state of 
blockade, hunting down the negroes in their neighborhood, and carrying 
them off for sale. 

Conclusion. From the general survey which we have taken of Africa, 
and of the progress of African discovery, it appears that, while there is 
scarcely a point in its vast circuit where Europeans have not attempted to 
settle, scarcely any of the settlements have flourished. For the purpose 
of trade, such establishments will no doubt be maintained at a vast 
sacrifice of life — the consequence of the pestilential effects of the clim- 
ate on European constitutions; but it is not likely that any settle- 
ments of a permanent description will be effected except at the south- 
ern and northern extremities of the continent. Cape Colony, as yet, is 
the most prosperous, indeed the only settlement, worthy of the name, in 
Africa : whether the French will be able to make anything of Algeria, 
remains yet to be seen. As for the centre of the continent, it seems quite 
hopeless to suppose that Europeans can ever operate there directly. The 
utmost that can be anticipated is, that they shall be able to act upon the 
continent through native agents. By establishing a commerce with Cen- 
tral Africa, they may stimulate whatever tendencies to civilization exist 
among the negro races ; they may create an activity through the continent 
resembling that caused by the slave traffic, but everyway nobler and more 
beneficial. Whatever seeds of improvement there are among the natives, 
whether negroes, Foulahs, or Arabs, may be developed by this means, and 
made to fructify. In this respect, nothing could be more gratifying than to 
know that the opinion explained in a former part of this article with regard 
to Central Africa is well-founded, and that an actual movement is in 
progress among the natives towards a more advanced stage of humanity. 

SAMUEL HEARNE. 
Samuel Hearne was born in London, in 1745, and, at the age of 
eleven, embarked on board a vessel under the command of Captain (after- 
wards Lord) Hood ; with whom he was engaged in many successful victo- 
ries against the French, and acquired the right to a considerable share of 
prize-money, which he requested might be transmitted to his mother, who 



954 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

' would know better than himself how to dispose of it.' At the termina- 
tion of the war, seeing little chance of his advancement in the king's navy, 
he quitted it, and entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, who 
soon found him to be a most intelligent and enterprising auxiliary. In 
1768 he made a voyage to the head of the bay, for the purpose of improv- 
ing the cod fishery in that part ; and, at the same time, made a very useful 
survey of the adjoining coasts. In the following year, he was appointed to 
head an expedition, the principal objects of which were to ascertain the 
situation of the Copper Mine River, and the possibility of a north-west 
passage. Accordingly, on the 6th of November, 1769, he set out, accom- 
panied by four attendants ; when after having crossed the Seal River, and 
walked some time over the barren grounds beyond it, the depth of the snow 
and scarcity of his provisions compelled him to return, having proceeded 
no farther than the sixty-fourth degree of latitude. 

Undiscouraged by this failure, he immediately made arrangements for a 
second expedition; and, in February, 1770, resumed the route he had be- 
fore taken, advancing slowly northward and westward in the pursuit of his 
object ; determined, rather than leave it unattained, to perish by the famine 
to which he was constantly exposed. ' Often,' he says, ' I fasted whole 
days and nights, twice upwards of three days, and once near seven days ; 
during which I tasted not a mouthful of any thing, except a few cranberries, 
water, scraps of old leather, and burnt bones.' In July, while between the 
sixty-third and sixty-fourth degrees of latitude, he took up his winter 
quarters among a tribe of Indians, with whom he remained till about the 
11th of August, when a gust of wind blowing down and destroying his 
quadrant, he was compelled to return to Prince of Wales' Fort, where he 
arrived on the 25th of November, with the loss of his gun and several of 
his most useful effects, which had been stolen from him by some of his 
attendants. 

On the 7th of the following month, accompanied by an Indian chief, who 
pointed out a new route likely to lead to the discovery of the copper mine, 
he set out a third time, in the hope of ascertaining its situation. After 
determining the latitude of a place called Congecathawhachaga, he began, 
on the 15th of July, 1771 his survey of the Copper Mine River ; in the 
course of which, he was more than once shocked at beholding the massacre 
of several parties of Esquimaux, by the Indians who accompanied him. 
After a journey on foot of nearly one thousand three hundred miles, he 
reached the mouth of the river, which, from the quantity of whalebone and 
seal-skins seen by him in the tents of the Esquimaux, he assumed must 
empty itself into the ocean ; and that, consequently, he ' had reached the 
northern shore of North America, and stood on the borders of the Hyper- 
borean Sea.' Mr. Barrow however, in his Chronological History of Voy- 
ages into the Arctic Regions, denies the conclusions of Hearne upon this 
point, and observes, ' equally unsatisfactory is his statement as to the lati- 
tude of the Copper Mine River ;' which, instead of 71 deg. 54 min., he 
cites the authorities of Dairy mple and other geographers to prove, could 
only be about sixty-nine degrees. 

On leaving the Copper Mine River, Hearne proceeded, in a state of 
great agony from the soreness of his feet, as far as Lake Athapusco, or the 
Slave Lake ; from which, in February, 1772, he departed eastward, and, 
on the 30th of June, arrived at Prince of Wales' Fort, after an absence 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 955 

of eighteen months, and having endured, in the latter part of his journey, 
the horrors of a famine, which destroyed several of his attendants, and 
nearly proved fatal to himself. On his return, he received the thanks of 
the Company and a handsome gratuity ; and, in 1774, he established in 
the interior of the country, Cumberland Factory. In 1775, he became 
governor of the Prince of Wales' Fort ; seven years after which, it was 
attacked and taken by a French squadron, under the command of La Pe- 
rouse, who seized all the papers he found, but restored the manuscript of 
Hearne, on condition of its being printed on his arrival in England. After 
rebuilding, and putting in a good state of defense, the fort, he continued 
to reside there till 1787 ; in which year he returned to England, and pre- 
pared his journal for the press, which appeared about three years after his 
death, which took place some time in 1792. The work, containing a 
preface, in which he refutes the charges of Dalrymple as to the correctness 
of his latitudes, has been translated into most of the European languages ; 
and besides throwing a light upon one of the most important points in geo- 
graphy, shows its author to have been a man of extraordinary courage and 
perseverance, of profound observation, and of a benevolent and enlightened 1 
mind. He had also intended to publish copies of a vocabulary of the 
language of the northern Indians, which he had completed in sixteen folio 
pages ; but the original was, unfortunately, lost by a friend to whom he 
had lent it. 

JOHN LEWIS BURCKHARDT. 

John Lewis Burckhardt, descended from an eminent family in Swit- 
zerland, was born at Lausanne, about the year 1785. He received the 
rudiments of his education at a school at Neufchatel, and completed his 
studies at the universities of Leipsic and Gottingen. At the latter, he 
recommended himself, by his talents and general good conduct, to the fa- 
vorable notice of the celebrated Blumenbach, who gave him a letter of in- 
troduction to Sir Joseph Banks, upon whom Burckhardt called, on his 
arrival in London, in July, 1806. His acquaintance with Sir Joseph brought 
him in connexion with the other members of the African Association, and 
ended in his undertaking, under the patronage of the Society, to explore 
the interior of Africa. His offer was accepted in May, 1808, when he im- 
mediately set about preparing himself for his journey, by studying in Lon- 
don and at Cambridge, not only the Arabic language and oriental customs, but 
also astronomy, chemistry, mineralogy, medicine and surgery. In addition 
to this, he suffered his beard to grow, accustomed himself to wear the east- 
ern dress, and in the intervals of his studies, exercised himself by long jour- 
nies on foot, bare-headed, in the heat of the day, sleeping upon the ground, 
and living upon vegetables and water. 

On the 25th of January, 1809, he received his final instructions, and on 
the 2d of March, he embarked at Cowes, for Malta, where he appeared in 
an oriental costume, and, by his judicious conduct, contrived to conceal his 
real character from several Swiss officers, whom he had previously known. 
Being unable to procure a vessel bound for Cyprus, he embarked in one 
sailing to the coast of Caramania. ' I introduced myself,' he says, ' to the 
passengers, who were Tripolines, as an Indian Mohammedan merchant, who 
had been, from early years, in England, and was now on his way home ; 



956 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

and I had the good fortune to make my story credible. During the course 
of our voyage, numerous questions were put to me relative to India, which 
I answered as well as I could ; and when I was asked for a specimen of the 
Hindoo language, I answered them in the worst dialect of the Swiss-Ger- 
man.' Having landed at Satalia, he made an excursion to Tarsus, where, 
finding a vessel bound for the coast of Syria, he embarked for that coun- 
try, and entered it at the point where the Aasi, the ancient Orontis, falls 
into the sea. Here he joined a caravan proceeding to Aleppo, in his way 
whither he was much annoyed by the companions of his journey insisting 
that he was a Frank ; and at Antakia, one going so far as to pull him by 
the beard, he resented the affront by giving the offender a blow on the 
face. On his arrival at Aleppo, he assumed the name of Ibrahim, and ap- 
plied himself with unceasing assiduity to the study of the Arabic language, 
into which he made an attempt to translate Robinson Crusoe. In July, 
1810, he started, by way of Palmyra, for Damascus ; and, in the course 
of his journey, was twice attacked by banditti, and robbed of his watch and 
compass. He quitted Damascus in September, but returned to that city, 
after having visited the ruins of Balbec, Libanus, and Mount Hermon. He 
subsequently made an excursion into the Hauran, the patrimony of Abra- 
ham, and, on the 1st of January, 1811, again entered Aleppo. From 
hence he accompanied an Arab sheikh into the desert towards the Euphra- 
tes, but the protection of his guide being insufficient, he was robbed of all 
his clothes, and compelled to return, without having accomplished any of 
the objects of his journey. ' It was in this excursion to the desert,' says 
Mr. Barker, the British consul at Aleppo, ' that Burckhardt had so hard a 
struggle with an Arab lady, who took a fancy to the only garment which 
the delicacy or compassion of the men had left him.' On the 14th of 
February, he finally quitted Aleppo, and once more returning to Damascus, 
made another journey from thence into the Hauran, in the course of which, 
he discovered the ruins of a city unvisited by any other European, which 
he conjectured to be those of Petra, the capital of Arabia Petrsea. The 
ruins are situate in the valley of Ghor, or Araba, the existence of which, 
he says, ' appears to have been unknown to ancient as well as modern geo- 
graphers.' Speaking of Balka, he observes, ' many ruined places and 
mountains in that district preserve the names of the Old Testament ; and 
elucidate the topography of the province that fell to the share of the tribes 
of Gad and Reuben.' 

After many hardships and dangers, our traveler reached Cairo, in Egypt, 
with the intention of joining a caravan, and traveling to Fezzan, in the 
north of Africa, — the grand object of his mission. Whilst, however, the 
caravan was preparing, he undertook an expedition to Nubia, on which he 
set out, accompanied by a guide, on the 14th of February, 1813. They 
were mounted on dromedaries, and Burckhardt's only incumbrances were 
a gun, a sabre, a pistol, and a woollen mantle, which served by day for a 
carpet, and for a covering during the night. The country through which 
he passed was in a state of great distraction, but he proceeded in safety as 
far as the Mahass territory, on reaching which, ' he found himself,' says 
Mr. St. John, in his life of our traveler, ' in the midst of the worst descrip- 
tion of savages. The governor, a ferocious black, furiously intoxicated, 
and surrounded by numerous followers in the same condition, received him 
in a hut. In the midst of their drunken mirth, they called for muskets, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 957 

and amused themselves with firing in the hut, and Burckhardt every mo- 
ment expected that a random ball would put an end to his travels.' Hav- 
ing proceeded up the Nile almost as far as Dongola, he turned towards the 
north, and at Kolbe swam across the river, ' holding by his camel's tail 
with one hand, and urging on the beast with the other.' He then visited 
Ybsambul, Mosmos, Derr, and Assouan, where he remained till the 2d of 
March, 1814 ; his whole expenditure during the time of his stay, for him- 
self, his servant, dromedary, and ass, not exceeding one shilling and six- 
pence per day. 

Having assumed the character of a poor trader and a Turk of Syria, he 
on the day above-mentioned, set out with a caravan, through the deserts 
of Nubia, to Berbery and Shendy, as far as Suakim, on the Red sea, whence 
he performed his pilgrimage to Mecca by way of Jidda. During this jour- 
ney, in the course of which he had an opportunity of confirming many of 
the statements of Bruce, he endured a series of hardships and sufferings 
scarcely inferior to those of Park in Africa. Whilst mad with thirst in 
the burning desert, he beheld the mocking mirage ; and if he escaped bur- 
ial beneath the overwhelming sand, lifted like a wave by the tempestuous 
blast, it was doubtful whether he had not yet a more dangerous foe to meet 
in the plundering Arab. At Darner, he cried beads for sale, to procure 
provisions for his ass ; at Jidda, his finances were so low, that he was 
compelled to sell his slave, and he had already thoughts of resorting to 
manual labor, when he fortunately obtained three thousand piastres (about 
£100) by giving a bill upon Cairo. Crocodile's flesh occasionally formed 
part of his food, and the dangers of the desert he found no greater than 
the inconveniences. Though almost worn out with fatigue, ' I was obliged,' 
he says, ' every day, to fetch and cut wood, to light a fire, to cook, to feed 
the ass, and finallv to make coffee ; a cup of which, presented to my com- 
panions, was the only means I possessed of keeping them in a tolerable 
good humor.' In his way through the Nubian desert, he relates a singular 
custom of the Arab guides, for the purpose of extorting small presents from 
travelers. ' They alight,' he says, < at certain spots, and beg a present ; 
if it be refused, they collect a heap of sand, and mould it into the form of 
a diminutive tomb, and then placing a stone at each of the extremities, they 
apprise the traveler that his tomb is made ; meaning, that henceforth there 
will be no security for him in this rocky wilderness. 

Our traveler remained at Mecca from the 9th of September until the 
15th of January, 1815, during which time he accurately noted the manners 
and customs of the holy city, without his real character being discovered, 
though it had been previously suspected by the pasha of Tayef, who jocosely 
observed, ' It is not the beard alone which proves a man to be a true Mos- 
lem.' On the 28th, Burckhardt reached Medina, which he quitted on the 
21st of April, in a state of great mental depression, and still suffering from 
the recent attack of an intermittent fever. To add to his dejection, he 
found, on his arrival at Yambo, the plague in its most virulent shape : and 
being unable to procure a boat, he was obliged to remain a witness of its 
horrors for more than a fortnight, during which time, he says, ' the air, 
night and day, was filled with the piercing cries of those who had been be- 
reaved of the objects of their affection.' At length, on the 24th of June, 
he reached Cairo, where, after having recruited his health, he employed 
himself in drawing up an account of his travels. In the spring of 1816, he 



AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

visited Mount Sinai ; and, having returned to Cairo, was making prepara- 
tions to commence his long-delayed journey to Fezzan, to explore the source 
of the Niger, when he was attacked with dysentery on the 14th, and died 
on the 15th of October, 1817. 'I have closed,' says Mr. St. John, ' the 
lives of few travelers with more regret.' His obsequies were performed 
after the Mohammedan custom, according to his own request to Mr. Salt, 
to whom he observed, a few moments previously to his death, ' that as he 
had lived as a Mussulman in the east, the Turks would claim his body ; and 
perhaps,' said he, ' you had better let them.' 

Thus fell another victim in the cause of geographical discovery, which, 
in Mr. Burckhardt, may be said to have lost one of its most able and enter- 
prising devotees. Patient, courageous, cautious, and intelligent, no fatigues 
dispirited, no obstacle disconcerted, and no dangers dismayed him. He 
conformed himself to the manners of the various countries through which 
he passed with admirable tact ; and, with an apparent carelessness of what 
was passing around him, suffered nothing worth observation to escape his 
attention. 

JAMES BRUCE. 

James Bruce was born at Kinnaird, near Falkirk, in Stirlingshire, on 
the 14th of December, 1730, and, in 1738, was placed under the care of 
his uncle, a barrister in London, who sent him, in January, 1742, to school, 
at Harrow. Here he so successfully prosecuted his studies, that Dr. Cox, 
the head-master, said of him, in a letter to a friend, ' When you write to 
Mr. Bruce's father about his son, you cannot say too much ; for he is as 
promising a young man as ever I had under my care ; and, for his years, 
I never saw his fellow.' From Harrow, he went, for a few months, to a 
private academy, where he renewed his classical studies, and acquired a 
knowledge of French, drawing, arithmetic and geometry. In the Novem- 
ber of 1747, he entered the University of Edinburgh, with the intention 
of studying the law ; which, at his father's desire, he had determined on 
adopting as his profession. Disinclination, however, and ill-health, induced 
him, in the spring of 1748, to relinquish for ever the sedentary labors 
of a law student ; and being threatened with consumption, he retired to 
Scotland, where he remained till 1753. In the July of that year, he 
went to London, with the intention of embarking for the East Indies, 
where he purposed settling as a free trader, under the patronage of the 
Company, to whom he had already prepared a petition. An attachment, 
however, frustrated this design ; and, in February, 1754, he married a 
Miss Allan, daughter of a deceased wine-merchant ; and, for a short time, 
held a share in the business. This he relinquished on the death of his 
wife, which happened in Paris, eight months after her marriage ; and such 
was the bigotry of the catholics towards protestants, that he was compelled 
to inter her at midnight, and to steal a grave in the burying ground assigned 
to the English embassy. 

After this event, he again turned his attention to literature, and acquired 
a knowledge of the Spanish and Portuguese tongues, as well as the art of 
drawing ; all of which studies he pursued with a view to their utility in 
the future travels that he secretly contemplated. At the commencement 
of the vintage season, in July, 1757, he embarked for the continent ; and, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 959 

after landing at Corunna, traversed Spain and Portugal, where he sojourned 
till the end of the year, devoting much attention to the social and political 
state of those countries. At the beginning of 1758, he passed over the 
Pyrenees to France ; thence down the Rhine into Germany and the Neth- 
erlands, whence he was recalled to England, in July, by a letter announc- 
ing the death of his father. Whilst at Brussels, having taken the part of 
a young stranger, insulted in his presence, he was challenged to fight a 
duel, in which he severely wounded his antagonist, and was obliged to fly 
the city. The death of his father entitled him to an inheritance which 
afforded him ample means of efficiently and uninterruptedly pursuing the 
studies which were necessary to the success of his designs ; and, by the 
year 1761, he had collected most of the Dutch and Italian books on the 
subject of oriental literature. He had also made great progress in the 
Arabic and Ethiopic languages, to the study of which was owing his deter- 
mination to explore the sources of the Nile. 

About this time, a rupture being anticipated between England and Spain, 
he visited Mr. Wood, the under-secretary of state, whom he requested to 
lay before the minister, Mr. Pitt, a plan he had concerted, when abroad, 
of an expedition against the latter country, by attacking Gallicia, in Fer- 
rol. After much negotiation, his suggestion was adopted by the ministry, 
but it was subsequently abandoned, owing to the Portuguese ambassador 
having represented the great danger that would result to his country from 
such an expedition. Chagrined at the failure of his military project, he 
meditated returning to Scotland, where the recent discovery of some val- 
uable mines on his estate would have enabled him to live with comfort and 
independence, when he received a message from Lord Halifax, requesting 
to see him before he left London. His lordship ridiculed the idea of 
Bruce's retirement ; and, after hinting to him the encouragement which the 
king would bestow on enterprise and discovery, suggested Africa to him, 
as a fit region for the exercise of both ; and, as a further inducement to 
his visiting that country, offered him the situation of consul-general at 
Algiers, with leave to appoint a vice-consul in his absence. He promised 
him, in audition, the rewards stipulated in the affair of Ferrol, and advance- 
ment to a higher diplomatic station, if he made wide incursions into the 
former country. 

He at length acceded to the proposal of Lord Halifax, and, in June, 
1762, having previously been introduced to the king, set out for Africa. 
He reached that country on the 20th of March, 1763 ; when such was his 
knowledge of the Arabic, that he was able to fulfill his consular duties with 
out the aid of an interpreter. On his way thither, he passed through the 
principal cities of Italy, where he made several sketches of its temples 
and ruins ; and, it appears from his manuscripts, that he also intended 
writing a dissertation on the ancient and modern state of Rome. Shortly 
after his arrival at Algiers, a dispute occurred between him and the dey, 
concerning Mediterranean passes, for carrying which in a form differing 
from that originally prescribed, several British vessels were seized and 
destroyed ; of which, having first remonstrated with the dey, he immedi- 
ately wrote to inform government. The ministry, however, who had been 
secretly prejudiced against him, by a party hostile to him at Algiers, treated 
his communication very lightly ; and, in May, 1765, being recalled to Eng- 
land, he was compelled, either to abandon the principal design of his 



960 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

residence in Barbary, or to make his intended excursions as a private 
individual. After some consideration, he adopted the latter alternative ; 
and, on the 25th of August, sailed for Tunis, stopping, on his way thither, 
at Utica and Carthage, the ruins of which cities he stayed some time to 
examine, making drawings of the most important parts, in which he was 
assisted by a young Bolognese artist, whom he had brought with him from 
Italy. In one of his incursions into the interior of the country, he dis- 
covered Cirta, the capital of Syphax, whence he returned to Tunis, and 
started thence for Tripoli, by way of Gabs and Gerba. On entering the 
desert which borders the latter town, he was attacked by the Arabs, and 
compelled to return to Tunis, where he remained till August, 1766, when 
he crossed the desert in safety, and arrived at Tripoli. He next proceeded, 
across the Gulf of Sydra, to Bengazi and Ptolometa, and shortly after- 
wards, set sail for Crete, when a shipwreck drove him again upon the 
African shore, with the loss of every thing but his drawings and books, 
which he had fortunately despatched from Tripoli to Smyrna. From 
Begazi, the place of his shipwreck, and where he was cruelly treated, he 
escaped, by a French vessel, to Canea, where he was detained by an inter- 
mittent fever, till the end of April, 1767, when he proceeded, by way of 
Rhodes, to Sidon. 

On the 16th of September he commenced his journey to Balbec, which 
he reached on the 19th of the same month ; and, having returned to Tri- 
poli, set out, in a few weeks, for Palmyra. After making several draw- 
ings, which, as well as those of Balbec, he afterwards presented to the 
king, he traveled along the coast to Latakia, Antioch, and Aleppo, where 
he was attacked by a fever, from which he with great difficulty recovered. 
About this time, meditating the discovery of the source of the Nile, he 
left Aleppo for Alexandria, where he arrived on the 20th of June, 1768. 
From hence he proceeded by land to Rosetta, where he embarked on the 
Nile for Cairo. After impressing the bey of the city with an idea of his 
skill in medicine and prophecy, he sailed to Syene, visiting, in his way 
thither, the ruins of Thebes ; and, on the 19th of February, 1769, set out 
from Kenne, through the Thebaid desert, to Cosseir, on the Red Sea ; and 
from thence proceeded to Tor and Jidda, where he landed on the 5th of 
May. After making several excursions in Arabia Felix, he quitted Lohe- 
ia, on the 3d of September, for Masuah ; where on his arrival, he was de- 
tained for some weeks, by the treachery and avarice of the governor of 
that place, who attempted to murder him, in consequence of his refusal 
to make him an enormous present. In February, 1770, he entered Gon- 
dar, the capital of Abyssinia, the ras of which city appointed him gentle- 
man-usher of the king's bed-chamber, commander of the household cav- 
alry, and governor of a province. 

On the 27th of October, after having taken an active part, in the coun- 
cils of the sovereign, and effected several cures of persons about the court 
attacked with the small-pox, he left the capital, and set out in search of 
the source of the Nile, which he discovered at Saccala, on the 14th of 
the following November. The joy he felt on the occasion is thus described 
by himself: 'It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind 
at that moment ; standing in that spot which had baffled the genuis, history, 
and inquiry of both ancients and moderns, for the course of nearly three 
thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 961 

and each expedition was distinguished from the last only bj the difference 
of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappoint- 
ment which had uniformly, and without exception, followed them all. 
Fame, riches, and honor, had been held out, for a series of ages, to every 
individual of the myriads those princes commanded, without having pro- 
duced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or 
wiping off the stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind, or add- 
ing this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a 
mere private Briton, I triumphed here in my own mind over kings and 
their armies ; and every comparison was leading the nearer to presump- 
tion, when the place itself where I stood, the object of my vain glory, 
suggested what depressed my short-lived triumphs. I was but a few 
minutes arrived at the source of the Nile, though numberless dangers 
and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me, but for 
the continual goodness and protection of Providence ; I was, however, 
then but half through my journey, and all those dangers which I had 
already passed, awaited me again on my return. I found a despondency 
gaining ground fast upon me, and blasting the crown of laurels I had too 
rashly woven for myself.' 

After returning to Gondar, our traveler found much difficulty in obtain 
ing permission to proceed on his way homewards ; it being a rule with 
the inhabitants never to allow a stranger to quit Abyssinia. A civil war 
breaking out in the country about the period of his intended departure, 
he was compelled to remain in it till the December of the following year, 
and took part in one of their battles, in which his valiant conduct was 
such that the king presented him with a rich suit of apparel, and a gold 
chain of immense value. At length, at the end of 1771, he set out from 
Gondar, and in the February of the following year, arrived at Senaar, 
where he remained two months, suffering under the most inhospitable treat- 
ment, and deceived in his supplies of money which compelled him to sell 
the gold chain he had been presented with. He then proceeded by 
Chiendi, and Gooz, through the Nubian desert, and on the 29th of No- 
vember, reached Assouan, on the Nile, after a most dreadful and danger- 
ous journey, in the course of which he lost all his camels and baggage, 
and twice laid himself down in the expectation of death. Having pro- 
cured, however, fresh camels, he returned to the desert and recovered 
most part of his baggage, with which, on the 10th of January, he arrived 
at Cairo : where, ingratiating himself with the bey, he obtained permission 
for English commanders to bring their vessels and merchandise to Suez, 
as well as to Jidda, an advantage no other European nation had before 
been able to acquire. In the beginning of March he arrived at Alexan- 
dria, whence he sailed to Marseilles ; where he landed about the end of 
the month, suffering under great agony from a disease called the Guinea 
worm, which totally disabled him from walking, and had nearly proved 
fatal to him during his voyage. Notwithstanding, however, the perils he 
underwent, and the barbarities he witnessed in the course of his travels, 
and particularly at Abyssinia, yet even that country he left with some 
regret, and would often recall, with a feeling almost of tenderness, the 
kindnesses he had received there, especially from the ras's wife, Ozoro 
Esther, between himself and whom a very affectionate intimacy had 

existed. 

61* 



962 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

After residing a few \reeks in the south of France, he set out for Paris, 
in company with Buffon, to whom he communicated much valuable infor 
mation which that celebrated naturalist has acknowledged in his adver 
tisement to the third volume of the History of Birds. His health being 
still unconfirmed, he left the French capital in July, and made a second 
tour into Italy where he resided till the spring of 1774, when he again 
returned to France, and thence proceeded to England, which he reached 
in June following, after an absence of twelve years. Previously to leav 
ing Scotland, he had contracted an engagement with a lady, whom, during 
his travels, he never forgot ; and he was so incensed, on his arrival at 
Rome, on hearing that she had married an Italian marquess, that he insis 
ted on fighting with her husband, who, however, declined the chal 
lenge. After remaining some months in London, he returned to his man 
sion at Kinnaird, to regulate his private affairs, which he found greatly 
disordered in consequence of his relations having supposed him dead, 
and taken possession of great part of his effects ; to prevent a recur- 
rence of which, he married the daughter of Thomas Dundas, Esq., of 
Fingask, who, after bearing him three children, died in the spring of 
1785. 

In 1790, the account of his travels, which had long been looked for with 
anxiety, appeared in five quarto volumes, with plates, maps and charts. 
The extraordinary events and discoveries which they contained, occasioned 
many to doubt the truth and accuracy of Bruce ; and some went so far as 
to assert, that he had never even been in Abyssinia. Recent travelers, 
however, and among them Mr. Salt, one of his most hostile sceptics, have 
confirmed the greater part of his assertions relative to that country, though 
many of them still remain doubtful and unauthenticated. Such was the 
effect of the reports circulated against his work, that, according to Dr. 
Clarke, a short time after its publication, several copies were sold in Dublin 
for waste paper. Being, however, translated into French, his book was 
widely circulated on the continent ; and he had made arrangements for 
printing an octavo edition, when, on the 26th of April 1794, he fell down 
the stairs of his mansion at Kinnaird, while in the act of handing a lady 
to dinner, and expired the following morning. 

The person of Mr. Bruce being nearly six feet four inches in height, and 
of great muscular strength, was well suited to the enterprises he under- 
took and the dangers he encountered. Though his hair was a dark red, 
his countenance had a handsome cast ; and though he possessed great 
urbanity of manners, his mien was dignified, and almost haughty. He 
paid particular attention to his dress, especially during his travels, the 
fatigue and danger of which never prevented him from appearing in the 
most elegant costume of the different countries he visited. He was an 
excellent horseman and swimmer, and an unerring marksman ; and, for 
his skill in the latter capacity, was mistaken by the barbarians, who were 
unaquainted with the use of fire-arms, for a magician. In addition to his 
numerous literary accomplishments, he acquired a considerable knowledge 
of physic and surgery, which he practiced with great success in Africa 
and Abyssinia. He possessed a mind prudent and vigorous, and a spirit 
untameable by danger or disappointment, so that he was enabled finally to 
ensure the success of his most ambitious projects. In Abyssinia he dis- 
covered a plant very serviceable in cases of dysentery ; and brought the 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 963 

seeds of it to England, where it is known by the name of Brucea, having 
been so called by Sir Joseph Banks, in honor of its finder. An island 
in the Red Sea, on the coast of Abyssinia, also bears his name. 

The doubt which prevailed respecting the truth of his narratives, was in 
a great degree owing to the habit he had of telling his own exploits, which 
he embellished with a coloring of romance calculated to weaken the credu- 
lity of his hearers. His account of his travels became the subject of 
much disputation ; and Dr. Vincent, who defended it, allowed that Bruce 
was in some instances mistaken, by aspiring to knowledge and science 
which he had not sufficiently examined ; though, he adds, ' his work through- 
out bears internal marks of veracity, in all instances where he was not 
deceived himself; and his observations were the best which a man, furn- 
ished with such instruments, and struggling for his life, could obtain.' He 
was often pompous and ostentatious, especially in his character of consul. 
The Bey of Cairo, having, after a long conversation, ordered him a purse 
of sequins, he declined accepting any thing more than a single orange, 
saying to the Bey, who requested to know his reason, * I am an English- 
man, and the servant of the greatest king in Europe : it is not the custom 
of my country to receive pecuniary gratuities from foreign princes without 
the approbation of our sovereign.' In alluding to his pictures of Palmyra 
and Balbec, which are in the king's library at Kew, he used to speak of 
them as ' the most magnificent presents ever made in that line by a subject 
to a sovereign.' It has been said, however, that he received for these 
drawings the sum of .£2000. He was descended, on his mother's side, 
from Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, a circumstance he was excessively 
proud of ; and he once said to a friend, that * he was entitled to give his 
servants royal livery.' He occupied much of the latter part of his life in 
the formation of a museum, in his own house, which contained many rare 
and valuable curiosities. 

He expressed an utter contempt for all kinds of suspicion with regard 
to his veracity, which he could never be prevailed on to take any pains to 
substantiate. When requested by his friends, to alter or explain any thing, 
he would sternly repeat, ' What I have written, I have written ! ' with 
which words he concluded the preface to his travels. ' Dining out, one 
day,' says Major Head, ' at the house of a friend, a gentleman present 
observed, " that it was impossible the natives of Abyssinia could eat raw 
meat ; " on which, Bruce without saying a word, left the table, and shortly 
returned from the kitchen with a piece of raw beef-steak, peppered and 
salted in the Abyssinian fashion, and said to the gentleman, " Sir, you will 
eat that, or fight me ; " the person addressed chose to do the former, when 
Bruce calmly observed, " Now sir, you will never again say it is impos- 
sible." ' Major Head also relates the following anecdote : ' Single-speech 
Hamilton, who was Bruce's first cousin, one evening said to him, " that to 
convince the world of his power of drawing, he need only draw something 
then in as good a style as those paintings which it had been said were done 
for him by his Italian artist." " Gerard ! " replied Bruce, very gravely, 
" you made one fine speech, and the world doubted its being your own com- 
position ; but, if you will stand up now here, and make another speech as 
good, we shall believe it to have been your own." ' 

He used to teach his daughter, who was scarcely twelve years old, the 
proper mode of pronouncing the Abyssinian words, ' that he might leave,' 



© 

w 
W 
a 
g 




966 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

as he said, ' some one behind him who could pronounce them correctly. 
He repeatedly said to her, with feelings highly excited, ' I shall not live, 
my child, but you probably will, to see the truth of all I have written 
thoroughly confirmed.' 

JOHN LEDYARD. 

John Led yard was born about 1750, at Groton, Mass., and after having 
received a good education, and passed some time among the Indians of 
America, for the purpose of studying their manners, went to Europe about 
the year 1776, and made the tour of the world with Captain Cook, as 
corporal of a troop of marines. On his return to England in 1780, he 
formed the design of penetrating from the north-western to the eastern 
coast of America ; and, after some conversation on the subject with Sir 
Joseph Banks, who furnished him with some money, which he expended in 
sea stores, with the intention of sailing to Nootka Sound, he altered his 
mind, and determined on traveling overland to Kamschatka, from whence 
the passage is very short to the opposite shore of America. Accordingly, 
towards the close of the year 1786, he started with only ten guineas in 
his pocket, and on his arrival at Stockholm, he attempted to traverse the 
gulf of Bothnia on the ice, but finding the water unfrozen, when he came 
to the middle, he returned to Stockholm, and proceeding northward, walked 
to the arctic circle, and passing round the head of the gulf, descended on 
its eastern side to St. Petersburgh, where he arrived in March, 1787, with- 
out shoes and stockings, which he was unable to purchase. In this state, 
however, he was treated with great attention by the Portuguese ambassa- 
dor, who often invited him to dinner, and procured him an advance of 
twenty guineas on a bill drawn on Sir Joseph Banks, and finally obtained 
him permission to accompany a convoy of provisions to Yakutz, where he 
was recognized and kindly received by Captain Billings, whom he had 
known in Cook's vessel, and with whom he returned to Irkutsk. 

From hence he proceeded to Ocsakow, on the coast of the Kamschatkan 
Sea, whence, in the spring, he intended to have passed over to that penin- 
sula, and to have embarked on the eastern side, in one of the Russian 
vessels trading to America ; but finding the navigation obstructed he 
returned to Yakutz, to await the termination of the winter. His inten- 
tions, however, were suddenly frustrated by the arrival of an order from 
the empress for his arrest, which took place in January, 1788, without any 
reason being assigned for such a proceeding. He was deprived of his 
papers, placed in a sledge, and under the guard of two cossacks, conducted 
through the desert of Siberia and Tartary, to the frontiers of Poland, where 
he was left, covered with rags and vermin, and prohibited from returning to 
Russia on pain of death. In this situation he set out for Kcenigsberg, on 
arriving at which town, he obtained five guineas, by drawing a bill in the 
same manner as before, with which sum he proceeded to England. On 
his arrival, he called on Sir Joseph Banks, who proposed to him to under- 
take a voyage to Africa, to discover the source of the river Niger, at the 
expense of the society for making discoveries in that part of the world ; 
an offer he accepted with avidity, and being asked when he would be ready 
to set out, he exclaimed, ' To-morrow morning !' On the 30th of June, 
1788, he embarked for Calais, passed through France to Marseilles, reached 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 967 

Alexandria on the 5th of August, and on the 19th arrived at Cairo, where 
he had almost completed the preparations for his departure to Senar, when 
he was seized with a billious fever, and died in the latter end of the 
following October. 

Mr. Ledyard was a man of extraordinary vigor both of mind and body, 
and no record exists of a more bold and perserving adventurer. In person 
he was? of the middle stature, strong and active ; and in manners, though 
unpolished, pleasing and urbane. ' Little attentive,' says his biographer 
' to deference of rank, he seemed to consider all men as his equals, and as 
«uch he respected them. His genius, though uncultivated and irregular, 
was original and comprehensive. Ardent in his wishes, yet calm in his 
deliberations ; daring in his purposes, but guarded in his measures ; impa- 
tient of control, yet capable of strong endurance ; adventurous beyond the 
conception of ordinary men, yet wary and considerate, and attentive to 
all precautions ; he seemed to be formed by nature for achievements of 
hardihood and peril.' He appears to have undergone much sufferings 
during his Siberian tour, and, like Mr. Park, more than once owed his 
life to the kindness of women. ' In wandering,' he says, in his journal, 
' orve the plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, and 
frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the 
wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar ; if hungry, dry, cold, wet, 
or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so ; and 
to add to this virtue, these actions have been performed in so free and 
kind a manner, that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught ; and if 
hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a double relish.' 

He left some manuscripts behind, which were printed in London a few 
years after his death, in a work called Memoirs of the Society instituted 
for encouraging Discoveries in the Interior of Africa. A work, entitled 
Voyages de M M. Ledyard et Lucas, en Afrique, suivis d'extraits d'autres 
voyages, was also printed at Paris in 1804. Mr. Ledyard, in his journal, 
evinces great powers of observation, and a sound judgment and under- 
standing. Some idea of his sufferings may be formed, in reading the 
following extract: ' I have known,' he writes, 'both hunger and nakedness 
to the utmost extremity of human suffering. I have known what it is to 
have food given me as charity to a madman ; and I have at times been 
obliged to shelter myself under the miseries of that character, to avoid a 
heavier calamity. My distresses have been greater than I have ever 
owned, or ever will own, to any man. Such evils are terrible to bear ; but 
they never yet had power to turn me from my purpose. If I live, I will 
faithfully perform, in its utmost extent, my engagements to the Society ; 
and if I perish in the attempt, my honor will still be safe, for death cancels 
all bonds. 

JOHN BAPTIST BELZONI. 

John Baptist Belzoni was bora about 1780, at Padua, in Italy, and 
passed the greater part of his youth at Rome, where he was preparing 
himself to become a monk, when, he observes, ' the sudden entry of the 
French into that city, altered the course of my education, and being des- 
tined to travel, I have been a wanderer ever since.' In 1803, he visited 
England and married ; when, having but scanty means of subsistence, he 



968 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

went to Scotland and Ireland, and exhibited, at various theatres, a series 
of experiments in hydraulics, a science to which he had devoted much of 
his time in Italy. Finding, however, that he received but little profit from 
these exhibitions, he determined on a public display of his strength, which 
he put forth in feats that astonished and attracted crowded audiences 
wherever he appeared. Though, at that time, very young, he was six 
feet seven inches in height ; and such was his elephantine power, that he 
could walk across the stage with no less than two-and-twenty persons 
attached by straps to different parts of his body. In 1812, he exhibited 
at Lisbon and at Madrid; and sailed afterwards to Malta, whence, he set 
out for Cairo, for the purpose of making a machine for raising water out 
of the Nile to water the bashaw's gardens. Whilst on his way to the 
palace, he received so severe a blow on the leg, that he was confined to 
his bed thirty days before he could be introduced to the bashaw ; who 
merely observed, on being told of Belzoni's wound, ' that such accidents 
could not be avoided where there were troops.' 

Having concluded an agreement to make a machine which should enable 
one ox to raise as much water as was drawn previously by four, he, after 
much difficulty and obstruction on the part of those whose cattle were 
employed in the gardens, completed his work, and demonstrated with great 
success, a practical experiment of its power. The opposition, however, 
of the Arabs to the use of his machine, which they had materially dam- 
aged, induced Belzoni to relinquish his projects concerning it, and to un- 
dertake, at the suggestion of Mr. Salt and Mr. Burckhardt, an expedition 
to Thebes, for the purpose of removing an enormous bust, to which they 
had given the name of ' the younger Memnon.' 

' It has been erroneously stated,' says Belzoni, 'that I was regularly 
employed by Mr. Salt for the purpose of bringing the colossal bust from 
Thebes to Alexandria. I positively deny that I was ever engaged by him 
in any shape whatever, either by words or writing, as I have proofs of the 
case being on the contrary. When I ascended the Nile, the first and 
second time, I had no other idea in my mind, but that I was making re- 
searches for antiquities which were to be placed in the British Museum ; 
and it is naturally to be supposed, that I would not have made these ex- 
cursions, had I been aware that all I found was for the benefit of a gen- 
tleman whom I never had the pleasure to see before in my life.' 

Our traveler, accompanied by his wife, left Boolak on the 30th of June, 
1815, examined the ruins of ancient Antinoe, and arrived at Ashoumain, 
where he met with the first remains of Egyptian architecture, which he 
supposes to have been of a date anterior to those of Thebes. Having ar- 
rived at Siout, he requested of the bashaw's physician, permission to 
employ the workmen necessary to remove the head of Memnon ; but not 
receiving a favorable reply, he, by means of his interpreter, procured the 
requisite assistance, and after viewing the tombs of Issus, proceeded to 
Thebes. On his way thither, he visited, near Dendera, the Temple of 
Tentyra, before which he remained seated some time, lost in admiration, at 
' the singularity of its preservation, and the extent and magnificence of 
its structure.' On his return to Dendera, the inhabitants insisted on de- 
taining his interpreter, imagining him to be the same who had joined the 
French army, some years ago, and declaring ' that he had been long 
enough among Christian dogs.' With much difficulty he procured the 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 969 

man's release, and in a few days, came in sight of the ruins of Thebes, 
of which he thus writes : — ' The most sublime ideas that can be formed 
from the most magnificenct specimens of our present architecture, would 
give a very incorrect picture of these ruins : for such is the difference, 
not only in magnitude, but in form, proportion, and construction, that even 
the pencil can convey but a faint idea of the whole. It appeared to me 
like entering a city of giants, who, after a long conflict, were all destroyed, 
leaving the ruins of their various temples as the only proofs of their former 
existence.' After pausing with wonder before the two colossal figures in 
the plain, he proceeded to examine the bust, which it was the object of 
his expedition to remove. ' I found it,' he observes, ' near the remains 
of its body and chair, with its face upwards, and apparently smiling on 
me, at the thought of being taken to England.' Finding the distance to 
his boat on the Nile too far to go every night, he built a small hut with 
the stones of the Memnonium, in which, with Mrs. Belzoni, he determined 
to remain till he had accomplished the removal of the bust. This, after 
much difficulty and persuasion, he procured sufficient men to raise from 
the ground ; ' which,' says Belzoni, ' so astonished the Arabs, that, 
though it was the effect of their own efforts, they said it was the devil that 
did it.' On the 5th of August, he reached, with the head, that part of 
the land which he was afraid of being prevented from crossing by the 
rising of the water ; and on the 12th, he observes, ' Thank God, the 
young Memnon arrived on the bank of the Nile.' Next day he entered a 
cave in the mountains of Gornou, for the purpose of taking out a sar- 
cophagus which had been mentioned to him by Mr. Drouetti ; and which, 
after having more than once lost his way in the different avenues that led 
to it, he was preparing to remove, when the Arabs, who were working for 
him, were put into prison by the cacheff of Erments, who replied, on his 
complaining of such conduct, ' that the sarcophagus had been sold to the 
French consul, and that no one else should have it.' 

Whilst waiting the arrival of a boat from Cairo, l»e made an excursion 
to the Temple of Ybsambul, the entrance of which, though choked up by 
an accumulation of sand to the height of thirty-six feet, he determined on 
using his utmost endeavors to open. Previously, however, to commencing 
his operations, he made a voyage to the second cataract of the Nile ; in 
reference to which he says, ' though some authors assert that the Nile has 
no waves, but runs quite smooth, I can assure the reader that we were 
this day tossed about as if by a gale at sea.' On his return to Ybsam- 
bul, he immediately began to clear the entrance to the temple, and after 
five days' labor, had succeeded in uncovering twenty feet of sand, when, 
finding that he had neither sufficient time nor money for the completion of 
his undertaking, he obtained a promise from the cacheff to keep the place, 
untouched till his return, and descended the Nile to Deboade, where he 
took possession of an obelisk, twenty -two feet long, ' in the name of his 
Britannic majesty's consul in Cairo.' On arriving at Thebes, he met two 
Frenchmen, who made some remarks on the head of Memnon to deter him 
from taking it away, and was told by their dragoman, that if he persevered 
in his researches, ' he should have his throat cut, by order of two person- 
ages.' After hiring a boat to convey the bust to Cairo, he proceeded to 
Carnak, where he employed twenty men to dig away the sand from a large 
temple, from the ruins of which he transported to Luxor six sphinxes and 



970 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

a white statue of Jupiter Ammon, which he subsequently conveyed to 
England, and are now in the British Museum. The merit of the discov- 
eries he made here, was attempted to be taken from him by Count de 
Forbin, who published an account, extracted from Belzoni's letters. 

After examining the extensive ruins of Medinet Aboo, which he de- 
scribes as ' best worthy the attention of the traveler of any on the west 
of Thebes,' and penetrating into several tombs which he discovered in the 
valley of Beban el Malook, Belzoni returned to Luxor with the intention 
of putting on board the colossal head, which, after many impediments, he 
effected on the 17th of November. On the 15th of December he arrived 
at Cairo, with the bust and other antiquities ; the latter of which he left, 
according to the instructions of Mr. Salt, at the consulate, and with the 
former, departed for Alexandria, where he saw it safely deposited in a 
British transport. Having accomplished this important object, he proceed- 
ed to resume his operations at the Temple of Ybsambul, stopping on his 
way thither at Thebes, where he found the agents of Mr. Drouetti in the 
act of completing many of the excavations he had begun, and removing 
several statues and sphinxes from the ruins. With some difficulty our 
traveler procured sufficient workmen to pursue his excavations at Carnak, 
where he discovered a magnificent temple, dedicated to the great God of 
the creation ; on entering which, he says, ' my mind was impressed with 
ideas of such solemnity, that for some time I was unconscious whether I 
were on terrestial ground, or in some other planet.' 

From Carnak he again proceeded to Gornou, a tract of rocks two miles 
in length, and formerly the burial place of the city of Thebes ; of which 
subterranean abodes, the most wonderful in the world, he thus speaks : — 
' In some places there is not more than a vacancy of a foot left, which you 
must contrive to pass through in a creeping posture, like a snail, on point- 
ed and keen stones, that cut like glass. Once I was conducted from such 
a place to another resembling it, through a passage of about two feet in 
length, and no wider than a body could be forced through. It was choked 
with mummies, and I could not pass without putting my face in contact 
with that of some decayed Egyptian ; but as the passage inclined down- 
wards, my own weight helped me on , however, I could not avoid being 
covered with bones, legs, arms, and heads rolling from above ; at the same 
time my throat and nose were choked with dust ; but, though fortunately 
I am destitute of the sense of smelling, I could taste that the mummies 
were rather unpleasant to swallow.' After collecting several papyri from 
the shrouds of the mummies, and purchasing a pair of beautiful brazen 
vessels, which he describes as ' two of the finest articles of metallic com- 
position, that ever were to be found in Egypt,' he returned to Carnak, 
where, among other discoveries, he dug up, and sent to England, a colos- 
sal head of red granite, still larger than that of the younger Memnon. 
About this time he was joined by Captains Mangles and Irby, with whose 
assistance he succeeded in entering the temple at Ybsambul, which he 
found to be one hundred and seventeen feet wide, and eighty-six feet high, 
and ' enriched with beautiful intaglios, paintings, colossal figures, etc.' 
His next and most important discovery was in the valley of Beban el 
Malook, of a vast and magnificent tomb, described by him as ' a new and 
perfect monument of Egyptian antiquity, which can be recorded as supe- 
rior to any other in point of grandeur, style, and preservation.' Speaking 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 971 

of the day on which he discovered this tomb, he says, ' I may call it ono 
of the best, perhaps, of my life ; it led me to the fortunate spot which 
has paid me for all the trouble I took in my researches.' 

On his return to Cairo, he was much annoyed to hear that the credit 
of the discoveries he had made had been usurped by others, who had 
been announced, by name, in the English journals, as the means of bring- 
ing to light the principal temples which he had so long been employed in 
excavating. Accordingly he resolved, in future, to keep his operations as 
secret as possible ; and with this view, went alone, to inspect the second 
great pyramid of Ghizeh, ' that enormous mass which, for so many ages, 
has baffled the conjectures of ancient and modern writers ;' and which, 
whether one solid mass, or possessing any cavity in the interior, no one 
had yet been able to ascertain. Notwithstanding, however, the difficulty 
of the attempt, and the uncertainty of success, he resolved on making an 
effort to discover an entrance to the tomb ; a project for the undertaking 
of which, .£20,000 had been considered by Mr. Drouetti necessary, while 
Belzoni determined to begin it with the small sum of £200, all he, at 
that moment, possessed. Having procured the requisite number of work- 
men, he commenced his operations, and after a month's labor, to his inex- 
pressible delight, found a passage, and penetrated into the centre of the 
pyramid. So unsuccessful, however, were his attempts at first, that those 
who came to see him at work, ridiculed the idea of his proceeding further, 
and the Count de Forbin, says Belzoni, ' requested, in a kind of sarcastic 
manner, when I had succeeded in opening the pyramid, (which, no doubt, 
he supposed I never would,) that I would send him a plan of it.' Ac- 
cordingly Belzoni sent it to the count, who taking advantage of the oppor- 
tunity, on his arrival in Paris, caused it to be published in the newspapers, 
that he himself had penetrated into the pyramid, and produced the plan 
as an evidence. 

Having sent some account of his proceedings to England, Belzoni made 
a third journey to Thebes, whence, after taking models in wax of the 
principal tombs, he set out on a voyage to the Red Sea, principally with 
the intention of visiting Sarkiet Minor, said to be the site of ancient Be- 
renice. Accordingly, on the 16th of September, 1818, accompanied by 
Mr. Beechey, he embarked at Gornou, and sailing down the Nile, was 
witness to one of the most calamitous inundations ever known ; the river 
having risen three feet and a half higher than usual, and swept away sev- 
eral villages and some hundred of their inhabitants. On leaving the Nile, 
he proceeded across the desert to the Red Sea, the coast of which he 
found to have been accurately described by Bruce ; and, at Cape el 
Golahen, he discovered the ruins of a town, which, from his own observa- 
tions, and those of the geographer, D'Anville, he concluded to be the site 
of ancient Berenice, of which city he had found no traces at Sarkiet 
Minor. Returning to Gornou, he was met by Mr. Salt and Mr. Banks, 
the latter of whom, having been authorized to take possession of the obe- 
lisk found by Belzoni in the island of Philoe, engaged him to remove it 
down the Nile to Alexandria, preparatory to its embarkation for England. 
On reaching the spot where it lay, he, after some opposition on the part 
of Mr. Drouetti, who claimed the obelisk as his own, commenced his ope- 
rations for putting it on board, which he effected after a delay of three 
days, caused by its slipping from the machine into the water. Having 



972 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

arrived at Luxor, he landed for a few days to visit the excavations he had 
commenced at Carnak, when, on his returning to the boat, he was sudden 
ly attacked by a large party of Arabs, headed by two Europeans and Mr 
Drouetti, who endeavored to force Belzoni to deliver up the obelisk. He 
was, however, firm in his refusal ; but, on reaching the Nile, hastened on 
to Alexandria, determined to quit Egypt for ever, as he observes, ' I could 
not live any longer in a country where I had become the object of revenge, 
to a set of people who could take the basest means to accomplish their 
purpose.' 

Previously, however, to sailing for Europe, he made an excursion to 
Faiume, the ruins of ancient Arsinoe, Lake Moeris, and the Oasis of Am- 
nion, near Zaboo, where he received a severe injury on his side, in conse- 
quence of his camel falling with him down a hard rock of twenty feet in 
depth. In this journey he tried to discover some remains of the famous 
Temple of the Labyrinth ; visited the fountain at Ell Cassar, mentioned by 
Herodotus ; and, after passing some time at various places, in search of 
antiquities, returned to Alexandria, whence, in the middle of September, 
1819, he says, ' Thank God, we embarked for Europe; not that I disliked 
the country I was in, for, on the contrary, I have reason to be grateful ; 
nor do I complain of the Turks or Arabs in general, but of some Europe- 
ans who are in that country, whose conduct and mode of thinking are a 
disgrace to human nature.' On his arrival in Italy, he visited his friends 
and family at Padua ; to which city he presented two lion-headed statues 
of granite, which were placed, by his townsmen, in the Palazza della Jus- 
titia, who also struck a medal in honor of him. In 1820, he reached Eng- 
land ; and, in the same year, published an Account of his Travels and 
Discoveries, a work which excited the interest and attention of the whole 
literary and scientific world. In 1821, he exhibited, at the Egyptian 
Hall, in Piccadilly, a representation of two of the principal chambers of a 
tomb he had discovered in Beban el Malook, besides a model of the entire 
excavation ; with several specimens of Egyptian sculpture, cases containing 
idols, mummies, etc., and a superb manuscript of papyrus. 

In the latter end of 1822, Belzoni left England for Gibraltar, with the 
intention of traveling through Africa to Senaar, by way of Timbuctoo, a 
city which, up to that time, had never been visited by an European. On 
reaching Fez, he was introduced to the emperor of Morocco, who, at first, 
gave him permission to join a caravan about to set out for Timbuctoo ; but, 
subsequently, remanded him back to Tangiers, whence our traveler pro- 
ceeded to Gibraltar, determined not to relinquish his project, although he 
had already fruitlessly expended XI, 000 in his attempt to accomplish it. 
Having arrived at Madeira, he continued his course to Teneriffe and Cape 
Coast Castle, where he resolved to take a northerly direction, from the 
kingdom of Benim direct to Houssa, towards the east of which country he 
had some hope of falling in with the Niger. On the 30th of October, he 
reached the Bar of Benim river ; and, after making an excursion to the 
capital of Warra, about one hundred and twenty miles distant from Bobee, 
returned to the latter place, and set out, in company with Mr. Houtson, 
an English merchant, on his expedition to Timbuctoo. Whilst stepping 
into the canoe in which he departed, he evinced much agitation ; and when 
the crew of the vessel he had just left, gave him three cheers, it was with 
trepidation, though with earnestness, that he exclaimed — ' God bless you, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 973 

my fine fellows ! and send you a happy sight of your country and friends !' 
He reached Gato on the 20th of November, 1823 ; and, on the 26th, de- 
parted for Benim, where he arrived in the evening of the same day, suffer- 
ing slightly from an attack of diarrhoea, of which he had complained in the 
course of his journey. After some negotiation with the king of Benim, to 
whom Mr. Belzoni was represented as an Indian, or Malay, on his return 
home, it was arranged that he should be escorted as far as Houssa, whither, 
however, his diarrhoea, now changed to a dysentery, prevented him from 
preparing to proceed. 

On the 2d of December, his illness increased to such an alarming de- 
gree, that he expressed a conviction of his approaching death, and begged 
Mr. Houtson to send him back to Gato, in the faint hope that the sea breeze 
might revive him. On his arrival there, though much fatigued, he ap- 
peared better for the voyage ; resumed his usual cheerfulness, ate and 
drank, slightly, of bread and tea, and fell into a sound sleep, from which, 
however, he awoke with a dizziness in the head, and coldness in the ex- 
tremities ; shortly after he lost the power of speech, and, in the afternoon 
of the 3d of December, tranquilly expired. 

Previously to his death, he had given directions respecting his papers, and 
had attempted to write to his wife ; but, his strength failing him, he re- 
quested Mr. Houtson * to bear witness that he died in the fullest and most 
affectionate remembrance of her ; and begged that gentleman would write 
to her, and send her the amethyst ring which he then wore.' He was 
buried on the day following his death, the funeral service being delivered 
by Mr. Houtson, who placed over his grave the following inscription : — 
4 Here lie the remains of G. Belzoni, Esq., who was attacked with a dys- 
entery at Benim, on the 26th of November, on his way to Houssa and Tim- 
buctoo, and died at Gato, on the 3d of December, 1823. The gentleman 
who placed this inscription over the grave of this intrepid and enterprising 
traveler, hopes that every European, visiting this spot, will cause the 
ground to be cleared, and the fence around it put in repair, if necessary.' 

The character of Belzoni was of an intrepid and enterprising nature ; 
and he possessed a spirit of perseverance, in the midst of the many diffi- 
culties and dangers which surrounded him, that would have turned most 
men from their object. His person was as well-favored as it was tall and 
powerful ; and his countenance was handsome and intelligent. He was 
accompanied by his wife in all his expeditions, except the last : she was, 
for a woman, as prodigious in size and strength as Belzoni was for a man; 
and proved of much assistance to him in the course of his researches in 
Egypt. The travels of Belzoni are the most interesting ever recorded ; 
the account of them is written by himself, choosing, as he says in his pre- 
face, to tell in his own way his events and discoveries ; being more solicit- 
our about the accuracy of the facts than the manner of relating them. His 
narrative, however, although occasionally confused, from an over-earnestness 
to convey to the reader's mind an adequate idea of the difficulties en- 
countered by the author, is written in a pure and unostentatious style, and 
in a tone which occasionally approaches to the poetic and sublime. Nor is 
his diction inelegant ; and, notwithstanding his want of a classical edu- 
cation, he displays, in his work, a very extensive knowledge of ancient his- 
tory, and particularly of the classical traditions respecting Thebes and 
other celebrated places of Egypt. 



974 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 



GEORGE FORSTER. 

George Forster, born some time about the year 1750, went out as a 
writer in the service of the East India Company to Madras, whence, in 
1782, he set out on his return to England, by way of Persia and Russia. 
Embarking on the Ganges, towards the latter end of June, he proceeded 
through Rajmahal, Monghee, and Patna, to Benares, where he spent three 
months in familiarity with the Hindoos, and in endeavoring to discover the 
origin of the Brahmin theology. After making an excursion to the fort 
of Biggighur, and assuming, for safety, a Georgian name, he proceeded 
through the Delhi country to Najebabad, where he represented himself as 
a Turkish merchant, and joined a kafila going to Cashmere. On the 6th 
of March, he crossed the river Jumma ; and, on the 20th, arrived at a fron- 
tier town of the Punjaub, or Five Rivers, whence, after a rest of three days, 
he left the caravan ; and in company with his servants, and an other Cash- 
merian, passed through the respective armies of two rajahs at war with 
each other ; and, about the middle of April, reached Jummoo. Leaving 
this wealthy and commercial city, he set out, on foot, towards Cashmere, 
which, after a fatiguing journey of ten days, he approached, on the 26th, 
at a time, he observes, ' when the trees, the apple, the pear, the peach, th-3 
apricot, the cherry, and mulberry, bore a variegated load of blossoff.3. 
The clusters also of red and white roses,' he continues, ' with aa inuTiifcc 
class of flowering shrubs, presented a view so gaily decked, that jio ext/a 
ordinary warmth of imagination was required to fancy that I stood, ht least, 
on a province of fairy land.' 

Whilst residing at Cashmere, he was declared, by a Georgian who no 
ticed the flatness of his head, to be a Christian, but threatening hid detector 
with the confiscation of an estate he found him to possess at Benares, in the 
event of his discovering him, he escaped exposure, and, immediately after 
wards, solicited his passport, and left the city. On the 10th of July, h€ 
crossed the Indus, about twenty miles above the town of Altack, and, on 
the following day, passed the Kabul river to Akorah ; whence, after a jour- 
ney, in which he was nearly discovering his true religion, and a few tran- 
sient dangers, he proceeded to Kabul, which he reached on the 2d of 
August. A few days after his arrival, he was attacked by a malignant 
fever, which appeared on his body in bright blue spots, and left him scarce- 
ly strength to move for some time after his recovery. Having hired one 
side of a camel, where he was placed in a pannier, he set out for Kanda- 
har ; in the course of his journey whither he was much annoyed by the 
insults and reviling of the whole kafila, in consequence of hi3 no longer 
wearing the Mohammedan disguise, which, consequently, on his arrival at 
Herat, he thought it prudent again to assume. Here he joined another 
kafila, about to proceed to Tursheez, and obtained great respect the whole 
way, by representing himself as a pilgrim going to visit the shrine of Me- 
shed. On the 28th of December, he left Tursheez, with a body of pilgrims 
proceeding to Mesanderan, whence he journeyed to Mushedsir on the Cas- 
pian sea ; embarked at that city for Baku, shaved off his beard, which had 
grown to an enormous thickness, and sailed to Astrachan, where he ar 



976 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

rived in the beginning of 1784, and, in the following July, landed in Eng- 
land. 

Immediately on his arrival he began to put his manuscripts in form for 
the press, and in 1786, published, in London, his Sketches of the Mytholo- 
gy and Manners of the Hindoos. Returning some time after this to India, 
he published, at Calcutta, in 1790, the first volume of his travels, under 
the title of A Journey from Bengal to England, and was just about to print 
a second, when he died at Nagpoor, whither he had been sent on an em- 
bassy, some time in the year 1792. In 1798, a complete edition of his 
travels was published in two quarto volumes, but so negligently edited, that 
it has been doubted whether the second volume was compiled from the 
manuscripts of Forster, of whom no account was given, nor of the manner 
in which his papers were obtained. The work, though not gaining the 
reputation it deserved, received great commendation from the literary world, 
and was translated into German by Meineis, and into French, with the 
addition of notes and two maps, by Langl&s, who has written a short me- 
moir of Forster, in the Biographie Universelle. 

« Few travels have been more adventurous and hazardous than those of 
Forster ; yet the gay and spirited manner in which the account of them is 
written, gives no indication of any apprehension on the part of the author, 
who seems to have been as much at home in the deserts of Khorasan, as on 
the banks of the Thames. Indeed, had he not preserved, during his trav- 
els, the unreserved, unsuspicious, and familiar manner which his disguise 
as a Mohammedan rendered necessary, he would neither have had so good 
an opportunity of seeing the manners and dispositions of his infidel associ- 
ates, nor have lived, perhaps, to relate them. 

EDWARD DANIEL CLARKE. 

This distinguished traveler and antiquarian, son of the Rev. Edward 
Clarke, was born at Willingdon, in the county of Sussex, on the 5th of 
June 1769. Whilst very young, he gave proofs of a roving disposition, 
and of a fondness for natural history and chemistry, and many amusing 
anecdotes are related of his conduct under the influence of these predilec- 
tions. He received the rudiments of education at an academy in the vil- 
lage of Uckfield ; and, in 1779, was sent to the grammar school at Tunb ridge, 
then under the superintendence of the celebrated Vicessimus Knox. 
Here he made but little classical progress, but his fondness for books was 
evinced by his habit of reading late at night, when all his schoolfellows 
were asleep, for which purpose he spent great part of his pocket-money in 
purchasing candles. In 1786, shortly after which his father died, he 
entered Jesus College, Cambridge, where he obtained the situation of 
chapel clerk, to the duties of which office he was scrupulously attentive, 
but distinguished himself in no branch of university learning, excepting 
that of English declamation. He devoted himself, however, with great 
assiduity to his self-selected studies, which consisted of history, antiquity, 
and every variety of learning comprehended under the term of belles 
lettres. Natural history, and particularly mineralogy, also occupied great 
part of his time ; and he evinced a capacity for scientific pursuits, by the 
construction of a large balloon at Oxford, and of an orrery at home, for 
the purpose of delivering lectures to his sister, his only auditor. His sole 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 977 

means of support at this time were derived from an income of about <£96 
per annum, the source of which was a Rustat scholarship, and his exhibi- 
tion from Tunbridge. Thus situated, and having made a vow to accept no 
pecuniary assistance from his mother, whose income Avas extremely small, 
he determined to exert himself, and accordingly, as the time approached 
for his examination, he, for the first time, entered upon a regular course 
of study, and on proceeding to his degree, in January 1790, he obtained 
the mathematical honor of a junior optime, which, though it did not confer 
a high distinction, enabled the college, with some show of justice, to elect 
him afterwards to a fellowship. In the following April, on the recommen- 
dation of the Bishop of Gloucester, he became tutor to the Honorable 
Henry Tufton, nephew of the Duke of Dorset, with whom he made the 
tour of Great Britain ; and, on his return, published an account of it, but 
the work is by no means on a level with his subsequent performances. 

In 1791, he went with his pupil to Calais ; and, in the following year, 
he obtained an engagement to accompany Lord Berwick on a tour to Ger- 
many, Switzerland, and Italy. ' He was now,' says Mr. St. John, one of 
his biographers, ' in the position for which nature had originally designed 
him.' ' An unbounded love of travel,' are the words of Clarke himself, 
' influenced me at a very early period of my life. It was conceived in 
infancy, and I shall carry it with me to the grave. When I reflect upon 
the speculations of my youth, I am at a loss to account for a passion, which, 
predominating over every motive of interest, and every tie of affection, 
urges me to press forward, and to pursue inquiry, even in the bosom of 
the ocean and the desert. Sometimes, in the dreams of fancy, I am weak 
enough to imagine that the map of the world was painted in the awning 
of my cradle, and that my nurse chaunted the wanderings of pilgrims in 
her legendary lullabies.' He remained abroad about two years, and on 
his return, became tutor, successively, to Sir Thomas Mostyn, and to two 
sons of the present Marquis of Anglesey. In 1798, having previously 
taken his degree of M. A., he resumed his residence at Cambridge ; and, 
in the following year, set out with his pupil and friend, Mr. Cripps, on a 
tour through Denmark, Sweden, Lapland, Finland, Russia, Tartary, Cir- 
cassia, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Greece, and Turkey. Having arrived 
at the gulf of Bothnia, Clarke declared he would not return until he should 
have ' snuffed the polar air,' and he accordingly proceeded as far as Enon- 
takis, in latitude 68 deg. 30 min. 30 sec. north : beyond which, illness 
prevented him from venturing. 

On the 26th of January 1800, he arrived at Petersburg, whence he 
continued his course to Moscow, and Taganrog on the sea of Azoff; and, 
on his reaching Achmedshid, in the Crimea, he passed some time with his 
pupil in the house of Professor Pallas. He next visited Constantinople, 
where he was employed in searching for, and examining, Greek medals ; 
and, among other curiosities of the Turkish capital, he contrived to enter 
the seraglio, ' where,' he says, ' no Frank had before set his foot.' Hence 
he made an excursion to the Troad, at the prospect of beholding which, 
he had previously said in a letter to a friend, ' Tears of joy stream from 
my eyes while I write.' Egypt and Syria next claimed his attention ; and 
whilst near the lake of Genesareth, he took particular observation of the 
Druzes, whom he describes as ' the most extraordinary people on earth,' 
and whose custom of prostrating themselves weekly before the molten calf, 
62* 



978 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

he observes, ' is exactly that worship at which Moses was so incensed in 
descending from Mount Sinai.' 

In 1801, he returned to Egypt, and whilst in that country, a dispute 
arising between the French and English generals respecting the literary 
treasures collected by the former, he was deputed by General Hutchinson 
to point out those most worthy of being conveyed to England, which coun- 
try is indebted to him, amongst other things, for the acquisition of the 
famous sarcophagus of Alexander the Great. From Europe he proceeded 
to Greece, where his enthusiasm seems to have reached its highest stretch. 
' It is necessary,' he exclaims, ' to forget all that has preceded — all the 
travels of my life — all I ever imagined — all I ever saw ! Asia, Egypt, 
the Isles, Italy, the Alps — Whatever you will! Greece surpasses all! 
Stupendous in its ruins ! — awful in its mountains, — captivating in its vales, 
— bewitching in its climate. Nothing ever equaled it — no pen can de- 
scribe it — no pencil can portray it !' 

Our traveler returned to Cambridge in 1802, when, in consequence of 
his presents to the university, of which the principal was a Grecian statue 
of Ceres, he was presented with the degree of LL. D. It does not 
appear at what time he took orders, but in 1806, in which year he married 
Angelica, daughter of Sir William Beaumaris Rush, he succeeded to the 
college living of Harlton, in Cambridgeshire ; and shortly afterwards to the 
vicarage of All Saints, Cambridge, where he officiated with great popular- 
ity, and upon which he bestowed an altar-piece, after the Grecian model. 
In the year last-mentioned, he commenced a course of lectures on mineral- 
ogy, the excellence of which induced the university, in 1808, to found a 
professorship for the encouragement of that branch of learning, when he 
was unanimously elected to the chair. About the same time he received 
.£1,000 from the curators of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for the manu- 
scripts he had collected during his travels, including the famous one 
known as the JPatmos Plato, to which Professor Porson assigned a very 
high antiquity. In 1810, the first volume of his travels appeared ; and 
was succeeded, at subsequent periods, by five others. The publication of 
them produced him a sum of .£6595 ; and by no means a more than ade- 
quate one, when it is considered that the work occupied five thousand pages 
of quarto letter-press ; a task, under which, he says, ' I should have sunk, 
had I not been blessed with double the share of spirits which commonly 
belong to sedentary men.' Yet amidst all this toil and multifarious em- 
ployment, he pursued the study of chemistry both with zeal and success, 
as appears in one of his letters to a friend, in September, 1816, in which 
he says, 'I sacrificed the whole month of August to chemistry. Oh, how 
I did work ! It was delightful play to me ; and I stuck to it, day and night. 
At last, having blown off both my eye-brows and eye-lashes, and nearly 
blown out both my eyes, I ended with a bang that shook all the houses 
round my lecture-room. The Cambridge paper has told you the result of 
all this alchemy, for I have actually decomposed the earths, and attained 
them in a metallic form.' The death of this accomplished traveler took 
place at the residence of his father-in-law, on the 9th of March, 1822, 
and he was buried on the 18th, in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge, 
with academic solemnities. 

For ardent enterprise, energy of purpose, industry of research, and 
extent and variety of observation, few travelers are to be compared with 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 979 

Dr. Clarke. His works have, on this account, become more popular than 
any other of a similar nature, though containing an account of countries 
both before and since visited and described. They would certainly bear 
abridgement; but it would require a most skillful hand to select from pages 
where few paragraphs appear worthy of rejection, if of curtailment. Al- 
though he expresses himself with enthusiasm, and many of his reflections 
are hastily and inconsiderately formed, his style is chaste and clear, and 
he details the most curious facts with a simplicity incompatible with exag- 
geration. In speaking of the second volume, Lord Byron says, in a letter 
to the author, ' in tracing some of my old paths, adorned by you so beau- 
tifully, I receive double delight. How much you have traversed ! I must 
resume my seven-leagued boots, and journey to Palestine, which your de- 
scription mortifies me not to have seen, more than ever.' 

A peculiar feature in the character of Dr. Clarke, is the rapidity with 
which he passed from one pursuit to another. ' I have lived to know,' he 
saysin a letter to Dr. D'Oyley, ' that the great secret of human happiness 
is this : — never suffer your energies to stagnate. The old adage,' he adds, 
'of "too many irons in the fire," conveys an abominable lie. You cannot 
have too many ; poker, tongs, and all — keep them all going.' ' His ardor 
for knowledge,' says his biographer, the Rev. Mr. Otter, * not unaptly 
called by his old tutor, literary heroism, was one of the most zealous, most 
sustained, and most enduring principles of action that ever animated a 
human breast.' As a preacher, his biographer speaks of ' the sublimity 
and excellence of his discourses,' and says that his ardor in the pursuit of 
science was ' softened by moral and social views.' In private life he was 
amiable and benevolent ; and, to conversation equally interesting and intel- 
ligent, joined the most kind and captivating manners. He was survived 
by five sons and two daughters. 

In addition to his Travels, Dr. Clarke was the author of Testimony of 
different Authors respecting the Colossal Statue of Ceres ; The Tomb of 
Alexander ; Description of the Greek Marbles brought from the Shores of 
the Euxine, Archipelago, and Mediterranean ; besides some letters and 
pamphlets, on subjects relating to science and antiquity. 

RICHARD POCOCKE. 

Richard Pocoke was born at Southampton, some time in the year 
1704. After having received a classical education, and acquired a 
knowledge of several oriental languages, he, in August, 1733-4, about 
which time he took the degree of LL. D., visited France and Italy; 
and in 1736, he set out on an expedition to the east. He reached 
Alexandria in September, 1737, and proceeded thence to Rosetta, where 
he visited Cosmas, the Greek patriarch, and observed the veneration 
of the people for 'two of those naked saints, who are commonly natural 
fools, and are held in great esteem in Egypt.' On the 11th of Novem- 
ber, he reached Cairo, when he took great pains in ascertaining the 
modern condition of the country, and the customs of the people, with 
every description of whom he associated and conversed. After descend- 
ing the well of Joseph, visiting and examining the pyramids near Cairo 
and Saccara, and endeavoring to discover the site of ancient Memphis, 
which in accordance with Bruce and others, he places at Metrahenny, he 



980 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

made an excursion to Faiurae, the Fake Moeris, and ancient Arsinoe ; in 
which province he discovered, at Baiamont, the ruins of two pyramids ; 
where, he observes, 'I saw the people sifting the sand in order to find seals 
and medals, there being no part in all the east where the former are found 
in such great abundance.' About two miles distant from Lake Moeris, 
he explored the remains of the Temple of the Labyrinth, a building which 
once contained three thousand rooms, 'contrived in such a manner that 
no stranger could find his way out ;' and he relates a tradition, prevalent 
among the inhabitants near the lake, of King Caroon, 'who had keys to 
his treasures that loaded two hundred camels.' 'One would imagine from 
this,' he observes, 'that the fable of Charon might have its rise here, and 
that this name might be the title of the chief person who had the care of 
the labyrinth and of the sepulchres in and about it.' 

Mr. Pococke embarked in the beginning of December, for Upper 
Egypt ; and, on the 9th of January, 1738, reached Dendera, where he 
discovered the remains of all the ancient buildings choked with ashes, and 
the inhabitants of the Arabs fixed on the Temple of Athor-Aphrodite, or 
the Egyptian Venus. He then visited the ruins of Thebes, Elephantina, 
Philoe, and the cataracts ; and returning to Cairo, the latter end of Feb- 
ruary, prepared for an excursion to Mount Sinai ; but a war just breaking 
out between the monks and Arabs in that part, he changed his course, 
and, sailing down the Nile to Damietta, arrived at Jaffa on the 14th of 
March. Proceeding immediately to Jerusalem, he explored every spot 
worthy of notice in that city ; and his topographical observations have 
removed much obscurity respecting several parts of it. After making an 
excursion to Jericho and Jordan, he proceeded along the brook of Ke- 
dron to the Dead Sea, where he bathed, in order to ascertain the truth of 
Pliny's assertion that no living bodies would sink in it. 'I stayed in it,' 
says Mr. Pococke, 'near a quarter of an hour, and found I could lay on 
it in any posture without motion and without sinking ; it bore me up in 
such a manner, that when I struck in swimming, my legs were above the 
water, and I found it difficult to recover my feet.' His face was covered 
with a crust of salt on coming out of the lake, and he describes the water 
as having the effect of constringing his mouth, in the same manner as 
strong alumn juice. In May, he returned to Jaffa, whence he sailed to 
Acra, and visited the northern parts of Palestine and Galilee, particularly 
Mounts Carmel and Tabor, Cana, Nazareth, the lake of Tiberias, and 
Mount Hermon ; whence he proceeded towards the sea, and sailed to 
Tyre, Sidon, and Mount Lebanon. He next explored Balbec and its 
magnificent temple ; proceeded to Damascus, Horus, and Aleppo ; and 
after crossing the Euphrates to Orfah, continued his route through Antioch 
and Scanderoon to Tripoli, where on the 25th of October, he embarked 
for Cyprus. After passing some time in this island, he returned to Egypt ; 
visited Mount Sinai ; followed the track of the Israelites through the 
wilderness ; embarked at Alexandria for Crete ; ascended Mount Ida, 
and continued his course to Smyrna and Constantinople. He then visited 
the principal cities of Greece, and returned to England in 1741 ; two 
years after which, he published, in one folio volume, an account of his 
travels, with maps and plates, under the title of A Description of the 
East, and some other Countries, which was succeeded by two other vol- 
umes of the same size. 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 981 

Mr. Pococke, on his return to England, was spoken of with great reputa- 
tion through Europe ; and having taken orders, was made, in 1756, Arch- 
deacon of Ossory ; in 1765, Bishop of Elphin ; in the July of the same 
year, Bishop of Meath ; and died of apoplexy in the following month of 
September. 

OVERLAND JOURNEY TO INDIA. 

The following description of the route from England to India was drawn 
up by Dr. Buist, of the Bombay Times : 

The only way, not many years ago, of reaching India from England, 
was by sailing vessels, which, touching at St. Helena or the Cape of Good 
Hope, made the voyage in about four months. Now, the journey is usually 
performed partly by sea, and partly by land, in from thirty-five to forty 
days. This overland journey, as it is called, admits of variation. Some 
travel across France to Marseilles, and then proceed by a steamer to Alex- 
andria; and this is undoubtedly the quickest way of reaching Egypt, 
through which it is necessary to pass. The greater number of travelers, 
however, prefer proceeding by steamer from Southampton direct to Alex- 
andria, because this saves much fatigue, shifting of luggage, and also some 
expenses. 

Having spent a few months in England in the latter part of 1845, it 
became necessary for me to decide on returning to my official duties in 
Bombay. Of the different modes of making the journey, I preferred that 
by steam vessel from Southampton. Occupied till the last moment with 
business in London, I did not find it possible to leave town till the morning 
of the 3d of December. Packing having been got through rapidly enough, 
I found myself on my way to the South- Western Railway station, at half- 
past six — an unpleasant time to start on a long journey, but travelers learn 
to accommodate themselves to all sorts of inconveniences. The distance 
from London to Southampton was traversed in little more than three hours. 
I found various friends and acquaintances about to be my companions on 
the journey to India, and a more pleasant and agreeable party than that 
turned out to be which left Southampton in the Tagus, on the 3d of De- 
cember, no one need desire to travel with. 

It is sad to witness the parting of relatives with those about to leave for 
India ; doubly sad to those who know the sickness, the suffering, the sor- 
row, and the disappointment too often awaiting the young who quit home 
with visions of the East flitting before them in their brightest hues. The 
looked-for return — the bright future — the hopes of happy meetings — all 
how rarely realised ! 

We quitted our moorings at three o'clock P. M., and lost sight of Eng- 
land in the darkness while yet very close to it. We steered down the 
Channel during night. Next day the weather was thick, and the land 
invisible. The Bay of Biscay, which opens after passing Ushant, has, by 
means of steam, been divested of half its terrors. 

We sighted Cape Finisterre on the morning of the 7th — the first land 
we had seen since leaving Southampton. We continued to make good pro- 
cress, though latterly we had had a rough wind and heavy sea to contend 
with. 

The vessel, in general, approaches tolerably near to the Cape. The 



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984 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

outlines of the landscape are bold, varied, and beautiful ; but a heavy swell, 
which commonly rolls in, is apt to interfere with the voyager's contempla- 
tions. 

From this on running down the coast of Portugal, the steamer on most 
occasions keeps pretty close in-3hore, so that the land is for the most part 
visible. The first places of note that present themselves are Oporto and 
Vigo Bay. The appearance presented here by the mainland is exceeding- 
ly picturesque. The coast seems rocky and precipitous, jagged and irreg- 
ular. There are lighthouses on certain small islands, and on more than 
one of the headlands ; and white-walled dwellings and villages everywhere 
present themselves. 

The heights of Torres Vedras, close on shore, present nothing to the eye 
that is marvellous or attractive, though rich in the most striking historical 
associations. The magnificent pile at Mafra is generally distinctly visible 
without the aid of a telescope. It is of enormous extent, containing a 
palace, convent, and superb church. The lines of Byron here recur to re- 
membrance : — 

' The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned, 
The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep, 
The mountain-moss by scorching skies embrowned, 
The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep, 
The tender azure of the unruffled deep, 
The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, 
The torrents that from cliff to valley leap, 
The vine on high, the willow branch below, 
Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.' 

The ridge, on the highest pinnacle of which the convent of our Lady of 
the Rock is situated, is wild, rugged, and precipitous, ascending to an ele- 
vation of about two thousand five hundred feet. A low cliff skirts the sea- 
shore, and singular masses, apparently of drift sand, make their appearance, 
stretching for some miles along and inland. 

A very picturesque appearance is often presented by the fishing-boats 
when the breeze is fresh. They have a drag-net attached to the extreme 
end of a long outrigger, stretching some thirty or forty feet beyond the 
vessel, and hundreds of sea-birds follow the net, with the view, apparently, 
of picking up any stray fish they can extract from it. 

The Rock of Lisbon, a huge, unshapely, but striking mass, indicates the 
approach to the Tagus. The river opens up magnificently from the sea. 
The spires and lofty buildings of Lisbon are distinctly visible, with the ves- 
sels at anchor off the quay. Cape Espartelle, a remarkable headland, with 
a lighthouse upon its extremity, becomes visible a little to the south of the 
debouchure of the Tagus. The cliff is obliquely stratified, and marked like 
those of Alum bay, Isle of Wight. The land now recedes, and is in a 
considerable measure lost sight of, till, rounding close in upon cape St. 
Vincent, the scene of the celebrated engagement in 1797, the bay of Ca- 
diz is entered. In crossing this bay, land is for some time lost sight of. 
It becomes visible again off cape Trafalgar ; but this celebrated headland 
it was our misfortune to pass in the dark. 

The next place of importance reached by the steamer is Gibraltar, where 
we quit the Atlantic ocean, and enter the Mediteranean. The rock of 
Gibraltar first comes into view about ten miles off. As the bay is approached, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 985 

the suddenness of the change in the color of the water, from bright deep 
blue to green, as the soundings decrease at once from twenty-four to six- 
teen fathoms, strikes the voyager. The transition is instantaneous, without 
any intermediate hue or shading. Rounding the point Carnero, and breast- 
ing Europa point, you find yourself at once within a beautiful sheltered 
and spacious recess, some six miles across and ten in depth, with British 
men-of-war, steamers, and merchant-ships of every nation at anchor. _ The 
appearance of the rock of Gibraltar, with respect to its known military 
strength, generally disappoints the stranger. The most formidable of the 
batteries are either concealed in mysterious galleries in the bosom of the 
rock itself, half-way up, or lie so close on the line of the sea, as to be lost 
sight of amongst the hulls of the vessels around. The promontory consists 
of a vast rock, rising from twelve hundred to fourteen hundred feet above 
the sea; it is about three miles in length, and from one-half to three-quar- 
ters of a mile in width, and is joined to the mainland by a low sandy isth- 
mus, about a mile and a half in length. On the north side, fronting the 
isthmus, the rock is almost perpendicular, the east and south sides are also 
steep and rugged ; but on the west side it slopes downward to a fine bay, 
nine miles long by four and a half miles broad. On this slope lies the 
town, containing a mixed population of sixteen thousand, and above rise 
the principal ramparts of the rocky fortress, which is generally garrisoned 
by from three to four thousand troops. The ordnance consists of more 
than seven hundred cannons fit for service. 

Gibraltar derives its name from Tarif, a Moorish general, by whom it 
was taken from the Spaniards in 711 — Gibel Tarif, the Mountain of Tarif. 
It remained in the hands of the Moors till the beginning of the fourteenth 
century, when it was recovered by the Spaniards. It was retaken by the 
Moors in 1333. In 1462 it finally fell into the hands of the Christians, 
after having been possessed by their adversaries for seven hundred and 
forty-eight years. On the 24th of July, 1704, it was captured by the 
English, who fell on it suddenly, and stormed it — the garrison amounting 
to no more than one hundred and fifty men, the batteries mounting one 
hundred guns. From this time till nearly the end of the century, number- 
less attempts to wrest it from them have been made by the French and 
Spaniards, but in vain. During the late war, it seemed to be considered 
idle to attempt to disturb them. 

The town of Algesiras, a place of considerable importance, and remark- 
able as that at which the Moors first landed in Spain, lies across the bay 
about five and a half miles off, while the village of St. Roque, at the upper 
end of the bay, is conspicuous on the slope. The high blue mountains of 
Granada fill up the background. 

The winter climate of Gibraltar is extremely delightful. In December, 
the temperature varies from 60 to 75 degrees, clouds shading the piercing 
rays of the sun. In summer, it is occasionally extremely hot, especially 
when the wind blows from the African shore. The appearance presented 
by Gibraltar, viewed from the harbor, is peculiarly striking after nightfall. 
The numberless lights, seen in all their brightness through the open win- 
dows, look as if issuing from apertures admitting to some bright cave or 
furnace in the centre of the rock, whose huge black mass towers on high, 
the houses in the town being indistinguishable in the darkness. In sum- 
mer, the surface of the sea is occasionally so closely covered with luminous 



986 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

particles, as to seem sheeted in phosphorus. The slightest ripple increases 
the intensity of the light, and the dolphins flash through the water, literally 
* moving in light of their own making.' In winter, this in a great meas- 
ure disappears, the luminosity being confined to a few bright masses which 
sweep by the ship. I have often taken up bucketsful of water brilliant 
with luminous particles when stirred, but though I have tried the experi- 
ment in a hundred different ways, I have never been so fortunate as to get 
a sight of the zoophyte or animalculae by which this is given forth, either 
with the naked eye or glass. 

We landed at Gibraltar at noon, and embarked about five o'clock on the 
evening of the 10th. Of this time — of which a good deal was made by the 
more active of our passengers — I was unable to avail myself, being occu- 
pied in duties which I could not properly desert. Some of the party 
provided themselves with mules, and made an interesting excursion over 
the rock. The view of the African shore from Gibraltar Bay is, towards 
sunset, peculiarly beautiful — the fortress of Ceuta, standing out purple and 
red in the setting sun, in mimic rivalry of that on the European shore. 
One huge mass of mountains, of the Atlas group on the African side, with 
the Sierras of Andalusia on the Spanish shore, ' fill the mind with beauty' 
for a long while on leaving or on approaching Gibraltar. 

After staying but a few hours, our gallant vessel was again on her course. 
The weather, unfortunately, was not propitious. On leaving Gibraltar we 
encountered a heavy gale of wind, which lasted four days. The wind was 
westerly, and, as is usual in such circumstances, the mercury in the bar- 
ometer kept rising as the gale increased. When at its height, the column 
stood at 30.114, and began steadily to descend as the storm abated. 
How useful is this instrument to the mariner — how faithful its prognosti- 
cations of storm and calm ! 

Pursuing our way up the Mediterranean, the vessel steers direct for 
Malta, by which we approach the African shore. On the 14th we were 
off Algiers. The bay and town, with the villas around, were plainly visi- 
ble by the naked eye : we were little more than six miles off. The country 
adjoining appeared fertile and well-cultivated, and we could see roads, 
gardens, and enclosures, with fields and vineyards, all looking in good 
condition. Cape Faroe, and the promontory of the Seven Capes, are 
jagged, irregular headlands, very distinctly visible. Cape Bon was 
another headland which came into sight. We likewise passed within 
view of the dreary island of Pantellaria, which is evidently the huge 
tumulus of an extinct volcano. It is about thirty-six miles in circumfer- 
ence, and seems about three thousand feet in height. The raptured craters 
and streams of lava are easily traceable, with beds of loose stones hurled 
down the mountain's side during some of its fiercer explosions. A large 
mass of cloud, which might readily be mistaken for the smoke of smould- 
ering fires, almost constantly rests on the summit of the mountain. There 
is a considerable town, of the same name with the island, near the sea- 
shore on the western slope, and vineyards and gardens appear scattered 
about in surprising abundance. It belongs to the king of Sicily, and 
ia used as a penal settlement, whither the Sicilian convicts are sent. » 

Our coal had been so heavily taxed by the storm, which had only now 
abated, that we were at one time on the point of making for Tunis. The wind 
got round upon us, and it is astonishing how rapidly in these seas the swell 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 987 

goes down after a gale. Six hours after it had ceased to blow the waves 
were nearly smooth, and the speed of the vessel almost doubled. 

We reached Malta at daybreak on the 17th of December, and proceeded 
to land with as little delay as possible. Had we come in an opposite 
direction, we should have had to perform a troublesome quarantine. The 
island of Malta, which now belongs to England, is sixty miles from the 
nearest point in Sicily, and two hundred from the African shore. It attains 
at one place an elevation of six hundred feet. The climate is fine and 
healthy, though hot in summer, and suffers occasionally from the sirocco, 
which blows from the south-east, and occurs chiefly in September. The 
mean annual temperature is 67 degrees ; the variation of the yearly means 
from 1820 to 1840 was no more than 3 degrees ; the extreme range during 
the year is about 24 degrees. 

Malta consists entirely of calcareous rocks, with scarcely any soil, 
diluvium, or abraded matter. The country has rather an arid appearance, 
but it produces grapes in abundance, and other fruits. At a distance, the 
view is rendered lively by the great number of windmills perched on the 
heights, and employed for grinding corn. The inhabitants speak a lan- 
guage partly Arabic and partly Italian, the former predominating. 

The port of Malta consists of two splendid harbors, separated from each 
other by the narrow promontory called Mount Xiberras. On this stands 
the capital, Valetta. Marsamuscetta is the name given to the western or 
quarantine harbor ; the other is called Valetta, or the great Harbor. The 
entrance to this last is guarded on the one side by the fortress of St. Elmo, 
on the other by that of Ricasoli, both of remarkable strength. On Fort 
St. Elmo is one of the most brilliant lighthouses in the Mediterranean. 
The great Harbor runs away into numerous creeks and inlets. In one of 
these is the dockyard, victualling-yard, and arsenal, with a wet-dock just 
finished, which is said to have cost the government not much under a mill- 
ion sterling. In another is the merchant shipping wet-dock and store- 
yards. A number of British, American, and French ships of war are 
commonly at anchor in the port : one British line-of-battle ship, of the 
largest size, with the admiral's flag on board, being of the number. The 
vast variety of forms, and diversity of appointments, of the mercantile 
vessels, especially of those from the Levant, present a most picturesque 
appearance. 

It is seldom the traveler to or from the East can find leisure to examine 
the whole of the noble sights in or around Malta. There are abundance 
of excellent ' guide-books,' of which a supply can at all times be procured 
from the admirable library of Mr. Muir, for those who have leisure and 
inclination for such things. I shall confine myself to a short notice of 
those which, during my brief visit now and on a former occasion, I was 
able to examine. 

One of the principal objects of attraction is the cathedral of St. John, 
the patron of the order of the famed Knights of Malta. It was built in 
1580. Externally, it is a heavy-looking pile. It has a fine chime of 
bells, supposed to have been brought from Rhodes, and its internal decora- 
tions are rich and beautiful. The floor is mosaic marble pavement, chiefly 
composed of sepulchral monuments of the knights, whose figures are rep- 
resented in white marble. The governor now resides in the palace of the 
Grand Master; it is a fine spacious building, well worthy of attention. 



988 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

The most striking object connected with it is the armory. It contains ten 
thousand stand of modern infantry arms, fit for immediate use. The most 
attractive portions of its contents are the arms and suits of armor of the 
middle ages : some of these are beautifully chased, and inlaid with gold. 
There is a singular piece of ordnance, an eight or ten pounder, made of a 
moderately strong tube of sheet-copper, covered over with coils of tarred 
rope. The gun was really neatly formed, and at first the singular nature 
of the material of which it was made was not apparent. It seems to have 
been burst in firing. No great wonder that it should. The library is 
said, at the time of the expulsion of the knights, to have contained seventy 
thousand volumes. There are in the palace tables, slabs, vases, and orna- 
ments of various kinds, cut from the marble of Valetta. 

The fortifications of Malta are most extensive and intricate ; they are 
connected with the harbors ; and on looking at their powers of defense, the 
mind sinks under the conviction that they are impregnable. Fort St. 
Elmo, the most massive of these works, contains accommodation for two 
thousand men. Few things are more dazzling or trying for the eyes than 
the rocks and buildings around Malta harbor ; they are of an intense 
yellowish-white, without one particle of vegetation to relieve them. The 
waters of the harbor are singularly pure, so that the bottom is distinctly 
visible to the depth of thirty or forty feet. The Parlettario is the favorite 
resort for quarantine-bound passengers. It is a long narrow room, near 
the anchorage, divided by a barrier, where the gold and silver filagree-work, 
for which Malta is famous, is sold. Here also are shell cameos, bracelets, 
and brooches in mosaic, and a vast variety of bijouterie. The Maltese 
females are celebrated for the skill and delicacy with which they embroider 
in gold and colored silks, as well as for the beauty of the knit silk gloves, 
etc., which they manufacture ; and on these a good deal of money is usually 
expended in the Parlettario for the benefit of friends at home. 

There is a tradition that, from the time of the visit of St. Paul, 
Malta has been devoid of serpents or other poisonous reptiles. During 
our stay, we had evidence of the baselessness of the tradition — having 
seen a snake killed by a soldier on duty close by his sentry-box. It was 
about three feet long, of a dingy brown, and had very much the hue and 
aspect of the common cobra. We had no means of determining whether 
it was poisonous or not. Close by the anchorage were several sentry sta- 
tions, and the neat economical penthouse with which the soldier was pro- 
tected from the sun, struck me as particularly suitable for India. It is a 
light wooden stand, not unlike a music stand in shape, with a movable 
board, which can be fixed at any degree of angle, to shelter the sentinel 
from the sun. Without such a protection in summer, the poor soldier 
would soon be broiled to death. 

So many days had been lost in the storm after leaving Gibraltar, that 
the time allowed us at Malta was limited to eight hours. We quitted the 
shore at four o'clock, and were on board as speedily as possible. The 
Oriental Steam Navigation Company had at this time but one vessel for 
the Bombay mail, as it is called, which plies constantly betwixt Malta and 
Alexandria^ — the Iberia. She is of five hundred tons burden, with engines 
of two hundred horse-power ; a clever-going, clean, tidy little ship, with 
one of the most kind-hearted, attentive, and obliging captains that can be. 
And here I may be permitted a few passing remarks on the Tagus and 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 989 

Iberia, in which both my voyages were performed, belonging to the lighter 
class of the Oriental Steam Navigation Company's ships. The Tagus is a 
fine powerful vessel, of nine hundred tons and three hundred horse-power, 
well kept, and a stout sea-boat. Nothing can surpass the politeness and 
attention of her officers ; and the whole attendance has that air of thorough 
respectability which imparts so much confidence, and assures so much 
comfort, to the passengers — contrasting strikingly in the latter with the 
ragamufEanly crew which, on the Suez side, constitutes the servants in the 
government steamers. The Oriental Company give high pay to their ser- 
vants, so as to make their service eminently desirable. They keep the 
establishment always fully employed ; the heaviest punishment that can be 
inflicted on either seaman or servant is dismissal, with the assurance that 
he will never be employed by them again. The provisioning of the vessel 
is let out to a provider, who receives five shillings a- day for each passenger: 
the officers have nothing to do with it, but to see that everything is abun- 
dant and of the best. 

We had a beautiful run of six days from Malta to Alexandria ; our 
voyage bringing us within the farther limits of the Mediterranean, known 
as the Levant. The time occupied from Southampton to Alexandria was 
about twenty days, including stoppages. 

Egypt. The land around Alexandria is so low, that it does not come 
into sight till we are quite close to the harbor of Alexandria ; but some 
time previously, we observe rising, as it were, out of the sea, the wind- 
mills, Pompey's Pillar, the Lighthouse, and Cleopatra's Needle, with sev- 
eral towers and minarets. From the town westward to the Lake Mareotis, 
for the space of nearly a mile, the sa.nd hillocks by the shore are literally 
covered with windmills. I counted about two hundred. The turrets are 
about thirty feet high in all, the length of the arms about twenty feet, 
breadth of sail three to three and a half feet. They have eight vanes 
each ; and as they are set different ways, and so move in opposite direc- 
tions in different mills, when tossing their arms in the wind, they look like 
a set of sea-monsters sprawling about on the shore, and striving to regain 
their native element. They are all employed in grinding wheat ; and 
though rugged and rude enough in appearance, are in reality simple and 
efficient implements. They employ a single pair of stones, made either 
of French bhurr or vesicular lava from Sicily. They have no sifting or 
bolting apparatus : the ground wheat is received from the stones in a 
sack, and the flower afterwards dressed through a fine gauze sieve by the 
hand. I visited several of them, with a view to the introduction of a sim- 
ilar species of machine into India. 

On landing at Alexandria, the traveler now feels that he is fairly out 
of Europe. He may have seen a stray and stunted palm-tree or two at 
Gibraltar or Malta, with here and there a Turk or Arab in his native dress : 
these last, indeed, may be met with in the streets of London. At Alex- 
andria all the costumes are. Oriental, European residents mostly dressing 
like Turks. Vast groves of magnificent date-trees, far surpassing in 
beauty those to be met with in Western India, stretch away in all direc- 
tions. Long strings of camels are employed in carrying merchandise. 
The women are all veiled — covered over with that unsightly blue vestment 
which conceals the person and the face, leaving a pair of little holes for 
the eyes to peep through. Formerly it was the custom for passengers 



990 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

from the steam-packets to place themselves on the backs of donkeys, in 
order to get through the streets. This is all changed now, and the trav- 
eler finds a large and roomy van ready for his convenience. 

The great square of Alexandria, where most of the European inhabit- 
ants reside, has a singularly fine and pleasing appearance, though with- 
out anything of which the architect can boast. The houses are built of 
whitish limestone, like Bathstone, only here the walls remain pure as 
when erected — taking no tarnish from the weather. In the centre is an 
obelisk of the yellowish-white Cairo marble, which surmounts a fountain. 
The residences of the consuls around the square are each surmounted by 
a flag-staff, on which on gala-days the ensigns of their respective nations 
are displayed. The French consul has a strange-looking corkscrew stair- 
case surrounding his, and leading to a watch-tower which overlooks the 
town. Many of the sign boards of the shopkeepers, especially of the 
apothecaries, are painted with Greek characters. Here are situated the 
principal hotels, and hence diverge streets to all parts of the town. 

Alexandria was originally built in the form of a Madonian mantle, 
with its longer side to the sea. At one time it contained a population of 
above half a million? of which half were slaves. It boasted of four thous- 
and palaces, four thousand baths, four hundred theatres or places of 
amusement, twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetables, and forty 
thousand tributary Jews. Its public libraries are said to have contained 
seven hundred thousand volumes of books. It was accidentally destroyed 
by fire during the war with the Romans in Caesar's time. Ages of mis- 
rule under Saracens, and latterly under Turks, fell like a blight on every- 
thing in Alexandria, as on everything else in Egypt : and not until the 
era of Mehemet Ali, the present vigorous ruler, did the country show 
any symptom of revival. Since the beginning of the present century, 
the population of Alexandria has increased from seven thousand to sev- 
enty thousand. With its harbor and docks, it now possesses the appear- 
ance of a thriving port. 

Vestiges of the ancient splendor of Alexandria are everywhere to be 
found. Fragments of richly-sculptured columns, of architraves, cornices, 
and other portions of architectural ornament, are to be seen strewed about in 
every quarter of the city — broken up for lime or for paving-stones, and 
built into the meanest houses. Huge shafts of granite are continually 
disclosed, half buried amongst the rubbish or the sand ; and the mounds 
of ruins are in many cases one mass of porphyries, granites, verde-an- 
ticoes, and marbles, brought from Upper Egypt or the south of Europe. 
In the course of a few hours I picked up some hundred specimens of 
thirty different varieties of the stones I have named, which required only 
a little polishing to restore to them their lustre. Mosaics, and pieces of 
ancient glass, are also abundant ; the latter marked by that iridescent 
semi-metallic hue which indicates decay through extreme lapse of time. 
The sights of Alexandria are Pompey's Pillar, Cleopatra's Needle, the 
Catacombs, the pasha's palace, and the battle-field where Abercromby 
fell ; the Lake Mareotis, of which a distant view usually satisfies the 
traveler ; and the canal. Pompey's Pillar stands on an eminence about 
six hundred yards from the present walls of the town, close beside the 
road which leads from the Rosetta Gate to the Mahmoudye Canal. The 
total height of the column is ninety-eight feet. The shaft, which is a sin- 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 991 

gle block of red granite or syenite, is nine feet eight inches in diameter, 
and seventy-three in length. It is now shown to have been erected by 
Publius, the prefect of Egypt, in honor of the Emperor Dioclesian. It 
probably was only put in its place when it is said to have been erected, 
forming most likely a portion of some of the more ancient and noble rel- 
ics of Egypt. Cleopatra's Needles are at the opposite extremity of the 
town : they consist of two obelisks, one prostrate and one erect, of the same 
material as the column. One is seventy, the other sixty-five feet high, and 
about seven feet in diameter at the base. They stood originally at Heliopolis, 
and were brought to Alexandria by one of the Caesars. Both are covered 
with hieroglyphics. 

The Lake of Mareotis is one of the curiosities of the neighborhood of 
Alexandria, and is situated a short way beyond the Rosetta Gate. This 
lake, which is about a hundred and fifty miles in circumference, was orig- 
inally fresh-water ; and being about five or six feet deep, it answered the 
purpose of navigation. In consequence of its connexion with the Nile 
being cut off, its waters were wholly dried up, or nearly so ; and in this 
condition it was eighty or ninety years since. An entire change followed. 
It is divided from the sea by mounds of sand, blown up from the shore, 
and its bottom is several feet lower than the level of the Mediterranean. 
Thus exposed to the danger of submersion, it was resolved, during the 
siege of Alexandria in 1788, to let in upon it the waters of the ocean. 
It was certain to produce a wide-spread calamity ; but when did the demon 
War stop to consider results ? Four cuts were made, each of six yards in 
width, and ten distant from each other. The water rushed in with a fall 
of six feet. Two more cuts were finished next day, and the sea finally 
broke down the divisions. What a scene of devastation ! The sea flowed 
in for a week. The calamity was fearful. The sites of three hundred 
villages were flooded, and rendered bai*ren for ever. The bank was after- 
wards closed up again, and the communication with the sea cut off ; but 
the basin of the lake being lower than the surface of the sea, and the 
Mediterranean here being without tide, there was no means of drawing off 
the salt water. It was by degrees in a great measure evaporated by the 
sun, leaving a vast expanse of once fertile surface covered with a dazzling 
snow-white sheet of salt. In this condition I examined it in June 1845. 
The Nile is admitted annually to it at flood, and the lake then reappears ; 
but the returning dry season only restores the condition previously exist- 
ing. Nor does there appear to be any remedy for this, until the suc- 
cessive depositions of silt from the river accumulate sufficiently to raise 
the bottom of the lake to a level with the sea — an operation only to be 
effected through some vast and very indefinite lapse of time. Till then, 
the salt must always mingle with the fresh-water silt deposited every 
year. Could rice or any grain be grown on it, as in India, which 
flourishes even on saline grounds, the process of recovery would of 
course be greatly accelerated. The lake formerly communicated by a 
canal with a port of Old Alexandria. 

In various masses of rock, composed of oolitic limestone, adjacent to 
the lake and near the town, are a number of curious catacombs, and 
other ancient works of art, including a variety of mosaics. South of 
the city are several high mounds, likewise interesting from the relics of 
ancient art found imbedded in them. The bricks used for building in 



992 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Alexandria are those excavated from the ruins of the ancient city : 
they are quarried in abundance in all directions. They are well-formed, 
and excellently burnt ; and so perfectly cemented together, that it is 
often more difficult to break the hardened mortar than the material it 
unites. The potter's wheel of Alexandria is a singular one : it consists 
of a spindle about two feet long, turning in a socket some one and a 
half feet under the level of the floor, and a collar about three inches 
from the upper extremity. The circular disk on which the ware is thrown 
is of course above this last. The wheel is turned at the rate of about, 
two revolutions a second, by a circular flange some one and a half feet 'o 
diameter just above its lower insertion. The potter sits on the floor, his 
legs in a small pit below the wheel, shuffling with his feet on the flange 
just mentioned, and so making the wheel revolve. It is certainly the 
most awkward-looking implement by much that I have seen for the pur- 
pose. Yet the ware turned out is good, strong, well-shaped, and is after- 
wards thoroughly burned in kilns. 

Admission to the pasha's palace may be procured by an order from the 
vakeel, or steward. It is a neat, but plain and unpretending building. 
The view from it is beautiful. The rooms are handsome, and well-pro- 
portioned and arranged ; and the floors, of inlaid brightly-polished wood, 
have a very pleasing effect. 

Travelers for India usually hurry through Egypt, with the view of not 
losing the steamboat, which is ready for them at Suez. But as there are 
two steamers a-month, those who have time and money to spare, may oc- 
cupy themselves very delightfully in spending a fortnight on the journey. 
The conveyance of travelers from Alexandria to Suez is effected by the 
pasha, at an expense of £12. This charge includes everything save 
liquors and hotel bills of all kinds at Cairo, which fall on the passenger, 
and frequently amount to 15s., or £1. All charges of this class seem in 
Egypt extortionately high, and are indeed out of all proportion to tavern 
bills in Europe. But then it must be remembered that the whole establish- 
ments are permanently maintained, for the sake of employment, one day 
in fourteen ; that unless when the passengers are on the way, the innkeep- 
ers are wholly idle. And now the arrangements hurry every one so fast, 
that they can only get some half-dozen hours of even the passengers, de- 
siring to saddle them with the expenses incurred on their account during 
the interval when the house is open for the reception of guests, but when 
there are no guests to be received. Having arranged matters at the 
Transit Office, the traveler is duly informed of the hour when the van? 
quit the hotel, and should make the best of his time in the interval. The 
vans proceed to the place of embarkation, about two miles distant, on the 
Mahmoudye Canal. The luggage is forwarded beforehand on camels, a 
carpet-bag being all that is allowed — it is all, indeed, that is requisite — 
for each individual to carry along with him. 

The road to the canal leads through the great square already described, 
and on to the Rosetta Gate — an old ragged fragment of the fortifications 
of the town. And here, to his astonishment, the traveler finds that Alex- 
andria is being fortified, after the manner of Paris, with walls, and bastions, 
and ditches, and all the other contrivances of military engineership. The 
works are being constructed on the recommendation of the French, and 
under the superintendence of French engineers. A quarter of a century 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 993 

in time, and some millions of money, may be allowed for their completion, 
the miserable starving population being taxed for this useless and wanton 
waste. Passing onward, the road leads close to the elevation on which 
stands Pompey's Pillar. Not far to the left is the battle-field where Sir 
Ralph Abercromby fell. 

The Mahmoudye* Canal connects Alexandria with Atfeh, a navigable 
point on the Nile. This important public work was begun in 1819, and 
completed in little more than six months, having been opened on the 24th 
of January 1820. It is forty-eight miles in length, ninety feet across, and 
about eighteen feet in depth. For a long distance, the banks of the canal 
are ornamented on one side by neat villas, with most beautiful shrubberies 
and flower-gardens in front of them. The little kiosks, or summer-seats, 
consisting in a circle of benches, shadowed by lofty trees, almost hang 
over the banks. The canal is nowhere strait, and passes along a country 
so perfectly level, that locks are not required. One only exists at Atfeh. 
As many as a hundred and fifty thousand people are said to have been 
employed in the excavation of the canal : the inhabitants of all the villages 
in Lower Egypt were marched down to the stations respectively assigned 
to them, one month's pay having been advanced to enable them to supply 
themselves with provisions. The assemblage of so enormous a multitude, 
which would have formed a double line from end to end of the canal, had 
they stood as close as possible to each other, was sure to be productive of 
fatal results ; and accordingly twenty thousand are understood to have 
perished on the occasion. Provisions ran scanty, many fell victims to 
starvation, and pestilence swept many more away. Two- thirds of them 
were without tools or clothing of any kind whatever, groping up the mud, 
and lifting it out with their hands. The last portion of this statement 
appeared to myself incredible, until I had seen people engaged in cleaning 
out a portion of an old canal near the Lake Mareotis. They dug with 
their hands into the soft mud, until a portion about a cubic foot in size was 
detached; this was passed on to the nearest workman, and so conveyed by 
others to the bank. Not one vestige of implement or attire was possessed, 
or apparently desired by them. 

The banks of the canal are sufficiently high to intercept the view of the 
adjoining country, so that, after passing the villas already alluded to, there 
is really nothing to be seen. A good sailing-boat traversed the distance 
in eight hours ; one, tugged by horses, in ten. A small high-pressure 
steamer is presently employed, which goes snort, snorting along at the 
rate of about five miles an hour. The boats containing the passengers and 
luggage are towed behind. We started at half-past six, and were no less 
than eleven hours on the canal, reaching Atfeh on the Nile at half-past 
five. It has always been my fortune to pass this filthy little village late at 
night, or early in the morning, so as scarcely to be able to see it, and the 
matter did not seem entitled to excite much regret. On reaching the 
Nile, the traveler finds a neatly-kept and commodious steamer awaiting 
him — not very roomy, but such as passengers, if not numbering more than 
fifty, may put up with without much discomfort. In going up the Nile, 
several large works for assisting the irrigation of the country are passed. 

One who has examined the magnificent specimens of grain now grown 
in England, is exceedingly disappointed on examining that for which 
Egypt, for thirty centuries, has been famous. I collected many specimens 
63* 



994 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

in 1840 : it is exceedingly prolific on the root, but not more so than grain 
at home thinly sown on rich soil. The stalks of the barley are seldom 
above eighteen or twenty inches long ; each root produces from six to 
twenty-five stems, fifteen being about the average. There are six rows of 
grains or pickles on each stalk, each row containing at an average about 
ten grains, so that the return from the seed in from six to nine hundred. 
The roots are from six to fourteen inches from each other, and I do not 
believe that an acre of land in Egypt will yield nearly so much grain, by 
measure or weight, as a similar surface in England — both under present 
cultivation. The barley itself, when rubbed out, would have been little 
short of unsaleable in average season at home, so thin, husky, and poor it 
was. It is trampled out of the straw by oxen, and cleared of chaff by 
the wind. The straw is chopped or cut up into what we in India call 
boosa, by an implement closely resembling a turnip-sowing harrow, drawn 
over it by oxen, each roller being armed with three or four circular cutters. 
The crop which most surprises by its abundance is tobacco, vast fields of 
which extend in all directions. Nor is it to be wondered at that the culti- 
vation of this narcotic should rival in extent that of grain, or roots, or 
fruits for human food. In Egypt, every man who can afford it smokes at 
every hour of the day. The dull and watery eye, the want of energy 
and enterprise apparent in all, tell too plainly how the drug is doing its 
work. It is sad to see Englishmen reducing themselves to the level of 
Turks, as is too often the case, by the filthy and degrading practice of ever- 
lasting smoking. A singular variety of raft, consisting of a framework 
of slight sticks, buoyed up by a vast number of earthen pots, is frequently 
to be seen on the Nile. They appear to be chiefly employed in carrying 
coarse earthenware down the river. 

From the moment of arrival in Egypt, we feel that we are in a country 
possessing many relics of the past ; but this feeling cannot be said to exist 
in perfect force till we approach Cairo, which is the threshold of all the 
great marvels of ancient art. Those who have not before sailed up the 
Nile, watch for the first appearance of the pyramids. These become sud- 
denly visible about forty miles below Cairo ; and the cry that they are in 
sight, renders the spectator almost breathless with anxiety to discover them. 
They are seen far across the desert breaking the western horizon, and seem 
at this enormous distance almost as large as when looked at from Cairo. 
Here the desert sand has fairly drifted over the fertile soil, and is blown 
in masses into the river. The banks of the Nile, indeed, show that this 
has been an event of frequent occurrence since silt began to accumulate, 
alternate beds of sand and mud being visible all down a section of ten to 
fifteen feet of bank. The sand examined through a magnifier, is of a yel- 
lowish smoke color, sharp and angular, often of a pretty regular cubical 
form. It looks like the quartz portions of disintegrated granite, which it 
probably is. 

The banks of the Nile, which have been hitherto dull and uninteresting, 
become exceedingly striking as we approach Boulac, which is in the vicinity 
of Cairo. Long lines and groups of trees skirt the left bank of the river. 
Amongst some half-dozen of beautiful acacias, the magnificent golden flowers 
of the acacia fistula stand conspicuous. The tree receives its name from 
the seed-pod being of the form and size of an ordinary fife : the flower is 
something like that of the laburnum, with each branch five or six times the 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 995 

size of those of the latter tree. Then come the gardens and pleasure- 
grounds around the palace of Shoubra. The island of Rhoda, a garden 
nearly altogether, divides and half fills up the river in front. The beauti- 
ful weeping-willow of Egypt — most graceful and lovely of its loveliest of 
^aces — is conspicuous everywhere. The long sweeping yards of the lateen- 
"(ailed boats of the Nile, sometimes not less than sixty feet in length, shoot 
up by the shore. Just beyond are the large cotton-mills and other works 
of the pasha, intruding English steam-engines, and huge chimney stalks, 
which, though striking enough as contrasts, seem here eminently out of place. 
Sweeping along the eastern horizon, at a distance of two miles, is the Cit- 
adel, with the vast city and countless minarets of Grand Cairo. On the 
other or right side but two objects present themselves to the eye — the des- 
ert and the pyramids : and they are enough. 

The voyage up the Nile, extending to 120 miles from Atfeh, occupied 
from eighteen to nineteen hours, and was brought to a close at Boulac. 
Here travelers disembark, and go to Cairo by vans provided on purpose. 
The drive to the city is by no means over a good road ; but being through 
fields and gardens, the scene is everywhere most rich and beautiful. ' All, 
save the spirit of man is divine ;' saving, it may be added, his habitations 
and his fleshly tenements. More wretched hovels than are the houses, 
more squalid wretches than are the people, cannot be conceived. Crossing 
various canals and gardens, and threading some beautiful avenues of trees, 
the traveler at length reaches the great square of Grand Cairo, and the 
picture presented is sufficiently striking. There is nothing in the way of 
building which deserves the name of fine architecture ; but the houses are 
lofty and picturesque, and of every conceivable shape and size — tall grace- 
ful minarets shooting up in all directions. The Hotel d' Orient the princi- 
pal one in Cairo, is in the great square, and is a large and very showy 
building, though the establishment and style of living is somewhat too 
French for an Englishman's taste. There is an excellent, though less con- 
spicuous, English tavern close by. The area enclosed by the great square 
is surrounded by a very wide and deep ditch, which is filled with water 
during the inundation : fine rows of acacia-trees skirt it on both sides, and 
form a double avenue along the road which intersects it. Vast crowds of 
people are at all times in the neighborhood, and here almost alone in Cairo 
there is abundant room for observing the passers-by. It is indeed almost 
the only open space in this vast city, the thoroughfares of which consist 
of narrow lanes, hardly anywhere deserving the name of streets. The 
houses are so high, and the balconies above project so far, that it is often 
difficult to obtain a glimpse of the sky above. They are almost everywhere 
crowded most densely with people. Nimble donkeys, with jingling bells, 
trot rapidly along, threading their way with extraordinary dexterity 
through the multitude. Lines of huge camels, with vast burdens on their 
sides, bear down upon you, threatening to close up the pathway, and arrest 
the progress of the living current. Contrasted with all this activity and 
bustle, is the profound composure of the shopkeepers, who, in the richest 
dresses, and with long flowing beards, recline beside their wares, smoking 
their hookas, or long cherry-stalked, amber-mouthed pipes, as in a state of 
the most apathetic unconcern. I have rarely seen so large a proportion 
of fine-looking men as are to be found thus occupied in many of the 
bazaars. 



996 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

We reached Cairo at eight o'clock in the morning, and were told that 
the first set of vans would set off for Suez at eleven, and the last at four 
o'clock in the afternoon. To those who propose going forward, there is 
little time to spare. Some of our party, however, who were active, were 
able to traverse the city, to inspect the palace of the pasha, and to enjoy 
the magnificent view from the battlements of the Citadel. They also had 
a little time to spend on shopping at the silk embroidery and perfumery 
bazaars, and to purchase some memorials of their stay; to visit the 
reading-rooms and museum of the Egyptian Society — the valuable collec- 
lection of Dr. Abbot being one of the richest and most interesting in 
Egypt. 

Cairo is said to contain a population of two hundred thousand inhabi- 
tants : it stands on a plateau about forty feet above the level of the Nile, 
and on the edge of the Desert. The Citadel is one of the most prominent 
objects of attraction, and can be examined however short almost may be 
the traveler's stay. It was built about the year 1171, by the Caliph 
Yoosef Sal&h-e-deen, well known in the history of the Crusaders as ' the 
Magnificent Saladin.' A long ride through narrow, crowded, and irregular 
lanes, past numerous mosque of great magnitude and beauty, leads to the 
bottom of the steep winding ascent, at the extremity of which is the gate 
of the fortress. The first object of attraction which it contains is a magnifi- 
cent mosque, which has now been ten years in process of construction. 
It is still incomplete. It consist of an open square, surrounded by a 
single row of thirty-five columns. In the centre of this is a superb foun- 
tain, and on the east a lofty gate leads to the inner part of the house of 
prayer. I do not know to what variety of architecture the building can be 
referred. I cannot concur with Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, that its attractions 
are due more to the beauty of the material of which it is constructed than 
to the skill displayed in the structure itself. To me it seemed in this latter 
respect supremely beautiful ; not the less so because of the extent to which 
it departed from anything known to us of Greek, Roman, Gothic, or even 
of Indian art. The extreme richness of its decorations partake nothing of 
tediousness — they are all symmetrical, tasteful, and beautiful. I do not 
even know that the effect is heightened by the burnished brass mouldings 
which surrounded the base of the capital and top of the basement of the 
column, though this sort of combination of metal and stone is one of the 
most unusual in masonry. The walls, which consist of the common building- 
stone of Cairo, are everywhere crusted over with a yellowish-white 
variegated horny-colored marble. It is brought from a considerable way 
across the country, having been discovered some fourteen years since at a 
place called Waclee Moahut, about seventy miles from the Nile, and is a 
travertine, or fresh-water limestone, deposited from springs. The undula- 
tions and coatings of the deposit form beautiful markings in the marble ; 
it is unfortunately not susceptible of a very high polish, and is often defaced 
by small angular crevices, which, however, cease to be observable a few 
yards off. It^s brought in large blocks from the quarry, and sawn into slices 
'beside the building. The magnificent granite columns which formerly 
surrounded Joseph's Hall are lying prostrate around. They were pulled 
down in 1827, to make room for the mosque, and were in all likelihood 
originally the fragments of some of the noble works of Egypt's splendor 
in its earlier days. They are of the same material as that of which 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 997 

Pompey's Pillar and Cleopatra's Needle are composed. Just beyond the 
mosque is the palace and harem of the pasha — a neat, plain building, more 
richly than tastefully fitted up and furnished within, but quite worthy of 
examination. The Mint is beyond this ; and near by is Joseph's Well, an 
excavation two hundred and sixty feet in depth, a winding staircase leading 
to the bottom. The reader must be reminded that the Joseph here referred 
to is not the Hebrew patriarch, though commonly imagined to be such, 
but the famous Sultan Saladin, by whom the works were constructed. 

From the palace garden may be seen the spot where Emir Bey leaped 
his horse over the wall, to escape the massacre which awaited his brother 
Mamelukes on the 1st of March 1811. Mohammed Ali had prepared an 
expedition into Arabia, to chastise the Wahabees, who had robbed and 
murdered the pilgrims on their way to Mecca. The Mamelukes, impatient 
of his curtailment of their power, resolved to avenge and liberate them- 
selves by the overthrow of his government. Their secret was badly kept, 
and the pasha was informed of the plot hatching against him. He pretended 
to disbelieve it altogether, and treated it as a slander against the Mame- 
lukes. His preparations being completed, he invited all his courtiers and 
chiefs to the Citadel, to be present at the investiture of his son with 
authority to be exercised during his absence. The beys of the Mamelukes 
were received with the usual courtesy ; but on their retirement, found the 
gates shut against them, while volleys of musketry were poured in on them 
from every side. Horses and riders fell in heaps. It is said that four 
hundred and forty were slaughtered in the court, Emir Bey alone escaping. 
He remembered that a heap of rubbish thrown over the wall, had accu- 
mulated to a considerable height near its base. He leaped his horse over : 
the animal was dashed to pieces, but the rider escaped. He found shelter 
in the tents of some soldiers near, and succeeded in making his way to 
Constantinople. He survived till within these few years. The beautiful 
aqueduct seen from the Citadel was originally built by Saladin the Magnifi- 
cent in 1171, for the purpose of bringing water from the Nile to supply 
the garrison : it was renewed and enlarged in 1518. 

Before requesting the reader to accompany me on the route eastward to 
Suez, I shall pause to describe some things which I visited and felt inter- 
ested in on the occasion of my previous visit to Cairo. 

The Nile — Pyramids. Egypt, as is well known, consists of the 
fertile valley of the Nile, and a strip of desert on each side. The Nile, 
formed by streams coming out of Abyssinia on the south, is about 1500 
miles in length ; at certain places it forms rapids, or sloping cataracts, and 
at other points encloses islands, interesting for their beauty or the ruins 
which remain upon them. The remarkable phenomenon connected with 
the Nile, is its annual overflow of the banks which border it — an event 
looked for with as much certainty as the daily rising of the sun. These 
inundations of the Nile are owing to the periodical rains which fall between 
the tropics. They begin in March, but have no effect upon the river until 
three months later. Towards the end of June it begins to rise, and con- 
tinues rising at the rate of about four inches a- day, until the end of Sep 
tember, when it falls for about the same period of time. The towns are 
generally built in such a situation and manner as not to be overflowed by 
the inundation, and in some parts of the country there are long raised 



998 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

causeways, upon which the people may travel during the floods. It is only 
in cases of an extraordinary rise that any villages are destroyed. The 
inundations, instead of being viewed as a calamity, are considered a bless- 
ing, for they are the cause of inexhaustible fertility. After the waters 
have subsided, the earth is found covered with mud, which has been left 
there by the river, This mud, which is principally composed of argilla- 
ceous earth and carbonate of lime, serves to fertilize the overflowed land, 
and is used for manure for such places as are not sufficiently saturated by 
the river ; it is also formed into bricks, and various vessels for domestic 
use. The whole valley of the Nile may be considered as an alluvial plain, 
formed of the washed-down mud and sand of Central Africa, and it is 
therefore to these inundations that Egypt owes its existence. 

Notwithstanding the overflow of the Nile, the atmosphere of Egypt is 
extremely dry and healthful. During our winter, the climate of Egypt is 
delightful. The inhabitants speak with intense affection of the Nile, for 
to it they owe the verdure of their fields, their food, their drink, and the 
cotton for their clothing. In its taste the water is delicious and* 
salubrious. 

The Pyramids are situated about ten miles from Cairo, in a western 
direction, and consequently on the farther side of the Nile. The traveler 
may now have the benefit of a carriage for the journey : formely, the only 
conveyance was by donkeys. The road leads by Old Cairo, a decayed 
suburb of Cairo, at two miles' distance, on the banks of the river. The 
Nile is forded or crossed in boats at the upper end of the island of Rhoda. 
When within a couple of miles of the end of the journey, a number of 
frightful-looking Bedouins commonly make a rush from a large village a 
little way off, as if intent on mischief. They are men anxious to be 
employed as guides ; and they had better be employed at once, to save 
further annoyance. 

The Pyramids scarcely appear to increase in size until you are close up 
to their base ; then their bulk seems enormous, and the distance betwixt 
one and the other looks like a forenoon's journey. They are four in num- 
ber in one view — three large, and one small — and are usually known as 
the Pyramids of Gizeh. They stand on a plateau some forty feet above 
the plain, and are fairly within the Desert. I do not believe any one who 
has not visited them has a correct idea of their vast dimensions. The 
present base of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, as it is called, is 746 feet 
each way ; the mass is estimated at eighty-five millions of cubic feet, and 
covers an area of eleven acres. Measured by the slope, its height is 611 
feet, and its perpendicular height is 461 feet, being 117 feet higher than 
St. Paul's, London. The age of the Pyramids is unknown, but it cannot 
be less than three thousand years. And what a waste of human labor in 
their construction ! A hundred thousand men, changed every three months, 
for twenty years, are said by the Greek writers to have been occupied in 
their erection ! 

At a distance, the Pyramids appear to be tolerably smooth and pyra- 
midal ; but on coming close to them, they are found to have a ragged and 
half-ruined aspect, in consequence of the outer coating of stones and plas- 
ter having been removed. Their sides in this rough state present the 
appearance of a series of steps, composed of huge blocks of yellowish- 
white limestone. The ascent is toilsome, but I made a point of reaching 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 999 

the top of the Great Pyramid. The ledges of stone are uncomfortably 
high for a stair ; and ladies meaning to ascend, should provide themselves 
with a footstool, which the guides could lift arid hand up to them at each 
step. There are altogether 206 tiers of stone, from one to four feet high. 
At length we reached the top, which is an irregular platform, thirty-two 
feet square ; the stones constituting the apex having been thrown down. 
On gaining this lofty eminence, on which there was room to move about, 
I felt an extraordinary exhilaration of spirits, not only from the effect of 
historical associations, but from the remarkable fineness of the atmosphere. 
The view on all sides was magnificent. One of its most striking features 
is the distinctness of the line which divides the fertile region from the 
Desert. There is no middle ground — no debateable land, over which 
fertility and desolation, the sand of Sahara and the silt of the Nile, alter- 
nately hold sway. So far as the influence of the Nile extends, all is 
verdure ; the moment the sand begins, utter waste ensues. 

Having satisfied our curiosity, the party descended ; but all found that 
coming down was a vast deal more fatiguing and dangerous than going up. 
However, we got to the bottom in safety ; and being pretty well appetized, 
we adjourned to luncheon in a sort of cave close by, where victuals we had 
brought with us were enjoyed. It is necessary to make this provision for 
refreshment, because there is no house, tent, or village in the neighbor- 
hood. The Great Pyramid is not entirely solid. An entrance has been 
made, by which a series of labyrinthian passages and chambers have been 
discovered. The entrance is on the north side ; but we did not feel inclined 
to enter ; for the journey in some places requires to be performed on hands 
and knees. At the centre are two chambers of red granite, in one of 
which is a sarcophagus ; and here is supposed to have slept one of the 
great rulers of the earth, the king of what was the greatest kingdom of 
the earth, the proud mortal for whom this mighty structure was raised. 

The ascent of the second Pyramid is seldom attempted by visitors : it is 
much more difficult than that of the first, especially over that portion of 
the smooth granite crust which still remains about thirty feet down. It is 
of somewhat less magnitude than the other, but looks as large, from stand- 
ing on higher ground. The third of the group is considerably smaller. 
The fourth I did not visit. In the neighborhood of these grand objects of 
antiquity lie scattered about many interesting remains. The most attract- 
ive of these is the Sphinx— a gigantic figure, half-woman, half-lion, nearly 
all hewn from the solid rock, the fore-legs and part of the back only being 
built. There is an altar between the two paws, on which sacrifices appear 
to have been offered. From the lower part of the body to the top of the 
head, the Sphinx measures 66 feet, the recumbent portion 102, the paws 
50, and the circumference of the head 100 feet. Such has been the 
drifting of the sands, that the whole figure is now covered except the head 
and a portion of the dilapidated neck. 

A few miles above the Pyramids of Gizeh once stood Memphis, a city as 
large and flourishing as Alexandria, but now utterly destroyed, and the 
very ruins hardly distinguishable. Continuing the journey up the valley 
of the Nile, and within the distance of two hundred miles, the traveler 
passes the ruins of many decayed cities, now reduced to miserable villages 
of half-starving Arabs, but once the glory of Egypt. Among these are 
Arsinoe, Dendera, Thebes, Karnac r Edfou, Elephantina, and Phiioe, 



1000 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

Edfou is thus described by Mr. Stephens : — ' At one corner of this miser- 
able place stands one of the magnificent temples of the Nile. The prop- 
ylon (or gateway), its lofty proportions enlarged by the light of the moon, 
was the most grand and imposing portal I saw in Egypt. From a base of 
nearly 100 feet in length, and 30 in breadth, it rises on each side of the 
gate in the form of a truncated pyramid, to the height of 100 feet, grad- 
ually narrowing, till at the top it measures 75 feet in length and 18 in 
breadth. Judge, then, what was the temple to which this formed merely 
the entrance ; and this was far from being one of the large temples of 
Egypt. It measured, however, 440 feet in length and 220 in breadth, 
about equal to the whole space occupied by St. Paul's Churchyard. Its 
dromos, pronaos, columns, and capitals, all correspond ; and enclosing it is 
a high wall, still in a state of perfect preservation. I walked round it 
twice, and, by means of the wall erected to exclude the unhallowed gaze 
of the stranger, I looked down upon the interior of the temple. Built by 
the Egyptians for the highest uses to which a building could be dedicated 
— for the worship of their gods — it is now used by the pasha as a granary 
and storehouse.' 

Few travelers proceed farther up the Nile than Philoe, as the journey 
through Nubia is less safe or agreeable than that within the Egyptian terri- 
tory. Yet without a visit to the Nubian valley of the Nile, which extends 
to near the head branches of the river in Abyssinia, much of the ancient 
grandeur of this part of the world will remain unexplored. Nubia, which 
is at present a Turkish province, subject to the pasha of Egypt, is fre- 
quently called by the name Ethiopia — from the black complexion of whose 
inhabitants the term Ethiopian came in early times to signify one who is 
black, or a negro. This country of Nubia, or Ethiopia, is understood by 
some historians to have enjoyed a degree of civilization and refinement in 
art at a date even earlier than Egypt; and till the present day, it possesses 
pyramids and other monuments of architectural skill as wonderful, in the 
eyes of the traveler, as those in the lower divisions of the Nile. 

So much for a glance at the archaeological treasures of Egypt ; let us 
now return to Cairo, in order to undertake an excursion which has been 
seldom performed. 

The Petrified Forest. This extraordinary curiosity is situated eight 
or ten miles south from Cairo, and is reached by a journey on the back of 
a donkey through a rugged piece of country. The ground over which 
you travel is a dry gravely soil, without a particle of vegetation. Having 
proceeded for some miles through a rocky valley, a sudden turn to the 
right takes you through a low range of sand-hills, and in less than a quar- 
ter of an hour you arrive at the forest. And such a forest ! Trees lying 
prone on the ground, and transferred into stone. The world contains 
nothing so wonderful as a work of nature. On every side the prostrate 
forest extends as far as the eye can reach. Plains and rolling hillocks of 
sand sweep on and on to the horizon, all strewed thickly over with frag- 
ments of fallen trees. They lie at some places so close to each other, 
that a sure-footed Cairo donkey can scarcely thread his way through them : 
at other places they are few and far between, scarcely within stone-throw 
of each other, as if those had been the thickets, these the openings, in the 
forest. The trees are nowhere round in the surface, but sharp and angular, 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 1001 

as if split by heat into many fragments. Few pieces are moie than from 
four to six feet in length ; but a series of these may often be seen lying 
end to end for a space of from fifty to sixty feet, as if the tree they con- 
stituted had been sawn or broken across, the pieces remaining in their 
places. The aspect of the fallen trunks is like that of the half rotten 
bog-wood found m an Irish or a Scottish morass. In hue, they are for the 
most part of a lightish chesnut-brown ; some of them of a dusky-white 
precisely of the color of common ash or pine long exposed to the weather' 
Of this tint are nearly all the smaller fragments, which often lie about as 
it chipped off from the larger ones. There are no fangs of roots or 
branches connected with the stems, but there are the rudiments of both in 
abundance. The knots indicating where branches once had been, are often 
of singular beauty and distinctness ; sometimes so much so, as to seem 
fresh torn off the stem. The whole scene is the very picture of solitude 
and desolation, enhanced beyond that of the ordinary Desert— which 
leaves no token of ever having been more productive than it is — inasmuch 
as the remains around remind you that what is now salt and barrenness 
must once have been fertility and verdure. The trees, as already said 
are mostly on the surface ; many of them, however, are half-buried, others 
barely show themselves above the sand. The sand itself is light colored • 
the nodules of stone intermixed with it are rounded ; sea-shells everywhere 
abounding. Near the edge of the forest there are what resemble the dry 
beds of small-sized streams and torrents : here the little cliffs displayed 
are of very soft limestone, full of oyster-shells, so fresh and bright that 
they seem scarcely at all affected by the weather. They are of the trans- 
parent kind, nearly flat, and scarcely thicker than common paper Selenite 
here abounds, as generally over the Desert, where sea-salt prevails It 
is here for the most part fibrous, the fibers being horizontal, and at right 
angles to the axes of the vein. I took nearly half a ton of specimens 
home with me ; and these, like the whole of the rest of my collection 
were carried free of charge both by the Egyptian Transit and Steam 
Navigation Company. They were afterwards distributed amongst various 
of our public museums. 

As for the nature of the trees, they are not palms, as their branches 
show ; nor am I aware that there is any living race nearly kindred to them 
Ihey are completely sihcified, ring like cast-iron, strike fire with flint and 
scratch glass. How has this transformation been effected ? By no chem 
ical process now known to man. We have nothing at all analogous to it 
either in the laboratory of the chemist or that of nature. There is no 
substance more indestructible than charcoal. Cut off from air, it resists 
the most intense heats known to us, and remains in the bowels of the earth 
unscathed for millions of years ! Here the whole woody and carbonaceous 
matter has vanished, and its place we find silica — the earth of flints a 
substance nearly insoluble, and by itself infusible by any heat we are 
acquainted with. Yet so quietly and perfectly has the exchange been 
effected that for every atom of charcoal that has been displaced, an atom 
of flint has been left behind. Textures and tissues so minute, that the 
help of microscopes is required for their detection — that their delineation 
can only be attempted after they have been much magnified — are changed 
in substance, but in substance only : the most minute and fragile of their 
forms remain as when the green leaves and bright blossoms drew their 



1002 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

sustenance, and the vital fluids circulated through them. Egypt is the 
land of hoar antiquity ; but what are the wonders of the mummy-case to 
this ? The trees look as if they had fallen down, and been turned to stone 
on the ground where they grew ; they look ' like to a forest felled by 
mighty winds ; ' they bear no marks of rolling or abrasion, such as that 
by which flints themselves are rounded. Yet all is sea-sand and shells 
everywhere ; there is nothing to sustain vegetation ; and whether the the- 
ory that they belong to an age previous to that of the rock in which they 
are occasionally imbedded, be adopted or not, it is clear that, subsequent 
to their assumption of their present form and condition, the ground on 
which they now repose sunk beneath, and rose again far above, the surface 
of the sea. 

It is singular, considering the extent of area, and the diversity of 
positions in the world over which silicified trees are found exposed above 
ground, that so little has been written on the subject. In Trinidad, in the 
West Indies, they are abundant ; and they prevail over a vast expanse of 
surface on the seaboard of New Holland. They abound on the Coromandel 
coast near Madras ; and in Scinde are found from Sukkur to Kurrachee, 
on salt desert sand, resting on nummulite limestone, exactly as in Egypt. 

Cairo to Suez. It has been already stated that our party arrived at 
Cairo on the morning of the 23d of December. Only a few hours is 
allowed, and every one should make his arrangements without unnecessary 
delay. Having arranged at the Transit Office to get all luggage, a small 
bag excepted, sent forward, and secured his place, the traveler may be 
considered ready to start. The conveyance to Suez is by vans, which 
start in detachments at specified hours. In hot weather, it is preferable 
to start from Cairo in the afternoon, so as to travel all night. By this plan 
he arrives at the centre sleeping-station in the morning, and after a few 
hours' repose, he can again proceed, so as to reach Suez early in the fol- 
lowing morning. Some go on direct ; others stop. 

The distance from Cairo to Suez is eighty-five or eighty-six miles ; and 
as the line of route is without any towns or villages, station-houses have 
been erected for the accommodation of travelers, and for changing of horses. 
There are altogether seven station-houses, of which No. 4 from Cairo is the 
most commodious. Refreshments are furnished at three of the stations, 
and they are usually of the most sumptuous kind. The vans are of differ- 
ent sizes. For the greater part they are strong clumsy machines, open 
all around, tolerably stuffed, but without springs — merely suspended on 
leathern straps. They have two wheels about five feet in diameter ; that 
is, one-third larger than those of a common carriage. They are drawn 
by four horses, two being in shafts, and two before them in traces. They 
are, in general, not over-well trained, tempered, or conditioned ; but really, 
on the whole, get on wonderfully well. The plan of the drivers generally 
is to urge them a good gallop tor a mile or so, and then allow them a few 
minutes to rest. Including twelve hours' repose by the way, the journey 
from Cairo to Suez is performed in thirty-two to thirty-six hours. 

There is but little of the Suez desert covered with drift sand ; it consists 
mainly of hard gravel, with a vast abundance of loose stones in all direc- 
tions. The vans seldom adhere very regularly to any particular track, 
and the jolting ig occasionally dreadful. In the direction of Suez, as 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 1003 

indeed in most other directions, unless when approaching the Nile, you 
enter on the Desert at once. The burying-ground around the city is all 
in sand ; and the first step beyond this, the ground is as completely barren 
and desolate as it can be in the heart of the Great Sahara itself. The route 
through might be almost traced by the skeletons and bones of camels to 
be seen all a long ; thousands and thousands lie bleaching by the wayside. 
The surface of the ground is salt, and covered with rounded pebbles, 
chiefly the Egyptian agate, and sea-shells. Pieces of petrified wood, 
often of considerable magnitude, lie strewed around : and when the lime- 
stone rock shows itself above the sand and gravel, it is generally perforated 
by the pholas, or some other variety of marine borer. The rocks, like 
those near Cairo, abound in petrifactions — beautiful specimens of crabs 
and stars-fishes being amongst the most abundant. Little nimble fairy- 
looking lizards, in color very like the surface of the ground around them, 
are occasionally to be seen in the Desert ; also a curious variety of serpent, 
with two horn-like processes protruding from the forehead. There are 
numberless vultures and carrion crows, which feed on the dead carcases of 
the animals who so frequently perish on the way across. Besides these, 
scarcely a living thing is to be seen. Here and there are considerable 
quantities of the poisonous henbane, and half-way betwixt Suez and Cairo 
numerous bushes of the prickly acacia or camelthorn. Just beyond the 
centre station is what is called ' the tree of the Desert ;' a solitary acacia, 
about one and a half feet in diameter, and ten feet length of stem, with a 
large thick bushy round top. This is seen at a vast distance from each 
side : to the weary wayworn traveler it seems almost impossible to approach 
it, he riding for hours after first catching sight of it without apparently 
coming nearer it. 

The beautiful phenomenon known to sailors as 'looming,' to naturalists 
as mirage, equally visible in extremely cold as in warm countries, is often 
seen in great perfection betwixt Cairo and Suez. It is occasioned by the 
unequal temperature and refractive powers of different strata of the atmos- 
phere — objects being invariably elongated or depressed, or a succession of 
images of them exhibited one over another. Scoresby gives drawings of 
images of ships and icebergs being seen by him in the arctic regions — 
direct or reversed, or the one and the other alternately — high up in the 
air. Pools, and lakes of water, are occasionally seen to fill up the hollows 
or valleys ; and this is the shape the illusion most frequently assumes. 
Three of us together once saw so perfect a picture of a pool surrounded 
by lofty rocks and hills, by which there were two tall men in black fishing, 
that, but for the fact that we had traversed the ground before, and knew 
that there was no such thing in existence, no reasoning short of that which 
induced us to refuse the testimony of ourselves could have persuaded us 
that it was all deception. The fishers turned out to be a couple of crows, 
the rocks and trees a few stones and shrubs — not half so many inches in 
reality as they seemed feet in altitude. On another occasion, the low 
hillocks to the south of the centre station rose into stupendous cliffs — a 
noble river cleft its way through a chasm by which they were disrupted, 
and was received in a finely-wooded lake at their base. It seemed some 
three or four miles off — the whole was occasioned by the distortion of ob- 
jects not two hundred yards away. So constantly had we witnessed these 
exhibitions in April 1840, that the Red Sea was visible for nearly an hour 



1004 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

before we believed it to be other than an illusion : the sight of ships and 
steamers was the first thing that convinced us of the reality. 

The portion of the road nearest to Suez is extremely rough, and the 
path is covered on every side with large rounded stones ; the whole form- 
ing one of the most unsightly portions of the Desert. Barren and arid 
as it is, it is curious to find fresh plants of the water-melon species growing 
here and there on the most unfruitful-looking spots. The leaves are about 
the tint, form, and size of those of the sweet-scented geranium. The 
stems trail along the ground, attaining a length of two or three feet. 
The fruit is about the size of a smallish apple, bright-green, and very 
pretty. In many places here, the sand of the Desert is in process of soli- 
dification into rock. The muriates and sulphates of the sea-salt, with 
which the soil is charged, seem to act on the calcareous material abound- 
ing everywhere ; and the result is a carbonate of soda and sulphate of 
lime. The last constitutes the cementing material : it is bright and shin- 
ing, in small plates or crystals, and yields readily to the finger-nail. A 
specimen of the rock which is the result of this, would most grievously 
perplex a geologist not familiar with the process by which it is formed. 
It consists of the sand and the sea-shells of the Desert — the last of these, 
when near Suez, being all apparently perfectly recent and identical with 
those now in the Red Sea ; of the Egyptian jaspers, which here mainly 
constitute the gravel of the Desert, and are themselves the remnants of 
an abraded conglomerate of one of the rock formations at hand, and of 
the oyster, nummulite, and other shells of the different varieties of tertiary 
limestone, everywhere presenting itself above the surrounding drift and 
alluvium. With these heterogeneous materials, the bones of birds and 
animals now existing in the country, or portions of the works of man, may 
occasionally mingle, and present a conglomerate made up of as many 
different kinds of material as can be collected together. This, it must 
be recollected, is a process not confined to a few limited spots : it is appar- 
ently in progress over vast expanses of surface in all parts of the Desert 
towards the shore of the Red Sea. Though there is no continuous rain, 
heavy showers occasionally fall near Suez ; and in the pools formed by 
them, fishes, some inches long, have been found four or five miles from 
the sea. 

When within four miles of Suez, you reach the edge of a perfectly 
level plain, diversified here and there by slight ridges and hillocks of 
sand and gravel, but the whole wearing the appearance of one of the 
most recent upheavals — the Red Sea, at a geological period compara- 
tively recent, having obviously covered a large surface now dry land. 
It was noon before we reached Suez, and we were to leave at three ; 
but as I had been before disappointed in my attempts to examine the 
country around, I was resolved to make the most of the two hours at 
my disposal. I accordingly, hammer in hand, and knapsack on back, 
proceeded to make a geological ramble ; and I need only say, was amply 
repaid for my trouble, as well as for the annoyance from a scorching 
sun. Close to Suez is the track where the Israelites crossed the Red 
Sea in flying into the wilderness from Egyptian bondage. Wilkinson 
assumes the place to have been a little above the harbor, at the camel 
ford, where the water then must have been much deeper than now, and 
where the effects of 'a strong east wind/ as described in Exodus, are 



DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. 1005 

now similar to what they seem to have been from the account given of 
them in Holy Writ. The extremity of the Red Sea is a few miles above 
the town, and thither travelers sometimes proceed to have the pleasure of 
placing one foot on African, the other on Arabian ground. 

The entire journey through Egypt from Alexandria to Suez is usu- 
ally performed in seventy-two hours ; and to afford time for travelers get- 
ting forward, the steamers for India do not start for several hours 
later. 

Suez to India. Suez is a poor, walled town, situated at the head of 
the Red Sea, and sustains its existence principally by the trade of the 
great caravans of pilgrims from Egypt in their journey to Mecca. Lat- 
terly, it has come a little into note by being made the point of embarka- 
tion for India. The pasha built a very large and handsome hotel at Suez, 
the only decent-looking building in the place. The water here is all high- 
ly saline : it contains a considerable quantity of pure alkali, and is well 
adapted for washing— that used by Europeans for drinking is brought from 
the Nile. Coal is also transported across the Desert from Cairo on camels, 
and here costs <£6 a ton. 

Quitting Suez, a long pull of nearly two miles through shallows and 
intricate channels brings you to the roadstead, where the steamer waits 
your reception — the smoking funnel and roaring steam giving note of a 
preparation for a start. The Gulf of Suez, which comes to a point a 
little way above the town, is about three miles across at the place from 
which the steamer starts. The distance from Suez to Aden is sixteen 
hundred miles due south-east ; that from Aden to Bombay is nineteen 
hundred and sixty miles east and by north. Passengers to Calcutta are 
accommodated in the magnificent steamers of the Oriental Steam Naviga- 
tion Company, each from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred tons burden, 
and^ four hundred to five hundred horse-power. These vessels proceed 
straight to Aden, this part of the route being common to both ; then 
stretch away south-east for Ceylon, nearly at right angles to the path pur- 
sued by the Bombay vessels. The Bombay passengers are conveyed by the 
packets or war-steamers of the Indian navy : a portion of these are from 
seven hundred to seven hundred and fifty tons burden, and from two hun- 
dred and twenty to two hundred and fifty horse-power. Two very superior 
vessels, each of twelve hundred tons and four hundred horse-power, have 
lately been put on the line, and two others of still larger dimensions are 
now in process of construction. It was on board the Acbar, a first-rate 
ship, commanded by one of the most popular officers of the Indian navy, 
that we found ourselves on Christmas eve 1845. The traveler towards 
the East, who has been dragging by each remove a lengthening chain — 
who has found semi-tropical Europe at Gibraltar and Malta, and fairly 
tasted of the Orient in Egypt — at length finds a floating fragment of 
India before him at Suez. The talk becomes exclusively of Bombay: 
inquiries are made after old places and friends, and England is spoken of 
as now a distant country, not soon to be seen again. The regulations as 
to dress, discipline, etc., are the same in the Indian as in the royal navy ; 
and the packets are in all respects regarded as ships of war. To the 
old Indian, everything looks familiar ; to the visitor for the first time to 
the East, all seems a fragment and foretaste of what is to come. Seldom, 



100G AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. 

indeed, do you find so large a variety of races assembled in so narrow a 
compass. The officers, engineers, and regular seamen of the ship are 
Englishmen, all rigged out man-of-war fashion. The pilots are Arabs, 
from Aden or Mocha. Their costumes are beautifully picturesque and 
they are for the most part highly intelligent-looking men. Then you have 
the sepoys of the Bombay Marine Battalion, smart, dark-olive, complexion- 
ed men, in the common uniform of the English soldier. The servants of 
the ship are mostly Portuguese, natives of the East, dressed in jackets 
and trousers of white cotton, such as Europeans not in uniform usually 
wear in India. The butler and head-servants are generally Parsees or 
Mussulmen : the Hindoo is forbidden by his creed from serving where his 
hands might be defiled by the flesh of the sacred cow. The firemen are 
mostly Mohammedans, or low-caste Hindoos — strong active fellows, who 
perform all the drudgery about the engine-room. 

Fairly afloat on the Red Sea, there is little to attract the eye, the 
shores being rocky, sandy, and lifeless. If the weather be clear, we see in 
the distance north from Suez the towering summit of Sinai. As the trav- 
eler proceeds southwards, he begins to be interested in the changes pre- 
sented by the firmament. At night the Southern Cross becomes promi- 
nent amongst the constellations, and the beautiful clouds of Magellan 
give nubulse of an aspect altogether different from any he has seen be- 
fore. The Great Bear is no longer seen to sweep around the Pole ; the 
tail becomes at times altogether invisible, the four stars which constitute 
the quadrangle only keeping in view, and the great land-mark, so to 
speak, by which the tyro astronomer guides his way amongst the constel- 
lations, is for a period lost sight of. The moon and planets again shine 
out with unusual splendor ; and the phenomena, new to the European, are 
presented by a night sky intensely bright without the sensation of cold 
being occasioned by it. 

The middle channel alone is navigable for vessels of any considerable 
burden. Vast margins on either shore are filled up with coral to near the 
surface of the water. The scenes these present are often beyond descrip- 
tion beautiful. When we went up in June 1845, the wind blew a strong 
breeze against us. Captain Barker, who was engaged in the survey, knew 
every channel and island so well, that he often took the most narrow and 
intricate, to enable him to keep the lee of some rocky island, and so shel- 
ter his ship from the adverse wind. From the mast-head, the track through 
which we navigated was of so deep and intense a blue, it was hard to be- 
lieve that the waters were not colored by some dyeing substance. They 
looked like the liquid seen streaming from the dyer's pot. A few ships' 
length on either side, they suddenly became slightly tinted with green ; a 
little beyond, the greenish blue became turned into a bluish green ; a band 
of the most intense emerald green succeeded, and then swept towards the 
shore ; the last hue the sea assumed, before breakers appeared, was a 
whitish green, when the coral was but a few feet beneath the surface. 
These colors appeared in well-defined bands — they were not shaded, nor 
run into each other, as if produced by the gradual shoaling of the reef, 
but seemed the effect of a set of shelves, with precipices of no great eleva- 
tion between. The effect of the whole was heightened by the brown and 
burnt hue of the rocks and islands which were constantly appearing, ris- 
ing suddenly from the surface to an altitude of some scores or hundreds 
of feet. 



DEPARTMENT OP TRAVEL. 1007 

Keeping straight on our course down the middle of the Red Sea, we do 
not approach the land till the Straits of Babel-Mandeb make their appear- 
ance. Here the sea is greatly narrowed, not only by the projections of 
land, but by the island of Perim. The Straits are closed in on both sides 
by rugged, barren, burnt-looking rocks — the distance across being about 
three °miles. Pushing her way through one of the channels, the steamer 
turned towards the left in a south-easterly direction, being now in what is 
called the Sea of Babel-Mandeb, which is a portion of the Indian Ocean. 
A series of picturesque and precipitous capes and headlands, along the 
coast of Arabia-Felix, on our left, came in view, and stretched away to the 
most prominent of them, for which we were steering — Cape Aden. 

It was near midnight when we reached Aden, and a portion only of the 
passengers landed. The only object of the stoppage is to take^ in coal. 
Aden is situated in latitude 12 degrees 47 minutes north : longitude 45 
degrees 9 minutes east. It is a wild, barren peninsula, composed of vol- 
canic rocks, and of no use except as a half-way house to India via the Red 
Sea. Within two hundred yards of the landing-place there is a hotel, 
kept by a Parsee. It contains a large roomy hall, in which smoking is 
specially forbidden, but always indulged in, with a very good verandah all 
round, and good bedrooms, and baths. There is a store for general mer- 
chandise behind, and a billiard-room, likely to become a common nuisance, 
close by. I was one of the party who went ashore to the hotel ; but all 
attempts to sleep were vain, in consequence of the noise made by members 
of the party, who chose to sit up drinking and smoking ! As early as 
three o'clock I arose, and made a most interesting little excursion to the 
extinct volcanoes in the neighborhood, where the garrison is situated. 
This leads me to speak of the manner in which the place has become a 
British settlement. 

Aden fell into our possession in 1839. It previously belonged to the 
sultan of Lahege, who was little better than a common marauder^ and in 
1837 plundered a Madras vessel sailing under British colors, which had 
the'misfortune to go ashore. A collision with Britain followed ; and finally, 
after some fighting, and a stipulation by treaty to pay the sultan a few 
thousand dollars annually, the place was taken possession of. The popula- 
tion has since risen from six hundred to above ten thousand, besides the 
troops and their followers from India : of these there are generally three 
thousand in garrison. A traffic is kept up with the interior of Arabia by 
means of camels and asses. There is good fresh water in wells in the 
cantonments, but nowhere besides, which is a sore drawback in the place. 
We quitted Aden about three in the afternoon, and after losing sight of 
land, saw nothing but the broad ocean, till the high lands on the south of 
Bombay made their appearance. In a few hours the vessel arrived at its 
destination, and I stood once more on Indian ground, with well-known faces 
around me. The journey altogether from Southampton had occupied from 
thirty-nine to forty days, which is about the average allowance of time. 
My expenses may be set down at ^120. Fortunately, no accident had 
occurred on the journey ; neither, as is usually the case, was there any 
interruption in the arrangements established for the benefit of travelers. 
All went on smoothly and agreeably ; and every year promises to^dd new 
accommodations and new pleasures to the excursion. Such is the story 
of what is now a very unromantic affair— an overland journey to 
India. 












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